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 absolutely agree that everything on your list should be a physical control. I wonder if the haptic feedback on MacBook touchpads that allows them to feel like they’re clicking even when they don’t move could be built into a center screen display – I would appreciate some physical feedback even from things that can remain inside menus.
I’ll trade your trunk release, I mean who ever uses a trunk release while driving, for cruise control.
Can we add parking brake lever/pedal to the list as well? Nothing burns my ass like a stupid electronic parking brake.
[VINCENT]
I know, baby, you’d dig it the most.. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
[JULES]
What?
[VINCENT]
It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there they got here, but, it’s just, just, there it’s a little different.
[JULES]
Example?
[VINCENT]
Alright, you can walk into a car dealership and have your pick of station wagons – with button controls!! But they don’t call it a wagon.
[JULES]
They don’t call it a wagon?
[VINCENT]
No, they’ve got their own terminology. They call it an Estate.
[JULES]
Damn, Ford Focus ST Estate. Oh, man, I’m goin’, that’s all there is to it. I’m fuckin’ goin’.
Hell yeah, fuck all this shit getting put in fucking screens…gimmee a million buttons/knobs!
Dedicated screen OFF button please, please, please. We’ve put off buying a new vehicle because of all the darned screens and nothing available with a squared off back (hatches that are angled chop off large dog’s heads).
A cruise control stalk or steering wheel controls is a must. Also radio seek and scan buttons.
The general theme of this thread is basically bring back all the buttons, leave the navigation map on the screen, and go back to the tried and true controls which were proven safe. Controls you can use at high speeds by feel alone. No one back in the ‘90s was calling buttons unsafe.
And while we’re at it, give me a back window I can see out of and a C or D pillar that’s not ridiculously wide. Surely with all the high strength steel on cars these days, thinner roof pillars which would give the driver better all around vision could be safely engineered.
PS: do something about out of control bright headlights.
Can we agree that having similar controls activate in the same manner would be a good thing? Think about the turn signal stalk (example for most of us, lesson for BMW owners and most others in the DC/Baltimore area): up is the right turn signal, down is the left turn signal. Would love to see a standard for headlight switch on the stalk and wiper controls. I have a few vehicles and it is aggravating that the wiper control is not the same among them and have to relearn every time I change for a day.
Sorry Torch the radio volume can be on the steering wheel without physical knob on the dash. I am very comfortable with using these now. If the passenger wants to adjust the volume they are free to fiddle with the touch screen. It’ll give ’em something to do
I’ve had steering wheel volume controls in most of my cars and still use the volume knob at least as much, maybe still more. Steering wheel is good for small adjustments, but for larger changes in a flash the knob is better. Especially if switching between audio sources that have different volume levels – and I don’t have a mode control on my steering wheel in my current car so I have to go to the center stack anyway.
Buttons on the wheel are nice, but having a knob as an emergency backup is also good. I’ve had wheel-mounted buttons on a couple different cars fail now.
Funny you mentioned the failure of steering buttons. I have aToyota where the failure went the other way. The volume on the radio went but the steering wheel buttons still worked. Good to have a backup
I would add hood release, door locks and electric sunroof shall have physical buttons.
Anything that needs ready access in an emergency.
Case in point: https://www.businessinsider.com/angela-chao-foremost-group-death-tesla-gearshift-reverse-drowning-accident-2024-3
This is such a messed up way to die. I’m sure more details will still be revealed, but her sister was head of the FTA, and between her and Mitch… this might actually have some sway in the U.S. regs.
Fuck teslas, fuck tesla fanbois, and fuck Elon.
Mechanical latches for doors, non-touch shifters, turn signal stalks, etc… this is the ONLY way.
That and the standardised automatic gearbox selector. So many modern vehicles have different approaches of selecting the gears that befuddle lot of drivers who are unfamiliar with the different vehicles. Since the car hire agency removed all of the owner’s handbooks from their vehicles (they were often stolen and sold in eBay for profit). I had to walk long way back to the customer service representative who called for the technician to come and show me the ropes.
Another item I’d like to see European NCAP adding is the issue of the new LED taillamps that have gotten more microscopic and more painfully glaring, especially when waiting for the traffic light to turn green at night. Some of them are so close together that it’s harder to tell the red brake lamps and amber turn signal indicators apart. The newer Opel models have the tiniest and most glaring taillamps.
Yes, this is a huge issue. We were on vacation with some relatives recently and we got stuck trying to leave a parking garage because of this. The gear shift on the rental Mitsubishi SUV was so non-intuitive that the driver couldn’t get the car out of park in the amount of time that the exit gate would stay open. It took 3 or 4 cycles of struggling to get the gate to open by waving a card around a poorly marked sensor and then struggling to get the car to move forward as it would not easily go between park and drive.
Is that Buick display a rendering, or did they ship thousands of cars with “Gauges” misspelled?
No, that’s just how GM spelled it at the time
I agree with this, that physical buttons are necessary to access some vital functions in the car.
But the counterpoint is China. From my observation, voice activation is a big thing among Chinese drivers now, and many of them simply yell at the car to get it to do whatever (“turn on the wipers, increase the temperature”). Thus they don’t mind the screens as much because it merely serves as a display and not something to interact with as much.
It’ll be interesting to see whether there’ll be any sort of pushback.
If it works 100% of the time, I’d potentially be OK with it as an adjunct to the stalks. There’s no way I’m telling the car to turn the blinker on. But temperature or fan adjustments? That could be cool, especially if you’re holding a cup of coffee.
I doubt it, not from China at least. Their OEMs know they’re in the position to prove themselves so every time Euro NCAP rolls out a new test they get right to work figuring out how to ace it so they can advertise ‘5-star safety!’ So at a guess this would just have them developing specific Euro/ROW market dashboards with more physical controls.
More likely VAG is going to get their panties in a twist and figure out how many regulators they can pay off to keep their stupid unlit touch-slider HVAC nonsense.
In my work Hiace, because you sit over the front wheels you feel every bump in the road. It always seems that I hit a bump whenever I try to press a ‘button’ on the screen and my finger jumps to the adjacent selection, even if I brace the rest of my hand on the dash using my thumb. I keep accidentally phoning my office manager’s mobile instead of my home phone!
That is what I love about my semi truck. 2021, touch screen was still optional and most of the controls are giant rocker switches with a satisfactory snick when used. I prefer controls that let you know you used them.
Today’s touchscreen based controls really push all of my buttons.
I can’t believe we have to say this but I would add opening the car doors to the minimum list.
I don’t think anyone has put that in the touch screen yet but they have made a few that are 100% electronically activated through buttons or Haptic Touch etc.
for safety reasons in a crash the doors should be required to be mechanically activated.
For that matter, let’s add steering, accelerating, and braking!
Agreed. There’s no control too important, that someone hasn’t thought about making a touchscreen
Only manually activated*
All of the electric ones I have seen do have a mechanical backup, but often not intuitive and therefore useless in an emergency.
Jason I couldn’t possibly agree with you more.
Touch screens (or touch buttons) are ok for certain things, but def not cool for things wipers, turn signals, shifters, fucking glovebox releases?!?!!??!!