If you manage to meet someone who genuinely prefers their basic car controls – radio volume, HVAC controls, wipers, glove box latch, and so on – as little icons they tap with their finger in some menu on a touchscreen as opposed to an actual, physical control, then I encourage you to abandon your sense of morality and pitch a tent over them and charge admission. Maybe let people poke them with a stick for an extra two bucks. Because I cannot imagine who actually prefers touchscreen controls for basic functions, and now it seems Europe agrees. Europe’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), according to a report in The Times, has decreed that by 2026, cars that put a certain set of essential controls in a touchscreen interface will be penalized with a lower safety score. Good! Make them hurt, NCAP!
This is how Matthew Avery, the director of strategic development for Euro NCAP, puts it:
“The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes. New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving.”
Yes, yes, Matthew, exactly! To use a touchscreen, you have to look at a touchscreen, because, despite its name, there’s very little “touch” involved. The screen is a featureless expanse of smooth glass, so there’s no way to feel where a given control is. Full visual attention must be removed from the road and focused on the screen to operate the interface and any controls within it.
So, what are the essential tasks Euro NCAP mandates must be freed from the digital prison of a touchscreen? There are a few must-have controls listed, including turn indicators, hazard warning lights, windshield wipers, horn, and some manner of emergency call/SOS button. But it doesn’t appear a full, definitive list has been finalized.
This is a very good step, though I don’t think it goes quite far enough. For one thing, it’s just giving cars poorer safety scores if they shove everything into touchscreen interfaces instead of, say, imprisoning an automaker’s CEO in some manner of cage or pen or terrarium if they do so, which is another viable option worth considering.
Also, if/when Euro NCAP or perhaps the American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) comes to me and asks for my definitive list of controls that may never be shoved deep into some touchscreen interface, I’m ready. Here’s what I think the absolute minimum set of easily-accessible physical controls should be:
• Turn indicators (must be on a stalk or stalk-like protuberance, no inane buttons on the steering wheel)
• Horn (ideally a smackable area in the center of steering wheel)
• Lights (even if auto lights, you should be able to turn them on/off at will, and this goes for high beams, too)
• Hazard lights (big, obvious)
• Windshield wipers (the washer controls, too)
• Radio volume (a big round knob, no touch slider bullshit)
• Gear selector (if auto; PRNDL with a physical selector that is not a round knob that can get confused with the volume knob)
• HVAC controls (temperature, fan, defrost/defog/vents selection)
• Glove box latch (don’t fucking test me)
• Trunk release
These ten controls are the minimum I think that need to be always-available physical controls. Ideally, they’d even have standardized locations, so muscle memory can help out, like it already does with our use of a car’s pedals and steering wheel. You know how your hand instinctively feels for a turn signal lever even on those stupid cars that don’t have one? That’s a good response, and our bodies/brains’ ability to do that sort of thing automatically should be rewarded, not fought.
All of those ten functions are things you may want to activate or change immediately, at any time, without warning. A sudden downpour happens – you don’t want to navigate a menu and take your eyes off the road, you want to move your hand in a practiced, expected way and your wipers turn on. Your music is up loud and you missed a turn, so you need to turn the volume down quickly so you can focus. You’re driving on a dark road at night and you’re cold, you just want to reach down and feel the control that will make you warm. All of these actions are important, and none should demand your full visual attention.
I wouldn’t even mind seeing things go further by taking a page from aircraft design, which has standards for knob shapes so they can be identified by touch alone:
Fundamentally, the use of an illuminated touch-screen interface to perform common tasks while driving just makes no sense. There are too many trade-offs: the need for full visual and motor-skill attention to find and poke at an on-screen button; the potential for interface lagginess or loss of controls due to unrelated software/computer hardware issues; the visual issues associated with night driving and shifting your gaze from dark road to illuminated screen then back to the dark road; the possibility of crucial controls changing physical location without warning; and so on. What are the benefits, exactly? It must save money for carmakers, but beyond that? It’s cool to people who got their first smartphone last week?
The seemingly inexorable march to move physical controls into on-screen interfaces needs to be stopped, and if we need to do it with a bit of regulation, then, well, so be it. Carmakers are going to do whatever is cheapest, which seems to mean touchscreen-based controls. So, for people who actually drive, who wear gloves in winter, or want to crank the AC without having to scroll through crap like we’re on Instagram, it’s time to make our feelings known.
Euro NCAP has taken a good first step. Let’s be inspired by this example and see what we can do here in America. If we can keep our children from ever having to open a glove box by navigating through some stupid menus on an LCD screen, then we’ll have done our part.
I don’t know of anybody who likes the movement from mechanical switches and knobs to touchscreens, but I also don’t personally know any Tesla stans. I’m not stating that there’s a connection there for sure, but I would not be surprised that if there are those who prefer touchscreens, that they would be among that group.
You’re totally correct. To the Tesla fanboisz that defend it, if Tesla had not taking the “all touch” route…. come on… you’d never miss it and you’d find something else stupid to defend (like falcon wing doors).
I do not think it has anything to do with people liking it; I think it is a cost thing.
By installing a touchscreen display you are taking a TON of physical switches and condensing them into one unit that communicates via a simple two-wire CAN connection. You are cutting the component cost as well as the amount of wire used and connections terminated as well as simplifying the harness. The material and labor savings over thousands of cars is significant.
It was a joke.
Yes that’s why Tesla does it, but Tesla-stans will come up with excuses for why it’s a better way to do it.
Tesla interiors are equipped like some miserable shitbox like a tata nano but with an iPad glued to the dash.
I got into an FB tussle with a Tesla-stan about this exact subject the other day. He was all about the “clean look”, and when I asked him what he’d do if the screen failed and you can’t turn on the defroster, he laughed at me and said “first world problems. I’d just use the app. get over it.”
When I asked him what he’d do if the whole unit was hardware bricked, he just laughed and exited the conversation.
Having experienced hardware bricking before, it’s no damn laughing matter. Frankly, being that cavalier about a basic system that can absolutely affect safe operation is disgusting.
(I didn’t even bother with the argument that a dash that barren historically has been considered the poverty spec model…)
No to the boot release. You never want to open your boot (trunk) while driving. (RIGHT?). You don’t need any control to open the boot from inside the cabin. You can just walk to the back of your car and open it from there.
I like cable operated ones, that will work properly even if the battery is empty. Not essential, but I enjoy cars that have them.
It’s useful for Uber/taxi drivers. They can open the boot for passengers to load their luggage without the driver having to get out of the car.
Of course it’s useful. But it’s not essential. Much less that it’s a physical control.
Or, having the only control for the latch inside the vehicle. A requirement for an external latch control like a lock would be great.
Can we all say “AMEN AND YES PLEASE!”
I’d vote for putting the “infotainment” screen on the not-safe-enough list as well. The only thing that’s really good for is the nav system, and I’m pretty sure most if not all will tell you when you need to change roads to follow a route.
Anything that takes the driver’s attention away from, well, driving in unnecessary and potentially dangerous, in my view.
In that features should be locked out while driving yes.
But that the infotainment should have physical controls, god no. Every mouse pointer or joystick or whatever is absolute trash.
Totally agree with Torch. And, while not an immediate safety issue like some controls, I’d love to kill with extreme malice the trend toward screen-controlled HVAC vents.
Sometimes I want cool air on my face, sometimes on my body, sometimes on my hands. Yet someone decided that it would be kewler to poke a skeuomorphic screen icon instead of just grabbing a convenient tab or knob and pointing it toward my anatomy. And of course that bad idea was then replicated by alleged designers or UX experts for other vehicles.
Do interface designers no longer possess opposable thumbs?
I can’t imagine that servo controls for vents cost less than plastic tabs, so I’m not sure that even cost savings is an argument for this “feature.”
Everything I interface with that has been programmed to replace a mechanical device (that is simpler, dead reliable, cheap, easily repairable if it does break, and often requires no power) has me ever-more convinced that programmers are not human.
If the function was commonly available on cars of the early 1990s, then it should continue to be available via physical controls.
Select Compact Disc #6 requires a physical button so that I can change from the Gin Blossoms to the Refreshments with the necessary efficiency.
Let’s see if tesla can put a cigarette lighter in the touchscreen
Plot twist: The touch screen is about to become a single-use cigarette lighter.
The special smoke is a bitch to put back in once you let it out.
Torch laying a smackdown. I am so here for it!
This is great stuff. I am spoiled that all of my cars are old enough to still have physical buttons for everything, with exception of the new stereo I put in my GX470. The stock headunit started giving fits playing CDs, so I bought one of those $90 Chinese Android head units off of Amazon. It works fine, but unlike the $400 Chinese Android headunit, there is no volume knob. Luckily, the steering wheel controls still work for volume control, because trying to tap the capacitive buttons on the headunit is annoying and distracting.
Too bad Euro NCAP can’t really require much beyond just giving a safety score. They’re a voluntary, non-government body
“To get top safety marks” You are correct, they are not forcing automakers to add physical controls. They are preventing them from getting top marks if they wont add them. Headline is dense, but its accurate.
That’s funny. My edit seems to have gone through slowly. I still don’t think the article really addresses the point well enough. Ars didn’t gloss over the fact nearly as much
Hahaha, I retract my previous statements. I agree, the lead is a little buried there.
That still will have sway, though. Automakers making mass-market family haulers always try to hit those top marks because they’re a huge plus in the eyes of their customers. So then they have to do some calculus: Will the likely drop in sales from losing top-tier safety status cost the company more than it would to put the necessary buttons in?
Looks like we’re going to find out in a couple years.
Gas cap release should be physical, too.
And personally, the idea of knob shifters doesn’t bother me. In some vehicles others have pointed out they’re physically larger and distant from the volume knob. I’m just not sure what shifter design would be the best balance of “tiny + intuitive,” because that’s obviously what we want.
I read this as specifying that a rotary shifter needs to be physically distinct from a volume knob, not that it can’t be a round knob at all. Which I can get behind. I’m with you on the idea of making it intuitive and take up as little space as is practical. I’m still a fan of a stalk shifter, but rotary is good, too.
Ack, you’re right. Live and learn
to read.I get it. I had the same initial reaction.
Assume you mean gas filler door/cover. How about eliminate the stupid gas cover button all together. Thankfully I haven’t owned a car that requires a button to do that in ages.
I mean, it’s a security feature, isn’t it? I like the idea that it’s latched.
Maybe a little mini-T-handle on the dash like auto Corvairs had?
Overall, I applaud this. Physical buttons are fantastic for key features. I’m in a rental car Nissan Sentra and it has a physical home button on the infotainment screen. No more navigating to three menus in android auto to get back to the car UI to change my radio input….it’s amazing…
But I disagree with one button. It’s actually time to get rid of the headlight knob. Every car has a daylight sensor. There is literally no need to have manual control of your lights. In the age of LED DRLs and screens in your car, there are too many people oblivious that their lights are off. Just automate the feature. Furthermore, if the windshield wipers are on, turn the lights on. It’s like two lines of code.
It’s time for the headlight switch to go. Leave a button for auxiliary lights and that’s it. If you want a manual option to turn the auto lights off, youncan bury that in a menu. I’m tired of seeing cars driving at night with their DRLs.
Thank you for listening to my TEDtalk
Where I live it frequently gets very foggy during the day in the summer, often surprisingly suddenly, without necessarily being dark enough to trigger automatic lights. So while I agree with you that auto lights are desirable and should probably be the default, there can be a need for manual control and it needs to be available ASAP, not buried in the info screen.
Fair enough on a manual override.
Headlights need to be on in the rain. Auto sensing doesn’t seem aware of this law, but it does love to go on and off after passing under every f’n 4-lane bridge depending on outside light. No, f all the automatic BS—not one thing programmed to intuit my desires has ever done so correctly. I’ll just do it myself, thank you, especially the fraction-of-a-second tasks that are so easy and intuitive that a sloth wouldn’t fret over the caloric output it requires.
I’m not disagreeing with you per se, but every time I see a driver too dumb to realize their headlights are off (and that’s the reason I’m flashing them) I just feel like this should be mandatory. Make a manual override but for God sakes just put on your damn headlights at night. What’s scarier to me is the giant LCD instrument clusters blooming in their face bc of daylight mode.
Not wanting to go too far down a rabbit hole, but any manual-off headlight switch should default to auto-on when the car is started. I rent a couple dozen cars a year for work and it seems like every lot-lizard shuts the headlights off for shuttling cars around the rental parking garage. Then the unsuspecting renter gets in their totally unfamiliar rental car and drives off with no headlights but their dashboard is aglow.
They’ll still be driving in daytime rain conditions with their lights off because the automatic systems don’t work (at least the ones I’ve tried).
It’s also about time that windshield wipers on = headlights on. If we have auto wipers, why isn’t this already done
Peterbilt 389s have had the option to turn the headlights on with the wipers since 09. Funny how a semi truck that is deliberately designed to be archaic has that feature but most modern cars dont.
The headlights in my ’13 Sonic were a good example of how an automatic system should be made. Default mode is “on”, spring-loaded momentary rotary switch to turn them either “off” or to “park”. If you turn the car off and forget to change it, they’re back on as soon as you restart the car.
Another couple use-cases for being able to manually shut off headlights:
And to anyone who complains that you burn out bulbs more frequently by leaving them on all the time:
What’s cheaper, a couple extra bulbs or a collision deductible? The latter is an especially important in our current monochromatic reality when most cars look like wet pavement.
I’m pretty sure my ’13 Volt uses that same parts bin rotary switch. It works very well.
“not one thing programmed to intuit my desires has ever done so correctly.”
That’s a beautiful proclamation, and I too enjoy telling my car what to do,
with switches and knobs and toggles.
Don’t know where I was going with this, but, yes, I’m cherishing my
older, simpler car.
Maybe we’re just control freaks!
I am completely behind you to push for mandatory auto headlights. Without an option to turn them off.
I had a rental 2023 Corolla last year for a few days, and I still manually turned the headlights all the way past “auto” to the bottom “DRL Off” setting whenever I parked it.
My biggest beef is that 99% of the time, once I have turned the car off, I want the exterior lights off that instant. I absolutely hate when there’s a delay and you walk away from the car with any exterior lights still on.
I can totally get behind “headlights always on when car is on”; it’s when the car is parked or being exited that I still want granular control.
Luckily that’s usually a setting that can be changed – increased time or turned off entirely. What’s silly to me is my VW will turn the lights off with the ignition and then back on after I open the door, I guess to start the timer, instead of just leaving them on like most other cars.
Also that ‘DRL off’ setting – Toyotas are notoriously the cars I see without any illumination on at all in the rain, that I know have auto controls. Other makes with an auto off setting at least usually keep the DRLs on.
No, there still needs to be an option to turn them off- there are certain transport situations (like car ferrys) that for the sake of their loading crew not being blinded require you to turn off your headlights even at night. You can make the button inconvenient and a deliberate action, but it has to exist.
I strongly disagree with this. I run into far too many edge cases here where auto lights get confused. I also don’t think the fault lies in the knob, rather, the fault lies in the dashboards. Every pre 2010 car I have owned or driven has a dashboard that was DARK and impossible to see at night before turning on the lights. Every car I have driven since then has a dashboard that looks completely lit up even when the exterior lights are on. Combine that with an aggressive DRL, and I can understand how people no longer realize their lights are on.
I would personally welcome a regulation that capped brightness on dashboards without the lights being on.
I always want to be able to kill all lights, instantly.
Nothing nefarious in that, no, not at all. . .
It doesn’t need to be nefarious on your part, it could be that you’re trying to evade someone else up who’s up to no good and need the car running to make a sudden break (plus, if you shut the car off to kill the auto lights, the damn interior lights will come on unless you’ve switched them off, but unless one is paranoid, it’s unlikely one has thought to do so before hand). Maybe a crazy ex is chasing you or crazy ex of a current SO or just some random whacko who felt you cut them off in traffic 10 miles ago. Hell, maybe you’re a teenager trying to sneak out of your GF/BF’s house without lights waking the parents up to tell them you didn’t leave 3 hours ago like you were supposed to!
<connery> “Engagshe caterpillar drive, shylent running.” </connery>
This is so blindingly obvious that it makes me violently angry that it has to be said. The “Well it’s good for us so the customer will get used to it” attitude almost always ends up annoying customers, losing market share, costing money when it has to be redesigned, and harming reputations. ALWAYS DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR THE CUSTOMER, EVEN IF THEY DON’T KNOW IT.
I think one fallacy is that automakers assume that because people are ok using their smartphone screens that they’d be ok interacting with their car in that way.
Touchscreens are terrible interactive mechanisms and especially on phones when that’s your only way to interact with a devices. But, as awful as touch screens are, their redeeming quality is the input flexibility since clearly it’s not feasible to carry around a keyboard and mouse with me everywhere to use my phone.
Cars don’t have this restriction, so from a UX perspective there’s absolutely no sane reason why someone’s primary interaction with a car’s controls (speaking to the core ones) should be with a touch screen.
I’m largely in agreement, but let’s add window and lock controls to the list. And be very clear that capacitive buttons are not buttons. I also want to count heated/ventilated seats as HVAC.
Oh, cruise control, too.
All of the above.
Also for automatic climate controls, the temp readout should be part of the climate controls, not the touchscreen. (Though it’s OK to have it in the screen as a backup).
Steering wheel, brake, and accelerator should be added to the list. Without pushback, that could be where we are headed.
Other than maybe defoggers, I have a feeling HVAC controls won’t get included. Same for radio other than maybe a volume control if it serves as the power button too. There will be pushback from manufacturers that it’s automatic, it can be voice controlled, use the steering wheel controls, etc etc. Regardless of whether that’s how the driver actually uses them.
Hopefully this will be very clear about tactile buttons for said functions, not a touch-sensitive general area (looking at you VW).
Voice controls can go get tossed into a landfill. Memorizing yet another set of voice commands is ridiculous. Plus passengers can interrupt. Or it’s loud enough where the computer misses the command. Just silly.
Totally agree – I’ve yet to encounter a voice command system that does the task quicker than a physical control. Even voice to text systems struggle get the message right in a controlled environment and end require editing to read coherently.
Beyond that, I’ve yet to encounter a voice command system that gets the command right the first time even 80% of the time.
I have automatic HVAC and I don’t like it, so I use it as manual. My temperature as an unintelligently designed organism changes as well as the weather and my clothing, so an auto system that tries to keep a single temperature does not do as well for me as it sounds like it should. I’ve had people say, “Well, just adjust the auto temperature to a different temp!” Yeah, that’s what I do, so that makes it essentially the same thing as manual HVAC except the dial displays a number instead of having a red-blue scale. It’s not like with a manual HVAC I was changing it every 10 miles, but if I still have to change it, then what’s the point of an auto setting (that also seems reluctant to blast heat or cold when the car is freezing or an oven from being parked)?
The auto HVAC in my RAV4 generally works fine. It cranks when cold/hot and ramps down. There are cases where it gets overridden. Like when I’m getting blasted by the sun in late afternoon during otherwise moderate outside temperatures. Or when fingers get cold.
Conversely, the auto HVAC in my RAV4 sucks, or rather, blows too much. There’s no reason for the fan to immediately go to max the second you start the car.
I used to have automatic HVAC and I did like it, but I would still make minute adjustments to the temp along the way and wouldn’t have wanted any of it consolidated to a touch screen. And in milder temps I would fiddle with it manually to not run the A/C just the fan too. Most people I know with auto controls don’t use it, just operate manually.
Similarly I felt that way about automatic headlights. Comes on in a garage regardless, goes on and off depending on shadows in early morning or evening, and without wiper activation wouldn’t even switch on in the rain. Now that I have wiper activation and LED headlights I’m less annoyed by it but still will sometimes use it manually. Burying that in a touch screen like GM on the Colorado/Canyon is a no from me.
I rarely open my glovebox, but it never happens when the car is on and I could access it through the screen.
Also I love the lead photo illumination options.
“Abso-lutely!” – Tim Heidecker’s father, probably
EU really coming out with banger after banger
Privacy protections, antitrust actions against big tech, and now BUTTONS IN CARS? They’re crushing it over there.
Can I add one more to the list – a parking/emergency brake.
When a car needs to be stopped from moving, I want to be damn sure that it’s anchored in place. I also want to be able to yank on a lever and induce rotational shenanigans, but that’s not really a safety justification the NCAP folks will agree with.
I sure do like a lever, even better than a pedal, because while you can ease it on with both, a handle in the middle can be applied by the passenger (especially valuable during driver ed sessions). But those little e-brake switches, even though they mimic a handle in terms of up/down activation and can be reached by the passenger (/instructor), are only either On or Off, which means oh yeah, you’re lurching. Great to avoid (at speed) hitting something or running off a cliff, but too jarring for gently teaching confident vehicle operation. Basically good only for not rolling in Park and testing seatbelts.
I think manual emergency brakes should be mandatory especially in EVs with almost every other aspect of braking done digitally. As unlikely as total-failure mode is, even if you have to be hit by an EMP at 70 mph to make the need happen, there needs to be an entirely non-computer-based way to haul the car down to a safe stop.
I’d like my fuel door release to be a physical button too. I’ve turned off the car before I unlatch the fuel door.
BMW does this great. If you have the key on you, you just push on the fuel door and it opens. W/o the key it’s locked. Makes it very simple.
Please refrain from tasting the knob.
Awww, but I need a new plague in my life!
Cool, this is a reg I can get behind.
Notably, it doesn’t actually stop manufacturers from doing everything through a touchscreen or capacitive buttons if they want to, they just won’t be able to advertise having a top safety rating if they do, so, dump physical buttons at your own sales risk (customers complaining apparently hasn’t been enough, LCDs have just become that cheap)
I very much prefer HVAC as physical buttons but my current car has some HVAC features only available by touch screen and it’s not that bad. I would substitute Lock/Unlock for HVAC in the list of 10 buttons.
I guess I also want window controls and probably sunroof, maybe these are just implied?
Nothing is implied when automakers can save a couple bucks
I have a 2015 GTI and I am SO tempted to get a Mk8 GTI or R… but the sunroof switch, which is perfect in the Mk7 – a little rocker that you push exactly how you want the sunroof to move – is a touch-sensitive thingy in the Mk8. Enough to stop me from buying what will probably be my last, new MT vehicle? probably not. But that physical switch is great!
My Bolt has a touchscreen menu for climate controls which I’ve never actually had to go to because all of the most commonly needed ones are in a nice row of physical controls (that are all identical so they can’t be done by touch, but it’s a start). Meanwhile, my Pacifica has everything routed through the “infotainment”, and if that goes haywire (which happens with infuriating frequency), then the A/C controls become “really, really hot” or “freezing” with a side of “full fan” or “off”.
My new Bronco has a button for directing air flow (defog, face, feet) but all the button does is bring up a menu on the touch screen. So while I can find the button without looking, I still need to take my eyes off the road to interact with the touchscreen. I wish there was at least a fallback to scrolling through the options by continually tapping the button. I mean, there’s only 8 total combinations of the three options, anyway.
Sanity? In the car industry? That’s asking a lot.
Hear hear!!!