Volkswagen is bringing back physical buttons

Volkswagen is planning a return to physical buttons in its future vehicles over haptic sliders and touchscreen toggles for vital functions such as climate controls. The automaker’s design head Andreas Mindt told Autocar that the company “will never, ever make this mistake again” and promises to bring together physical controls for volume, heating controls, fan speed, and hazard light activation below the touchscreen for all cars starting with next year’s ID 2all.

Mindt also says the decision to bring back physical buttons was based on customer feedback. “Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car,” said Mindt. “We understood this.”

Volkswagen isn’t the only automaker to have a physical-over-digital epiphany as of late. Last year, Hyundai said focus groups were “stressed, annoyed, and steamed” when they couldn’t control something in a pinch. Hyundai and Kia took a touchscreen-heavy approach in their EVs, such as the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Kia EV6. Meanwhile in China, Xiaomi has accessory options for customers to add their own physical controls.

The trend toward digital interfaces was kicked off more than a decade ago by the Tesla Model S with its impressively big central touchscreen. Slowly, the company removed other physical controls, including transmission and turn signal stalks. The latter was resurrected in the new Model Y and may return to the Model 3.

Volkswagen’s change comes at an interesting time as the EU’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) is set to introduce new rules next year that require cars to have certain physical controls to achieve a full five-star safety rating.

And it conflicts with the sentiment of some auto executives, including Rivian software chief Wassy Bensaid, who called in-car buttons “an anomaly” and predicted that soon everything will be controlled digitally through voice.