Volkswagen to reintroduce physical buttons – “we will never, ever make this mistake anymore”

Well, we knew this was going to happen someday. Nearly six years after Volkswagen ditched hard buttons and switches in favour of haptic touch controls, the company has had an about face, promising to bring physical controls back into its cars.

The proclamation was made by design boss Andreas Mindt in an interview with Autocar, in which he also confirmed the change will be made starting with the production Polo-sized ID.2all next year. The car will feature a row of toggles under the touchscreen to control vital features.

“From the ID.2all onwards, we will have physical buttons for the five most important functions – the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light – below the screen,” he said. “They will be in every car that we make from now on. We understood this.

“We will never, ever make this mistake anymore. 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.”

Touch-based capacitive controls were first seen on the ID.3, featuring on the steering wheel and also under the screen, the latter in the form of sliders for the temperature and volume. Rather hilariously, those sliders were not illuminated, meaning that searching for the right controls at night was guesswork at best and accident-inducing at worst.

Volkswagen had already begun to change course last year when it gave the facelifted Mk8.5 Golf physical steering wheel controls (and illuminated the sliders), but this is the first time it has openly admitted to making a mistake with touch controls. The interior of the recently-unveiled ID.Every1 concept emphatically embraced hard buttons, including the aforementioned toggles.

Of course, not every touch-based function has been expunged, as Volkswagen will still offer its cars with touchscreens. This, said Mindt, is partly due to legal requirements in the US for cars to come with reverse cameras for safety reasons.

“There are a lot of functions you have to deliver in certain areas, so the screen will be big and you will find a lot of HMI [human-machine interface] contents in the depths of the system,” he added. “But the five main things will always be on the first physical layer. That’s very important.”

So, good job Volkswagen on realising your past transgressions. Next, how about putting all four window switches back on the driver’s door?

GALLERY: Volkswagen ID.Every1 Concept

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