You hate the touch controls in your car and brands know it, but a dark reason makes them look the other way
Little by little, car manufacturers are reversing a trend that has ended up being a fiasco: eliminating physical buttons and replacing them with touch controls and digital screens. But don't think this is due to a mistaken interpretation of what the market demanded.
The trend is changing, but it is doing so very slowly. Not too long ago, Tesla decided to eliminate the touch indicators on the steering wheel, while Volkswagen admitted it had made a mistake by betting so heavily on this technology (a circumstance that has even led to a lawsuit).
Mercedes has also taken the step, but there is still a long way to go to reverse a trend that seemed to have been born to please an increasingly digital and connected user.
But if both studies and customer opinion surveys make it clear that having to operate the climate control, audio, or cruise control system without physical buttons causes such rejection, why is it so difficult for manufacturers to retrace their steps?
"It will make sense for the entire product lifecycle, which is usually five to eight years"
Tesla started it all
The obsession with eliminating buttons has its origin in the cult of modernity that Tesla initiated with the Model S in the early 2010s. That almost bare cabin of switches made the rest of the industry jump into the pool without checking if there was water.
Honda, for example, even removed the classic volume knob only to later bring it back with much fanfare. As the then-executive of Honda North America, Jeff Conrad, acknowledged when presenting the fifth-generation CR-V in 2017: "Our customers and, frankly, many of you, said: 'We want the knob back'".
Brands have known for a long time that customers want buttons, but they keep stumbling over the same stone. Why? In two words: money and fashion. "The reason the industry followed this path in the first place is because it is costly to place buttons and physical controls in a vehicle", explains Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research at Telemetry.
"There is a lot of engineering effort involved in designing them, in validating all those components. And from a manufacturing perspective, it adds a lot of complexity to develop a dashboard or steering wheel that has physical controls", he adds.
Tesla demonstrated that it was possible to do without them, following in Apple's footsteps with the iPod and iPhone. And as cars have become more complex, it seemed logical to group functions on screens: "The logic was: 'We are adding a lot of functions, we can't have 300 buttons on the panel'", points out Abuelsamid. "The touchscreen is the next logical step in that progression. But you have to find a balance between those extremes, all touchscreen vs. all physical, if you're going to have so many functions in a car".
That balance is slowly starting to arrive. "When Tesla did it, I don't think the rest really did any research," Abuelsamid considers. "They did what they thought, what they wanted to do. I think the rest of the industry should have done more research on human factors to really see what the right solution was".
A matter of cost savings
Abuelsamid is right regarding a solution that turned out to be ideal for saving costs in a context of increasing technological and electronic complexity. And, to make matters worse, digital screens began to plummet in price, which gave the final boost to car manufacturers.
"One of the main reasons we saw this avalanche towards screens and softer or haptic touch surfaces is because the development costs of these screens have plummeted over time", explains Robby DeGraff from AutoPacific.
At an industrial scale, every penny counts. Volkswagen, for example, refused to bring back buttons to the steering wheel of the Golf R —although it did so in the GTI— because "it would have been too expensive and would take a lot of time to modify a circuit board and print a new plastic part".
Even so, the pendulum is already starting to move. "People want the real touch", says DeGraff. In fact, an AutoPacific survey reveals that 48% of drivers prefer dials or buttons, and almost half believe that vehicles have too much content displayed on screens and that is not safe".
And, although 60% admit they like "the clean look of screens instead of buttons and dials", the message is clear: not everything is a matter of minimalist design.
Manufacturers know this, but time is against them. "The long useful life cycles of automotive products are an important factor", recalls Stephanie Brinley from S&P AutoIntelligence.
"The Center Stack technology [the vertical column or 'stack' of controls, screens, and systems found in a vehicle's central console] is designed as a base for multiple products, and making a change affects more than one vehicle", Brinley recalls. "It will make sense for the entire product lifecycle, which is usually five to eight years".
Indeed, buttons will return, but at a snail's pace. "I think we will see the pendulum swing back to somewhere between the two extremes of all touchscreen and all buttons," predicts Abuelsamid. "It won't necessarily be exactly the same solution for everyone, but I think it will be closer to being an optimal solution for most vehicles".
