It's been a long time since I looked but I hope most cars still have physical buttons/controls for all important functions! Besides being easier and faster to use, without them if a touchscreen malfunctions (hardware or software) everything is gone and you wouldn't be able to drive the car. Then there's the tracking and spying, and sometimes bugs and UI changes after updates--and now ads!?# Cars are becoming as enshittified like everything else now.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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This may in part be motivated by new guidance from NCAP, which will from next year require that all new cars have physical controls to earn the highest safety ratings.
Whatever the motivation though, I'm glad for it. Getting rid of buttons was always a dumb idea and I'm happy to see pushback.
It wasn't dumb from corporate perspective, which is why they all gobbled it up like junky hoovering on piles of white dust.
You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place? Or just slap single touch display and cram all the shit into that single display. You code it once and use it on all models. Corporates were already counting the money saved there. Until it backfired because everyone hated it, reviewers criticized it and now it's finally also criticized by safety agencies.
Cars cost way too much for me to care about this excuse.
Yeah, but what about the value that saving money created for the shareholders?
Not my problem.
You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place?
Not expensive. You don't have to "wire them all over the place", you just put them on a PCB and connect them to the nearest CAN bus, or similar.
They'd basically already be doing that for the touch screen, and may well be using similar controls under the hood, where the physical buttons send a command to the computer to do a thing, in lieu of a mechanical connection.
One more connector, one more cable in harness, more coding, more cad time, more manufacturing time and more testing.
If it comes out to 20 dollars per car and you multiply it by 50000 a year for a relatively popular model there is a nice bonus for the ceo. Oh, and the price to consumer increases at the same time.
More coding?! Are you serious? Over a touch screen!
Also, extremely easy to test.
If it comes out to 20 dollars per car and you multiply it by 50000 a year for a relatively popular model there is a nice bonus for the ceo.
Or you could just raise the price of the car by $20 since you've just added thousands in value?
I mean shit, let's take the seats out of the car! Bam! Just saved you billions, right? /s
As well as the pure cost saving there was also the notion that it was a futuristic look that would sell, and so boost profits that way, too.
And probably it did sell and market well - for a while.
I feel that consumers had become too trusting of carmakers - after all, cars have been getting better and better in terms of their usability for decades, so when carmakers went touchscreen everything, the first instinct of the average consumer would be to trust it and assume it represented an improvement."They wouldn't do it if it was worse, right?"
And so people buy the fancy futuristic car with no buttons, and only after driving it for a month does it sink in how much they truly hate it, and that they got sold a lie.
So there was always going to be that one generation of touchscreen-everything, before the people who got burnt by it are now the ones thinking "I won't buy anything again that doesn't have some buttons!"
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Not sure how they were able to remove so many buttons in the first place and not be marked down on safety. Suddenly trying to find a demister on a touchscreen menu while in motion was never a great idea. Surprisingly, Volvo off all companies have been one of the worst for this. That's why I like Dacias, little tech = little to go wrong.
And Volvo went from this:
To this:
Which is quite the change...
OTOH now we will get to enjoy dashcam videos of car rollovers where the driver is like, Where's that playlist... OH GOD OH SHIT !!!
I mean it was a great idea of you wanted to reduce costs while also increasing the price of the vehicle.
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Now, take out the bullshit that's tracking you and sending the information back to them to sell, and we'll be doing something great
That’s why I love brands like Hyundai. Never got rid of the knobs.
I have now a tucson and I can tell you with all the stupid an superfluous buttons everywhere that I need te press each time I start the car it is definitely not adding tot the security on the road.
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Honda as well.
Subaru went all in on the touch screen and it suuuuucked.
My uncle's outback looks like a video slot machine, and everything had to be done through the touchscreen. But to add insult to injury, the Subaru touchscreens are super slow and unresponsive, so they feel like they aren't working.
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That's very positive.
I've never had this problem because I'm too poor to afford a car new enough to not have any buttons lmao
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Aw, just when they were about to get rid of the steering wheel, shame.
Not out of the goodness of their own hearts mind. It's probably more because Euro NCAP are going to be deducting score for not having physical essentials in 2026.
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Btw, is that a tablet dock i see?
The thing in the middle under the display? I'd assume its a scrolling wheel, kinda like on your mouse but very wide
Nah, it was somewhat of a joke about the built-in but locked away infotainment systems.
Thank you!
I don't care what the reasoning is behind the decision (customer feedback vs. changes to safety ratings), I'm just glad it's happening and I hope all manufacturers follow suit.
This has been my gripe with new cars ever since I found myself needing one in 2022. Everything I looked at had a huge infotainment system front-ending climate and cabin controls. Want to turn your steering wheel heat off mid drive? Ha! Tap this specific spot on this screen 3 times and hope the car doesn't bounce while you're doing so or you'll accidentally turn something else on. Want to use voice controls? Joke's on you, they only work 50% of the time.
God forbid something happens to the control board (which costs thousands of dollars to replace if you're outside warranty), because then you're completely hosed.
You know what always worked without fail? The buttons in my 2005 Corolla.
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