Lately, the automotive industry has been seeing a very common – and quite frankly, frustrating – trend of everything needing to be controlled from touchscreens (Looking at you, Leapmotor C10). Thankfully, Volkswagen has now noticed that this indeed has been a “mistake”, and has now decided that physical buttons will be returning for their future electric vehicle (EV) releases, like how it always should have been.
Touchscreens are still a mainstay in Volkswagen, so they won’t be completely gone for good. However, basic functionalities such as air conditioning, volume control, and hazard lights will all have dedicated buttons for easy accessibility, confirms Volkswagen design chief Andreas Mindt.
“We will never, ever make this mistake any more. On the steering wheel, we will have physical buttons. No guessing any more. There’s feedback, it’s real, and people love this. Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car.” Mindt says in an interview with Autocar.
In the same interview, Mindt adds that the ID.2all next year will launch with physical buttons under the touchscreen for volume control, AC, fan speed, and hazard light. You know, like how all cars were before, and still do to this day.
RELATED: Make buttons great again – Volkswagen ditches capacitive steering controls for ‘real’ buttons
Back in 2023, Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schäfer promised that touch and haptic feedback-based systems – as found in the Golf Mk.8 and ID.4 – will no longer be in newer vehicles, as a result of customers complaining about how unintuitive they are.
The changes were eventually seen in the Mk 8.5 Golf, with physical buttons returning on the steering wheel, and the touch slider underneath the screen now (at least) featuring illumination during low light or dark situations. Unfortunately, us Malaysians are still not blessed with the Mk 8.5, despite the Golf R now being locally assembled here in Malaysia.
Nevertheless, expect to see physical buttons make a return to future Volkswagen EVs like the ID.2all next year, and most definitely the ID.EVERY1 in the following year after that. Let’s hope that the German marques’ move of bringing back an old-school way of controlling car functionalities is adopted by other carmakers globally.
READ: Volkswagen Golf Mk8.5 debuts – manual dropped but GTI gets power boost
