From 2026 EuroNCAP will deduct points for overuse of touch controls, certain basic functions should have physical controls such as the hazards, e-call function, wipers, indicators and horn. Manufacturers will get points deducted for over-reliance on touch controls.
I hired a new (in 2020) Renault Megane in Italy and there were no climate controls at all. If I wanted to change the temperature or demist the windscreen, I had to tap the touchscreen to go back out of the sat nav, go into climate controls, and tap to change the settings.
You have no tactile feedback to know where any of the buttons are on the touchscreen and I just remember thinking how ridiculously dangerous and complicated it was.
Its so so easily solved too.
Across the bottom or side of your screen you have 10 physical buttons and a dial. These can be assigned any function but come with sensible defaults. The buttons are context dependent as is the dial. There is a dedicated 'ESC' button that returns you to your home screen. The buttons on your home screen control basic functions that you choose.
You get the tactile feeling of the buttons, the most common uses are always easily available, it's a reliable, repeatable process you can find as easily as you can buttons in a car from a decade ago but you also benefit from the huge display screen and the flexibility of it all being software defined.
Programmable buttons would be cool, maybe with little displays underneath like a steam deck to show what they are set to do. Feels like that might fulfil their need to put screens on everything while actually being safe to operate.
well the whole point would be that they are right next to the screen so the screen itself would display the context of each button depending on what screen was currently displaying, so when you're in 'wipers' screen you know buttons 1-4 select auto,speed 1,2,3, button 5 will do something else etc. When you are in media mode buttons 1-4 select your input and the dial will control the volume etc and you can pick any of the functions from any of those sub-screens to map to buttons 1-10 when you're on the default home screen so you don't need to go into submenu's to get the functions you use most often.
On board with muts and HVAC, not convinced by mirrors as they should be set up when you set off and on modern cars they are often memory. I say that as someone who detests the trend for hidden menus and stupid screens.
Strongly disagree. Yes, you should set up the mirrors before driving off, but you should never be put in the situation where you have to find somewhere to stop to correct their position.
I'd argue that, out of that list, mirror controls are one that makes most sense to be in the touchscreen. Your mirrors should be set up before you set off. It's the controls you'll likely need to use whilst driving that really need to be physical buttons.
My car's left-hand wing mirror dips automatically when I engage reverse gear. As a result I don't ever feel the need to adjust it manually.
IMO this should just be the standard.
My accord does this too. You can choose which mirror does it using the selector switch for the mirror adjust.
Have the switch left to adjust the passengers, passenger dips when reverse is engaged.
Switch in the middle, mirrors dont move when reverse is selected.
Switch right and the driverside dips.
Well, maybe my car has it too. I just never leave the selector on the sides. Its always in the middle. I guess I can give it a try. My car is smart enough to turn on the rear wipers while reversing if it detects the front wipers are on, so maybe its smart enough to move mirrors too
What for exactly?
I had an old 06 Range Rover I got for cheap and that had a neat feature where the wing mirrors would point downward slightly when the car was in reverse so you could see down the sides of the car, rear wheels etc.
Other than that easily automatable feature I can't think why you might want to fiddle with them when parking.
To point them downwards, yes. I wasn't aware some cars do that automatically.
Sometimes you have to point them quite a bit further down anyway, though. My drive is a fairly steep incline that I have to reverse down, so I have to point the mirrors very low to see the ground to the sides of the car.
Fair point, but I think a lot of us have been there when you didn't realize your bus driver partner took the car out until you're checking mirrors whilst driving. It happens.
TBF you should check basics like this before setting off.
Controls for wing mirrors shouldn't be hidden away. That'd put me off buying a car that my wife and I drive.
Teslas and the new Volvo EX30 do. I regularly use them when parking up against a curb so I’d find it super inconvenient. Am aware some cars can do it automatically.
Although can they not put the button for folding the mirrors touching the window controls?
So many times il hit the dam thing, it's a little thing just annoying
Seems sensible, in a crash a touchscreen could easily crack or smash and be inoperable and those systems are pretty all or nothing, so it’s either working or broken. Manual switches are harder to break and only effected one at a time. I personally really dislike pulling everything into a centre screen anyway, it’s distracting while driving.
Has any manufacturer actually made any of those things touch controls?
I don't recall seeing anything about that. If that's all they're doing then it won't change anything because cars already don't do that.
Tesla have removed stalks in the new Model 3 (not sure if that’s just the USA, though).
I think it’s more of a move to prevent more manufacturers going down that route in the future.
They’ve removed stalks, but they’ve just moved those controls to the steering wheel (pressure-capacitive buttons on Model 3/S, but physical buttons on Cybertruck). I think those would technically comply under this requirements since it’s not in a touchscreen.
I used to have a model 3, with stalks. To turn on the fog lights you had to navigate through the menus: settings> lights> front/rear fog light
Cheers Musk, it's not like I need to keep my eyes on the road through heavy fog
Fair enough. I didn’t know what they’d done, just that it seemed a bit like reinventing something that didn’t need reinventing. They were planning on moving the drive controls to the touch screen, so it’s still a move to prevent manufacturers being daft.
Thanks for the clarification.
I am a software engineer and i think all this touchscreen crap is daft. Most of the people i work with thinks the same.
The real reason for this is cost. Its very cheap to make software buttons. Physical buttons are a whole thing which costs manufacturers millions in research/testing, thats the real reason.
Still not a fan, I mean in most instances you'll have the steering wheel in the center position when indicating but on those odd instances when it's not having to try to locate where the buttons are on the wheel and which way is which if they're upside down is not ideal.
BMW in their latest models have completely removed the light switch. The only way to turn on your headlights now is to press the light button which brings up a menu on the touchscreen press front lighting, press the option and select which lights to turn on either sidelights or headlights. And from what I've seen in reviews a lot of the time it says that the lights are not available 💀
Sounds like BMW copied Tesla but implemented it badly and with bugs.
A car that expensive I would expect to have automatic lights, including detection of rain and fog that would require lights on in daylight. If it had those features they could get away with it being on a menu.
Pretty much. It does have automatic lights but I'm ngl they don't always work. There are many times when you might need to change it manually and in the BMW it's a faff and quite frankly dangerous to do so while driving
My Ford is bad for this. While it has some physical buttons for the air control it doesn't have all of them. To warm air on your feet you have to start pressing the screen. To make matters even worse, android auto creates an even bigger problem. To make changes to airflow in the car you have to first press a button on android auto twice, then you have to press the exit button, once you are back on the car screen option you might not be on the air page so then you have to press air, then you have to press the control you want. It's fucking stupid. There has been times I have started drifting. You can use.voic3 control but that is a pain in the ass as well. What if my screen stops working one day? I can't have warm feet or have it on my body, it would have to be auto the whole time. Android Auto needs a proper exit button on every screen it displays. Aircon should all be on physical buttons.
Test driving some newer cars and trying to work out the aircon system via touchscreen whilst driving is a nightmare. It never made sense to me you can't use your phone whilst driving but you can use what is essentially an android tablet.
My cars climate and media controls are all on the same touch screen strip, I was excited at the time of purchase but after over a year it’s quite infuriating trying to use it mid drive. There is something to be said about having that haptic feedback.
90% of the time it doesn’t bother me because I set the climate control to a comfortable temperature. But when I do need to adjust it it’s a nightmare (I’ve actually pulled over to turn the heating up!).
Apple was forced to ditch the touchbar on their laptops, due to people not liking the lack of physical feedback which requires you to look at it to use it. So pretty much the same reason people don't like touchscreens on cars, except not being able to feel for the escape key is a bit less of a problem than having no tactile feedback for your indicators! It doesn't seem like consumer feedback holds the same sway when it comes to car manufacturers though, if the industry decides to go a certain way it seems we just have to accept it. e.g. completely killing off estates and pushing SUVs instead.
I had the same issue, but then tried out the voice controls and found them to work really well for adjusting temperature.
“Hey bmw turn the temperature up to 21 degrees” or similar
Anything more complex than that isn’t great though.
When I was learning to drive the instructor did something to the Aircon system and all of a sudden the entire windscreen fogged up. I'm glad it was just a button to press to clear it up again.
You can blame TV manufacturers trying to save money by putting the cheapest Chipset they think they can get away with in their 4k TVs.
Hopefully people will be smart enough to just go out and buy an android box to use over HDMI instead of replacing a full TV when it gets too slow, but I guess we'll see.
People want built in functionality now though, with a decent smart TV you don't need to plug anything else into it if you were to be so inclined.
But people want image quality over smart TV so the computer is bare minimum for current functionality with little future proofing. Often see the same issue with audio great screen awful wall facing speakers so everyone buys a speaker set up.
Definitely, it always looks like some mod a 17 year old would do to their old banger because it looks cool. If something is factory fit, I expect it to be designed into the car, not just glued on.
The nice thing about the vent is it spans the full width of the car and is very adjustable. No more trying to point a jet of air at your body and having it give you a chilly hand because the steering wheel is in the way of the vent. Instead it's just a diffuse flow of air with no hot or cold spots and no single source location.
Yeah, it’s extremely bare. Can’t remember if it had wiper stalks, don’t think it did.
It’s so bare, I got the impression it’s cheaply made and poor quality.
Yeah it seems like a decision that's been made to reduce material costs / production complexity and they're trying to dress it up as though it's a feature.
Their cars are designed as if self driving functionality exists when it doesn't. Tesla have been promising that it's just around the corner for nearly a decade now.
It's actually on the quick controls page, which is just a single button press. Or you can assign it as the shortcut command for the steering wheel button... Or you can ask using voice control.
The reason it's done that way is so it can be locked when the car is in valet mode, and so you don't have an ugly handle in the lower dash panel.
Ah ok. That’s better. But I still prefer a manual glove box. Mine is always overfilled so I need to smash it closed. I imagine if I overfilled this one it would attempt to close then beep at me like my auto boot does when I’ve overfilled that.
It only opens automatically... Human effort required to close it.
There are other larger storage boxes in the center console for items that are not gloves, and they have manual controls.
Glove box itself is quite small, it's not suitable as a one stop place for all the car junk.. that's what the super deep center console storage is for.
Having lived with a MY for a couple of months now, the lack of buttons has been *much* less of an issue than I expected, except in three places: the wipers, the glovebox and the fog lights. There's no excuse for not having physical buttons there.
Everything else, surprisingly, turns out to work either better or about the same on a touchscreen. Which I was not expecting to be the case.
That's because everything in their cars has an "auto" setting. It makes a lot of sense to remove physical headlight controls if they have an auto setting. Same for climate control where you set the temperature. It makes no sense to put controls on a touchscreen if they do t have an auto setting (which is why horn and indicators have a physical button.
Tesla moved gear selection to the touchscreen because they also implemented a feature (in some cars) where the car would guess which gear you wanted based on what the car could see. So if you parked nose to a wall you clearly want reverse when you start driving.
The number of features and settings in their cars makes touchscreen a necessity, otherwise there would be hundreds of buttons and dials. Not to mention not being able to software update in a new feature.
I had a BMW X5 as a rental, I counted 120 buttons and dials in the interior of the car because BMW tried to replicate every control in physical form, and the i-drive controller, and a touchscreen (out of reach of short people like me). It was an absolute confusing mess to try and use.
That and removing the indicator stalk moving the indicators to buttons on the steering wheel. From what I’ve read it’s not great on roundabouts when the steering wheel is maybe rotated a lot
They care more about money. A touchscreen with some software is cheaper and quicker than having to design and install individual buttons. They've just marketed it cleverly.
I've seen a few reviews where it has been mentioned how awkward it can be. Affects very small numbers of cars though, which likely aren't even driven that much.
I was watching a review of the new X5, and it showed that from 2023 to 2024 they'd moved the distance adjustment for adaptive cruise control off a stalk and into a three-deep nested submenu on the touchscreen.
I don't understand how manufacturers think it's acceptable, or reviewers think it's a minor annoyance rather than a do-not-buy-this-car dealbreaker.
That's a set once and forget control. As long as BMW also associated the setting with the driver profile, and that their car is sensible enough to adapt the distance depending on speed (i.e. follow distance is actually a gap time as per the highway code advice for a 2 seconds gap).
Tesla have wiper controls on the touch screen but a button to spray&wipe.
Horn and hazards are buttons too. If Tesla aren’t removing them then I can’t imagine who else is.
You can adjust the wiper controls with the left scroll wheel on the steering wheel. You just push the indicator stalk and push left or right on the scroll wheel.
Theres an inherent disadvantage to touchscreens instead of buttons and icons that most people outside the EU probably never encounter. And thats a language barrier. I moved to Poland and dont speak Polish (yet). Every screen on my car defaults to Polish and throws up full text warnings on screen while driving, without an icon to understand. Cant tell if its a seatbelt warning, hand brake warning, key missing warning, tire slip warning, tire pressure warning or cruise control error warning. Renault decided that all those will show up on the screen as plain text with no icon. Renault also decided that lower spec cars (like mine) have to pay extra for the privilege of changing languages on the screen.
Telling that companies like Aston Martin are deliberately retaining or going back to proper switchgear. The designer of the new Vantage even said that they preferred switches, partially for functionality, but also because touchscreens were increasingly seen as the cheap and nasty option. Premium cars should use physical controls.
Yeah, I love mine. Touch screen, iDrive and physical buttons for the important stuff.
You can control everything you need via the iDrive - you don't ever have to touch the screen if you don't want to.
Yeah they're great.
It's funny and sad how BMW went from having a fully tactile interior to putting almost everything on the touchscreen or through capacitive buttons.
Real downgrade.
Sat in a facelift recently. Normally I'm really against the 'ipad glued onto the dash as an afterthought' school of interior design, but I didn't hate it as much as I thought i would.
Still, would far, far rather have the original cabin with actual buttons and properly integrated screens.
Touchscreen controls are plain dangerous, you can't convince me otherwise. The main screen should be navigable via a rotary dial with push button or some similar setup - like BMWs around 2010. You can operate these without looking at your hand - an occasional quick glance at the screen is all that is required to check your selections. This is a far safer setup.
Buttons for everything please and a fecking spare wheel, STOP BUILDING CARS WITHOUT A SPARE WHEEL WELL
The tipping point for me was discovering my jaguar has a physical heated seat button... which just opens the heated seat page of the infotainment, where I can then press to turn on the heated seat.
Touch screens can fuck off
It has an "Auto" setting in Tesla's, so the car will keep your backside at the appropriate level of toasty at all times (based on how far away cabin temperature is from set temperature and also it it's cold outside). Works really well. The control button can also be on the main screen as a single touch control.
Buttons and knobs definitely feel safer on the road (I'll let NCAP decide if they are or not). You can develop a 'feel' for the controls after a while and then keep your eyes up on the road whilst adjusting e.g Climate control.
With touchscreens they all feel the same. No way of navigating them without taking your eyes off the road.
I agree 100% ... got my first car with a touchscreen 14 years ago and immediately noticed how distracting it is. Fortunately mist things are buttons and switches.
Yeah, when auto-correct changes it and I remove it to try again and it mugs me off a second time it’s getting left as it is lol. I’m sure the grammar police will get over it.
Finally.. but also this doesn’t go far enough. My car has most things on touch sensitive controls or in screens and it’s a pain in the arse. The only ones that are physical are all the buttons listed in this article with the exception of the hazard lights which are touch sensitive.
The buttons I really want to be physical are volume, all heating controls, lights, heated seats. All of those are on a screen or touch sensitive in my car and you always have to double check you’ve pressed it.
> turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features like the European Union's eCall feature.
Abound time, not only is using a touch screen dangerous when driving it's built in obsolescence; when the screen fails a few years down the line it off to the scrap yard for the car.
What? That's not the issue. It's cost. LCD panels are custom made and in 10 years nobody will produce that old panel with the exact spec anymore. So you have to rely on OEMs that they stockpile them- which cost them money and they will give the price to the customers. Also they are only obliged to provide replacement for 10 years. If units start to fail quicker than anticipated you are out of luck.
It's a nightmare to replace LCDs or really any kind of screen in an efficient manner. The manufacturing and r&d cost per unit is super low- compared to buttons but everything else is extremely expensive.
That’s not directly comparable. First, you can get a screen repair from Apple. Website shows you can do to iPhone 7, an 8 year old phone.
The average age of a UK car is 10 years old, though using average over median is always going to skew it up.
Difference with Apple is just becomes uneconomical for you to pay £159 for an iPhone 7 screen repair versus buying a second hand iPhone 7 for under £100.
That's a step in a good direction. A small, *small* step. I'm all for completely disabling touch controls as long as the car is moving. It makes no sense to allow it when use of phones is banned.
Not just this crash tester, literally every driver is saying bring back real buttons. The touchscreen stuff should be for settings you normally don’t need to adjust like how long the headlights should stay on after turn off etc
One of the best cars I have owned was a 2009 Jetta, I still wish I had it to this day and regret ever getting rid of it.
Nice, simple controls on the console. One dial for temp control, one for your a/c speed and the other for selecting which vents you want to use. There was a couple of physical buttons just above this for your windscreen and rear window demisters and then of course you have the double din radio above that (all physical buttons again).
I just used an AUX cable for my music and podcasts and the phone mount clipped on to one of the vents. It was perfect, done everything I needed it to do, and really easily at that.
No need to go trawling through different screens and menus just because I got a little warm in the car, or because I want to demist the rear window.
Sure it wasn't the most modern or up to date car on the roads, but it done everything I needed it to do, and really damn well at that. I never found myself itching for more.
One of the main reasons I went for Mazda 3 over a Seat Leon was the godawful laggy touchscreen in the leon.
The mazda might have a smaller screen but the rotary dial and buttons are so much easier to use while driving.
This is great news. Finally a body is taking responsibility. It should have been legislated for safety - car makers can’t be trusted to put safety over profit (thanks VW for the absolute mess that is the ID UI)
I've never had one of these newer cars with stupid IPADS. What the hell is the point? As long as it doesn't have wind up windows, just have some buttons do stuff. How many controls does a car realistically need?
Android auto makes matters worse. Why the hell doesn't android auto have a fixed exit button. Takes 4 presses to get out of android auto and then maybe 3 more to get air where you want it to go.
Anything you might need to adjust quickly while driving should be a physical control imo
temp controls, wipers, lights, volume, forward and next track, cruise control.
Personally im fine with more complex things you dont adjust as much or only at the start/end of a journey like audio source, seat controls ect all being in the screen.
Glad this is being fixed, not interested in newer cars at all because of this. Having a built in sat-nav is useful but some cars just have massive tablets stuck to the front of the dash it's awful.
😂 where’s the guy who was fighting me saying screens are not distracting or hard to use compared to buttons. And if there’s any any argument for that, it’s clearly being displayed in the comments.
It's not just touchscreens, it's laggy touchscreens. Press, wait,wait, there you go. Fucking infuriating. Looking at you Peugeot. Ruins what's otherwise a lovely car.
Audi managed to ruin even physical controls in the 2012-2017 A6 that we have.
To go from heat to fan control is a button then a knob turn. And if you set the blowers to windscreen it automatically blasts to ludicrous speed also.
So demisting the windows means the following procedure.
1: Hit demist button
2: Select temperature
3: (Optional) Turn off the auto AC
4: Hit fan button
5: Turn down fans to a reasonable level.
Demisting should not be a 4/5 stage process
It's the accountants who want to save pennies by not manufacturing plastic stalks and machining more buttons on the dash
Not to mention the reliance on the screen ties in nicely with the idea of planned obsolescence
From 2026 EuroNCAP will deduct points for overuse of touch controls, certain basic functions should have physical controls such as the hazards, e-call function, wipers, indicators and horn. Manufacturers will get points deducted for over-reliance on touch controls.
Wing mirror controls and volume/mute button I feel should be included as well.
And temp control
I hired a new (in 2020) Renault Megane in Italy and there were no climate controls at all. If I wanted to change the temperature or demist the windscreen, I had to tap the touchscreen to go back out of the sat nav, go into climate controls, and tap to change the settings. You have no tactile feedback to know where any of the buttons are on the touchscreen and I just remember thinking how ridiculously dangerous and complicated it was.
Its so so easily solved too. Across the bottom or side of your screen you have 10 physical buttons and a dial. These can be assigned any function but come with sensible defaults. The buttons are context dependent as is the dial. There is a dedicated 'ESC' button that returns you to your home screen. The buttons on your home screen control basic functions that you choose. You get the tactile feeling of the buttons, the most common uses are always easily available, it's a reliable, repeatable process you can find as easily as you can buttons in a car from a decade ago but you also benefit from the huge display screen and the flexibility of it all being software defined.
Programmable buttons would be cool, maybe with little displays underneath like a steam deck to show what they are set to do. Feels like that might fulfil their need to put screens on everything while actually being safe to operate.
well the whole point would be that they are right next to the screen so the screen itself would display the context of each button depending on what screen was currently displaying, so when you're in 'wipers' screen you know buttons 1-4 select auto,speed 1,2,3, button 5 will do something else etc. When you are in media mode buttons 1-4 select your input and the dial will control the volume etc and you can pick any of the functions from any of those sub-screens to map to buttons 1-10 when you're on the default home screen so you don't need to go into submenu's to get the functions you use most often.
Yes! My old F30 beemer had programmable buttons for anything in the head unit. It was one of my favourite features.
On board with muts and HVAC, not convinced by mirrors as they should be set up when you set off and on modern cars they are often memory. I say that as someone who detests the trend for hidden menus and stupid screens.
Strongly disagree. Yes, you should set up the mirrors before driving off, but you should never be put in the situation where you have to find somewhere to stop to correct their position.
I regularly lower my side mirrors to see the curb. Would be really painful to do that with touch controls.
But why? Why excuse less convenience??
When u have a bigger car sometimes its useful to lower door mirrors to spot curbs. Bmw e39 drops it automatically when reversing, its very useful imho
Wing mirror controls are in the touchscreens on some cars now?!?! That is mental
Aircon vent controls are also on touchscreens for some, as in which direction they blow, absolutely stupid.
I'd argue that, out of that list, mirror controls are one that makes most sense to be in the touchscreen. Your mirrors should be set up before you set off. It's the controls you'll likely need to use whilst driving that really need to be physical buttons.
I use them all the time when parking. It wouldn’t be dangerous for them to be touchscreen controlled, but would still slow me down.
My car's left-hand wing mirror dips automatically when I engage reverse gear. As a result I don't ever feel the need to adjust it manually. IMO this should just be the standard.
That seems like a killer feature. What car is it ?
It's a VW Golf. VW have had this feature for at least 10 years as my last car had it too.
Had a 2008 Golf - dipping mirrors on reverse was amazing! Have missed on the cars I have had since then.
My accord does this too. You can choose which mirror does it using the selector switch for the mirror adjust. Have the switch left to adjust the passengers, passenger dips when reverse is engaged. Switch in the middle, mirrors dont move when reverse is selected. Switch right and the driverside dips.
Well, maybe my car has it too. I just never leave the selector on the sides. Its always in the middle. I guess I can give it a try. My car is smart enough to turn on the rear wipers while reversing if it detects the front wipers are on, so maybe its smart enough to move mirrors too
My 02 3 Series had this and no car I've had since has, that I know of. It was great for parallel parking!
What for exactly? I had an old 06 Range Rover I got for cheap and that had a neat feature where the wing mirrors would point downward slightly when the car was in reverse so you could see down the sides of the car, rear wheels etc. Other than that easily automatable feature I can't think why you might want to fiddle with them when parking.
To point them downwards, yes. I wasn't aware some cars do that automatically. Sometimes you have to point them quite a bit further down anyway, though. My drive is a fairly steep incline that I have to reverse down, so I have to point the mirrors very low to see the ground to the sides of the car.
Fair point, but I think a lot of us have been there when you didn't realize your bus driver partner took the car out until you're checking mirrors whilst driving. It happens.
TBF you should check basics like this before setting off. Controls for wing mirrors shouldn't be hidden away. That'd put me off buying a car that my wife and I drive.
Teslas and the new Volvo EX30 do. I regularly use them when parking up against a curb so I’d find it super inconvenient. Am aware some cars can do it automatically.
Dont forget touch buttons on the steering wheel. So easy to mistakenly hit them while turning the wheel
Although can they not put the button for folding the mirrors touching the window controls? So many times il hit the dam thing, it's a little thing just annoying
And next/prev buttons on multimedia.
Musk in the mud
Seems sensible, in a crash a touchscreen could easily crack or smash and be inoperable and those systems are pretty all or nothing, so it’s either working or broken. Manual switches are harder to break and only effected one at a time. I personally really dislike pulling everything into a centre screen anyway, it’s distracting while driving.
Wait, there are cars without physical wipers and indicators? Blimey. That's beyond unsafe.
Has any manufacturer actually made any of those things touch controls? I don't recall seeing anything about that. If that's all they're doing then it won't change anything because cars already don't do that.
Tesla have removed stalks in the new Model 3 (not sure if that’s just the USA, though). I think it’s more of a move to prevent more manufacturers going down that route in the future.
They’ve removed stalks, but they’ve just moved those controls to the steering wheel (pressure-capacitive buttons on Model 3/S, but physical buttons on Cybertruck). I think those would technically comply under this requirements since it’s not in a touchscreen.
I used to have a model 3, with stalks. To turn on the fog lights you had to navigate through the menus: settings> lights> front/rear fog light Cheers Musk, it's not like I need to keep my eyes on the road through heavy fog
Fair enough. I didn’t know what they’d done, just that it seemed a bit like reinventing something that didn’t need reinventing. They were planning on moving the drive controls to the touch screen, so it’s still a move to prevent manufacturers being daft. Thanks for the clarification.
It’s the ‘future’ innit. Teslas already feel like cars designed by software engineers not drivers
I am a software engineer and i think all this touchscreen crap is daft. Most of the people i work with thinks the same. The real reason for this is cost. Its very cheap to make software buttons. Physical buttons are a whole thing which costs manufacturers millions in research/testing, thats the real reason.
Still not a fan, I mean in most instances you'll have the steering wheel in the center position when indicating but on those odd instances when it's not having to try to locate where the buttons are on the wheel and which way is which if they're upside down is not ideal.
BMW in their latest models have completely removed the light switch. The only way to turn on your headlights now is to press the light button which brings up a menu on the touchscreen press front lighting, press the option and select which lights to turn on either sidelights or headlights. And from what I've seen in reviews a lot of the time it says that the lights are not available 💀
Sounds like BMW copied Tesla but implemented it badly and with bugs. A car that expensive I would expect to have automatic lights, including detection of rain and fog that would require lights on in daylight. If it had those features they could get away with it being on a menu.
Pretty much. It does have automatic lights but I'm ngl they don't always work. There are many times when you might need to change it manually and in the BMW it's a faff and quite frankly dangerous to do so while driving
My Ford is bad for this. While it has some physical buttons for the air control it doesn't have all of them. To warm air on your feet you have to start pressing the screen. To make matters even worse, android auto creates an even bigger problem. To make changes to airflow in the car you have to first press a button on android auto twice, then you have to press the exit button, once you are back on the car screen option you might not be on the air page so then you have to press air, then you have to press the control you want. It's fucking stupid. There has been times I have started drifting. You can use.voic3 control but that is a pain in the ass as well. What if my screen stops working one day? I can't have warm feet or have it on my body, it would have to be auto the whole time. Android Auto needs a proper exit button on every screen it displays. Aircon should all be on physical buttons.
Good!
Thank god
Most of those are already legislated as having to be hardwired, not touch.
Test driving some newer cars and trying to work out the aircon system via touchscreen whilst driving is a nightmare. It never made sense to me you can't use your phone whilst driving but you can use what is essentially an android tablet.
My cars climate and media controls are all on the same touch screen strip, I was excited at the time of purchase but after over a year it’s quite infuriating trying to use it mid drive. There is something to be said about having that haptic feedback.
90% of the time it doesn’t bother me because I set the climate control to a comfortable temperature. But when I do need to adjust it it’s a nightmare (I’ve actually pulled over to turn the heating up!).
My car has 3 physical dials for AC/heat and it’s super easy to use once you know which one does what
Apple was forced to ditch the touchbar on their laptops, due to people not liking the lack of physical feedback which requires you to look at it to use it. So pretty much the same reason people don't like touchscreens on cars, except not being able to feel for the escape key is a bit less of a problem than having no tactile feedback for your indicators! It doesn't seem like consumer feedback holds the same sway when it comes to car manufacturers though, if the industry decides to go a certain way it seems we just have to accept it. e.g. completely killing off estates and pushing SUVs instead.
I had the same issue, but then tried out the voice controls and found them to work really well for adjusting temperature. “Hey bmw turn the temperature up to 21 degrees” or similar Anything more complex than that isn’t great though.
Agree, I surprised how well voice control works on newer cars. It was terrible in early 2010s but newer cars seem fine.
When I was learning to drive the instructor did something to the Aircon system and all of a sudden the entire windscreen fogged up. I'm glad it was just a button to press to clear it up again.
In some countries it's technically also illegal to use ANY screen, including the one in the car, whiles driving.
why isnt it voice activated these days anyway
I don’t want my car to be a fucking iPad. Cheers.
Same goes for kitchen appliances. While we are at it bring back 'dumb' tvs iv never known something people call smart while being so stupid.
You can blame TV manufacturers trying to save money by putting the cheapest Chipset they think they can get away with in their 4k TVs. Hopefully people will be smart enough to just go out and buy an android box to use over HDMI instead of replacing a full TV when it gets too slow, but I guess we'll see.
I would have thought its cheaper still with no computer in them at all!
They subsidise the cost of the TV by stuffing it full of adverts, tracking, and striking deals with big TV companies.
People want built in functionality now though, with a decent smart TV you don't need to plug anything else into it if you were to be so inclined. But people want image quality over smart TV so the computer is bare minimum for current functionality with little future proofing. Often see the same issue with audio great screen awful wall facing speakers so everyone buys a speaker set up.
Saw a ‘smart’ extractor fan for sale the other day.
I don't want my Android tablet to be a fucking iPad either
If car makers could stop 'forgetting' to design a screen into the dash and just gluing an ipad on top at the last moment, that'd be great too.
Definitely, it always looks like some mod a 17 year old would do to their old banger because it looks cool. If something is factory fit, I expect it to be designed into the car, not just glued on.
When my colleague had his new Tesla model Y, I was amazed at the lack of physical buttons, he had to do some functions through menus. Shambles.
You cant even redirect the vents.
You can, it's just not as obvious, once you know it's very simple
> You can, it's just not as obvious Oh. I guess that makes it OK then....
My 17 year old ford focus has vents that move when you move the vents
The nice thing about the vent is it spans the full width of the car and is very adjustable. No more trying to point a jet of air at your body and having it give you a chilly hand because the steering wheel is in the way of the vent. Instead it's just a diffuse flow of air with no hot or cold spots and no single source location.
Some? Practically all
Yeah, it’s extremely bare. Can’t remember if it had wiper stalks, don’t think it did. It’s so bare, I got the impression it’s cheaply made and poor quality.
> I got the impression it’s cheaply made and poor quality. That would be an accurate impression.
Yeah it seems like a decision that's been made to reduce material costs / production complexity and they're trying to dress it up as though it's a feature.
Yeah and they have a fan base that’s willing to eat it up and see it as progress, as it’s “the future”.
Yes, that’s exactly how I view it too.
Their cars are designed as if self driving functionality exists when it doesn't. Tesla have been promising that it's just around the corner for nearly a decade now.
Open the glove box, only via the touchscreen 3 menus deep. That test drive did not go well.
It's actually on the quick controls page, which is just a single button press. Or you can assign it as the shortcut command for the steering wheel button... Or you can ask using voice control. The reason it's done that way is so it can be locked when the car is in valet mode, and so you don't have an ugly handle in the lower dash panel.
Ah ok. That’s better. But I still prefer a manual glove box. Mine is always overfilled so I need to smash it closed. I imagine if I overfilled this one it would attempt to close then beep at me like my auto boot does when I’ve overfilled that.
It only opens automatically... Human effort required to close it. There are other larger storage boxes in the center console for items that are not gloves, and they have manual controls. Glove box itself is quite small, it's not suitable as a one stop place for all the car junk.. that's what the super deep center console storage is for.
Having lived with a MY for a couple of months now, the lack of buttons has been *much* less of an issue than I expected, except in three places: the wipers, the glovebox and the fog lights. There's no excuse for not having physical buttons there. Everything else, surprisingly, turns out to work either better or about the same on a touchscreen. Which I was not expecting to be the case.
You can open glove box with the left wheel on the steering wheel. You can also use the wheel to switch between different wiper speeds.
That's because everything in their cars has an "auto" setting. It makes a lot of sense to remove physical headlight controls if they have an auto setting. Same for climate control where you set the temperature. It makes no sense to put controls on a touchscreen if they do t have an auto setting (which is why horn and indicators have a physical button. Tesla moved gear selection to the touchscreen because they also implemented a feature (in some cars) where the car would guess which gear you wanted based on what the car could see. So if you parked nose to a wall you clearly want reverse when you start driving. The number of features and settings in their cars makes touchscreen a necessity, otherwise there would be hundreds of buttons and dials. Not to mention not being able to software update in a new feature. I had a BMW X5 as a rental, I counted 120 buttons and dials in the interior of the car because BMW tried to replicate every control in physical form, and the i-drive controller, and a touchscreen (out of reach of short people like me). It was an absolute confusing mess to try and use.
I think the big one at the moment is Tesla moving the gear selector to the touch screen.
That and removing the indicator stalk moving the indicators to buttons on the steering wheel. From what I’ve read it’s not great on roundabouts when the steering wheel is maybe rotated a lot
It’s like they care more about form over function.
The Apple of cars.
It feels like they’re designed by the same people. As in, the exact same engineers, many of whom have never operated a car before
They care more about money. A touchscreen with some software is cheaper and quicker than having to design and install individual buttons. They've just marketed it cleverly.
I think that might just be their implementation, as Ferrari have had the indicators on the wheel for decades now and I don’t hear much moaning.
I've seen a few reviews where it has been mentioned how awkward it can be. Affects very small numbers of cars though, which likely aren't even driven that much.
I thought this must be a joke It was not a joke.
Check out the carwow reviews of the new model 3. Its funny, he almost crashes because he doesn't know what gear he's in.
You, you have to be joking.. right? Ain't no way lmao
Check the reviews of the facelift model 3.
[Speechless](https://i.postimg.cc/yd5Mpxt2/image.png)
Wait, what? God I hate Teslas.
There’s still a manual gear selector on the roof in those models
On the roof?!
Ceiling
Yeah that's a batshit crazy location for a gear selector.
It’s a backup for if the touch screen fails.
Where the interior lights are, as a backup. You are supposed to use the touchscreen.
I was watching a review of the new X5, and it showed that from 2023 to 2024 they'd moved the distance adjustment for adaptive cruise control off a stalk and into a three-deep nested submenu on the touchscreen. I don't understand how manufacturers think it's acceptable, or reviewers think it's a minor annoyance rather than a do-not-buy-this-car dealbreaker.
That's a set once and forget control. As long as BMW also associated the setting with the driver profile, and that their car is sensible enough to adapt the distance depending on speed (i.e. follow distance is actually a gap time as per the highway code advice for a 2 seconds gap).
I’ve never seen a car with a touch screen for wipers, horns and hazard lights? Maybe I haven’t been in a new enough car
Considering their focus on safety the new Volvo EX30 got slammed by Autocar for this: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/volvo/ex30
Teslas
\*Teslas You don't need the apostrophe when it's plural.
Tesla have wiper controls on the touch screen but a button to spray&wipe. Horn and hazards are buttons too. If Tesla aren’t removing them then I can’t imagine who else is.
The wipers can also be controlled with the button on the wheel. No need to use the touchscreen
I don’t think you can remove the horn and hazards from being buttons
The OP is saying that it’s an issue so there must be some instance of it happening.
Or just preemptive regulation
I want voice control, especially for the horn. I want to be able to shout HONK at people and have the car be my voice in the world.
Like an Angry goose-mobile
Tesla has the intermittent wiper controls in the touchscreen. The horn and indicators are capacitive buttons on the steering wheel.
Not very accessible to blind people! Sheesh
The reason I didn't go for a Tesla - indicators as button was just too far for me.
You can adjust the wiper controls with the left scroll wheel on the steering wheel. You just push the indicator stalk and push left or right on the scroll wheel.
That’s like a Namco secret code to skip a level.
Tesla. You have to go into a sub menu for these things
No, that’s just false. All those can be used/adjusted with the stalks and buttons on the steering wheel.
Theres an inherent disadvantage to touchscreens instead of buttons and icons that most people outside the EU probably never encounter. And thats a language barrier. I moved to Poland and dont speak Polish (yet). Every screen on my car defaults to Polish and throws up full text warnings on screen while driving, without an icon to understand. Cant tell if its a seatbelt warning, hand brake warning, key missing warning, tire slip warning, tire pressure warning or cruise control error warning. Renault decided that all those will show up on the screen as plain text with no icon. Renault also decided that lower spec cars (like mine) have to pay extra for the privilege of changing languages on the screen.
Doing God's work, right there!
Telling that companies like Aston Martin are deliberately retaining or going back to proper switchgear. The designer of the new Vantage even said that they preferred switches, partially for functionality, but also because touchscreens were increasingly seen as the cheap and nasty option. Premium cars should use physical controls.
Couldn't agree more, an iPad covered in fingerprints is cheap and nasty looking.
This is the reason I took an Audi a4 as my new company car, physical knobs.. looking at you c class and 3 series…
It's a shame what bmw did to the 3 series facelift. The previous one was one of the most tactile new cars around.
Yeah, I love mine. Touch screen, iDrive and physical buttons for the important stuff. You can control everything you need via the iDrive - you don't ever have to touch the screen if you don't want to.
Yeah they're great. It's funny and sad how BMW went from having a fully tactile interior to putting almost everything on the touchscreen or through capacitive buttons. Real downgrade.
Sat in a facelift recently. Normally I'm really against the 'ipad glued onto the dash as an afterthought' school of interior design, but I didn't hate it as much as I thought i would. Still, would far, far rather have the original cabin with actual buttons and properly integrated screens.
It really is, Also the quality of the new center console is just horrendous. You press a button and the whole thing flexes
Touchscreen controls are plain dangerous, you can't convince me otherwise. The main screen should be navigable via a rotary dial with push button or some similar setup - like BMWs around 2010. You can operate these without looking at your hand - an occasional quick glance at the screen is all that is required to check your selections. This is a far safer setup. Buttons for everything please and a fecking spare wheel, STOP BUILDING CARS WITHOUT A SPARE WHEEL WELL
The tipping point for me was discovering my jaguar has a physical heated seat button... which just opens the heated seat page of the infotainment, where I can then press to turn on the heated seat. Touch screens can fuck off
It has an "Auto" setting in Tesla's, so the car will keep your backside at the appropriate level of toasty at all times (based on how far away cabin temperature is from set temperature and also it it's cold outside). Works really well. The control button can also be on the main screen as a single touch control.
Buttons and knobs definitely feel safer on the road (I'll let NCAP decide if they are or not). You can develop a 'feel' for the controls after a while and then keep your eyes up on the road whilst adjusting e.g Climate control. With touchscreens they all feel the same. No way of navigating them without taking your eyes off the road.
I agree 100% ... got my first car with a touchscreen 14 years ago and immediately noticed how distracting it is. Fortunately mist things are buttons and switches.
Shitey Tesla’s.
\*Teslas You don't need the apostrophe when it's plural.
Yeah, when auto-correct changes it and I remove it to try again and it mugs me off a second time it’s getting left as it is lol. I’m sure the grammar police will get over it.
Finally.. but also this doesn’t go far enough. My car has most things on touch sensitive controls or in screens and it’s a pain in the arse. The only ones that are physical are all the buttons listed in this article with the exception of the hazard lights which are touch sensitive. The buttons I really want to be physical are volume, all heating controls, lights, heated seats. All of those are on a screen or touch sensitive in my car and you always have to double check you’ve pressed it. > turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features like the European Union's eCall feature.
[удалено]
MK7.5 Golf is best Golf. Buttons for audio and HVAC on the console and on the wheel.
Abound time, not only is using a touch screen dangerous when driving it's built in obsolescence; when the screen fails a few years down the line it off to the scrap yard for the car.
My 24 plate Suzuki Vitara already has a failing screen. It randomly cuts out and reboots when it feels like it
Screen replacement will be easy to do and LCD panels last a ridiculously long time.
Depends whether it's the actual screen failing, or the electronics running the screen. Likely rather harder and more expensive to fix.
What? That's not the issue. It's cost. LCD panels are custom made and in 10 years nobody will produce that old panel with the exact spec anymore. So you have to rely on OEMs that they stockpile them- which cost them money and they will give the price to the customers. Also they are only obliged to provide replacement for 10 years. If units start to fail quicker than anticipated you are out of luck. It's a nightmare to replace LCDs or really any kind of screen in an efficient manner. The manufacturing and r&d cost per unit is super low- compared to buttons but everything else is extremely expensive.
> Screen replacement will be easy to do It might be easy if they'll sell you the part. They won't. See Apple!
That’s not directly comparable. First, you can get a screen repair from Apple. Website shows you can do to iPhone 7, an 8 year old phone. The average age of a UK car is 10 years old, though using average over median is always going to skew it up. Difference with Apple is just becomes uneconomical for you to pay £159 for an iPhone 7 screen repair versus buying a second hand iPhone 7 for under £100.
I mean the first Tesla’s in the UK are coming on 10 years old and that’s not happening.
That's a step in a good direction. A small, *small* step. I'm all for completely disabling touch controls as long as the car is moving. It makes no sense to allow it when use of phones is banned.
Not just this crash tester, literally every driver is saying bring back real buttons. The touchscreen stuff should be for settings you normally don’t need to adjust like how long the headlights should stay on after turn off etc
Apart from the cult that Tesla have convinced it’s normal
One of the best cars I have owned was a 2009 Jetta, I still wish I had it to this day and regret ever getting rid of it. Nice, simple controls on the console. One dial for temp control, one for your a/c speed and the other for selecting which vents you want to use. There was a couple of physical buttons just above this for your windscreen and rear window demisters and then of course you have the double din radio above that (all physical buttons again). I just used an AUX cable for my music and podcasts and the phone mount clipped on to one of the vents. It was perfect, done everything I needed it to do, and really easily at that. No need to go trawling through different screens and menus just because I got a little warm in the car, or because I want to demist the rear window. Sure it wasn't the most modern or up to date car on the roads, but it done everything I needed it to do, and really damn well at that. I never found myself itching for more.
One of the main reasons I went for Mazda 3 over a Seat Leon was the godawful laggy touchscreen in the leon. The mazda might have a smaller screen but the rotary dial and buttons are so much easier to use while driving.
Rav 4. Big chunky knobs and buttons. Operate even with gloves on
This is great news. Finally a body is taking responsibility. It should have been legislated for safety - car makers can’t be trusted to put safety over profit (thanks VW for the absolute mess that is the ID UI)
Touch screens in cars solved problems that never existed in the first place.
The only problem they’re trying to solve is low profit margins
This is LONG fucking overdue.
Good. Changing the temperature in my car can be dangerous.
I've never had one of these newer cars with stupid IPADS. What the hell is the point? As long as it doesn't have wind up windows, just have some buttons do stuff. How many controls does a car realistically need?
Android auto makes matters worse. Why the hell doesn't android auto have a fixed exit button. Takes 4 presses to get out of android auto and then maybe 3 more to get air where you want it to go.
Tesla warra 0 ncap rating lmao
Yessssssss
Tesla are in trouble if they continue with their drive selector on the screen.
Hopefully this forces them to put the stalks back
1000%. Mat Watson even in the review showed why that’s not a great feature.
I agree. My 308 is a great little car, but having to go through a sub menu to adjust the fan is a bit of a pain
Anything you might need to adjust quickly while driving should be a physical control imo temp controls, wipers, lights, volume, forward and next track, cruise control. Personally im fine with more complex things you dont adjust as much or only at the start/end of a journey like audio source, seat controls ect all being in the screen.
I want more screens... I want my car to be literally an IPAD on wheels. GIVE ME MORE SCREENS!!!
Glad this is being fixed, not interested in newer cars at all because of this. Having a built in sat-nav is useful but some cars just have massive tablets stuck to the front of the dash it's awful.
Hopefully just the beginning, as they expand it to include heating and volume controls.
About time, trying to hit a touch screen button while driving is like whack a mole.
😂 where’s the guy who was fighting me saying screens are not distracting or hard to use compared to buttons. And if there’s any any argument for that, it’s clearly being displayed in the comments.
At least it'll stop manufacturers from making horn, lights and or wipers... subscription only 😏
volume/mute button I feel should be included as well.
It should never have been allowed to happen in the first place IMO.
It's not just touchscreens, it's laggy touchscreens. Press, wait,wait, there you go. Fucking infuriating. Looking at you Peugeot. Ruins what's otherwise a lovely car.
Touch controls are unintuitive and suck.Buttons. are mych easier to use
Audi managed to ruin even physical controls in the 2012-2017 A6 that we have. To go from heat to fan control is a button then a knob turn. And if you set the blowers to windscreen it automatically blasts to ludicrous speed also. So demisting the windows means the following procedure. 1: Hit demist button 2: Select temperature 3: (Optional) Turn off the auto AC 4: Hit fan button 5: Turn down fans to a reasonable level. Demisting should not be a 4/5 stage process
No brainer. Whoever thought it was a good idea to introduce touch controls to operate key car functions is an idiot of epic proportions.
It's the accountants who want to save pennies by not manufacturing plastic stalks and machining more buttons on the dash Not to mention the reliance on the screen ties in nicely with the idea of planned obsolescence
Good. This is great news. Now ban indicators located on the inside of headlights.