Euro NCAP Director Matthew Avery emphasizes: the driver should not waste time searching for the wiper function in a maze of menus. Regulators are concerned that drivers are increasingly resembling operators of complex interfaces rather than people watching the road.
This development was predicted earlier. In 2019, Volkswagen presented the eighth-generation Golf as a car with simple and intuitive controls, where almost no physical buttons remained. However, in practice, things turned out not so rosy: owners complained about inconveniences, so VW admitted the miscalculation. Now the brand's chief designer, Andreas Mindt, states that new models will return to traditional buttons for adjusting temperature, sound, and even hazard lights.
Other automakers are also revising their approach. The Mazda CX-60, for example, has a large touchscreen display, but the most important functions can still be activated with physical switches. At the same time, the overall market trend remains in favor of touchscreens: according to S&P Global Mobility, 97% of cars produced after 2023 are equipped with touch panels. The reason is simple — such a solution is cheaper to produce and allows for standardizing interfaces.
But buyers are increasingly voicing the opposite opinion. A survey conducted by the British publication What Car? showed that 89% of drivers want to see familiar buttons in the cabin. The example of Tesla is telling, where even the glovebox is opened through the screen menu — while driving, this forces one to be distracted from driving.
Former Dean of the Faculty of Design at Northumbria University, Stephen Kiffin, adds: touch panels provide no tactile feedback, so the driver has to constantly look at the screen. This increases the load on the brain and negatively affects safety.
Automakers, meanwhile, are looking for alternative solutions. Mercedes-Benz, for instance, is introducing ChatGPT into its cars to replace some buttons with voice commands. However, research shows that such systems currently distract rather than help and can be even more dangerous than drunk driving.
