Volkswagen will restore physical buttons to the dashboard in its latest compact car, part of a wider move away from touchscreens.
In a particularly retro touch, the new ID Polo will even have a volume dial.
For a decade or so, automakers rushed to replace knobs and switches with screens, Autoblog noted in October, but users largely disliked them: Controlling the air conditioning, for example, required delving through submenus while driving, which was both difficult and dangerous. Research found that using touchscreens took longer and distracted drivers.
Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and VW have all announced plans to return to more tactile controls, and US and EU regulators announced last year that cars with touchscreen controls could get worse safety ratings.
They needed research to realise the cost was greater than the savings.
Touchscreen interfaces are absolutely wonderful if you are a car manufacturer, as they massively accelerate the designing process; slap a rectangle in the centre console and start manufacturing the car, you have until first units are sold (or even way later, yay updates) to figure out how it looks and works. And you don’t need to make and assemble hundred little dials and buttons either, just a single screen.
Same goes for the speedo etc display, but there at least everything is purely visual and being customizable is actually a benefit for the user too.
I wouldn’t have minded quite so much if they made everything voice controlled. But all my speech recognition system can do is just call and text people. It can’t turn on the AC, you can’t even navigate to a destination with the GPS unless you go into the GPS app first.
Also it would be really nice if the activation phrase was something other than the word “hey”, you know perhaps they could go with a word that isn’t said 5,000 times a day anyway.