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Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons
- teddyX 6mo agoGood move. Nothing like mechanical buttons
- ginkgotree 6mo agoCool. But how about they also do something to help prevent the entire EV market going to China.
- amelius 6mo agoLaudable. But I'd rather read about how they plan to fight Chinese EVs.
- ginkgotree 6mo agoYep.
- cf100clunk 6mo ago> how they plan to fight Chinese EVs. Mercedes-Benz?
- greenavocado 6mo ago> how they plan to fight Chinese EVs. Legislatively
- markus_zhang 6mo agoHow much revenue of German cars comes from China? Maybe they can hike the import tax.
- baq 6mo agoLobbying probably since no one can on manufacturing
- adrr 6mo agoIs it manufacturing? Tesla and Mercedes have factories in china including partnerships with chinese manufactures. Or is it the design of the car? Chinese companies shelled huge sums of money to hire the best car designers from Europe. Don't let your competition hire away your top talent.
- cbg0 6mo agoThe same way they've fought cheaper ICE brands: delivering higher quality materials, a fancy badge and a great driving experience. Currently the Chinese EVs are cheap, but far from Merc levels of refinement.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoAre you sure about that last sentence? Plenty of Chinese EVs are as refined as luxury brands, such as seen here: https://youtu.be/xiFmuoBIyjQ https://youtu.be/xiFmuoBIyjQ
- SpicyLemonZest 6mo agoI'd love to have some of these cars in my local market, but at 3:15 this guy explicitly makes the comparison and says they're not up to Mercedes-Benz level.
- amelius 6mo agoIf you watch the entire video you see that this remark is just a minor nitpick on one of the dozens of cars in that video. They could very easily replace that piece of plastic wood by real wood to fix it.
- SpicyLemonZest 6mo agoThe fact that it'd be easy to replace strengthens the negative signal. If they're cutting corners in a highly visible portion of the car which would have required no additional engineering to do right, they're probably cutting more corners in ways that are harder or impossible to see. No review video will reveal, for example, whether they used a poor quality adhesive or the button labels show visible wear within months.
- amelius 6mo agoIf you review 10 cars and 1 turns out to make a questionable choice for some minor aspect, then suddenly the car is bad, and not only that, all of them are bad? Sorry but if the German car industry thinks like this it is just grasping at straws.
- manoDev 6mo agoFight? This year, the Chinese Geely turned the largest shareholder of Daimler (MB). They own Volvo as well.
- WalterBright 6mo agoUnmentioned is touchscreens frequently don't work. I often have to make repeated presses on my iphone until it registers. The same with swipes. Since there is no audible or tactile feedback, this cannot work well while keeping your eyes on the road.
- wat10000 6mo agoI think something might be wrong with your phone. Or your finger.
- pixl97 6mo agoAh yes Jobs, just hold the phone right.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoThat's pretty weird and indicates your phone or its touchscreen might be defective, you should get it looked at, because other than with old resistive touchscreen phones I've never had capacitive touchscreen phones need multiple presses.
- WalterBright 6mo agoI've had multiple Apple touchscreen products. The same on all of them. Sometimes I have to lick my fingertip to get it to register.
- eep_social 6mo agoMy understanding is that as people age their skin stays drier and causes this issue. The parent post is a chef’s-kiss-perfect illustration of the problem with modern tech.
- 2143 6mo agoWe’re going off track, but I’m curious as to whether you experience this problem only on Apple devices, and not – for example – Android devices? (btw, it’s an honor to be able to reply to you; hope you’re doing well :) )
- nokeya 6mo agoI’m quite suspicious that they do that not because they understood or learned something, but because China requires physical buttons starting next year. And they simply don’t want to lose one of their biggest markets.
- riffraff 6mo agoI hadn't heard of this china regulation. Perhaps we will have a "Beijing regulatory effect" positively impacting the world like the Bruxelles and California ones.
- throw848tjfj 6mo agoAlready happening, best example is worldwide grounding of Boeing 737 MAX. It was China who triggered it, not US authorities (protecting US corporation). Similar thing with batteries on airplanes, tube trains, ferries and underground garages. China cares about fire hazard, other countries care about ideology.
- wiseowise 6mo ago> other countries care about ideology Not even ideology anymore, see US. Democratic country has been attacked in a biggest war since WW2, and they've decided to halt all support and attack Iran instead.
- noelsusman 6mo agoChina, famous for never putting ideology over policy.
- Barrin92 6mo agounless you're going back to the cultural revolution, modern China is extremely pragmatic. It's a nominally socialist country that runs deregulated special economic zones with tens of millions of people and more economic competition than anywhere else. The equivalent would be if the US started to run a socialist planned city of 15 million people somewhere, just for the sake of it. There's pretty much no other place that in the last 30-40 years has as much of a spread of policy experimentation as China has had.
- DeathArrow 6mo agoPlease bring back physical gauges, too. I don't want to stare at a lcd while I'm driving.
- cf100clunk 6mo agoFor 4x4 pickup trucks, bring back physical transfer case shifters and get rid of the idiotic menus for that. Also bring back transfer case Neutral mode so that flat towing again becomes commonplace. A Jeep Gladiator pickup is a great vehicle but doesn't replace larger pickup trucks that have lost those great transfer case features.
- macintux 6mo agoOr automatic transmission shifters that behave differently than every previous car you’ve driven. RIP Anton Yelchin.
- wincy 6mo agoMy 2024 Sequoia has the heads up display and I really like it. Shows the mph, integrated turn directions with Apple CarPlay, and shows what song is playing without me having to take my eyes off the road. The only problem is since it’s a projector my wife and I have to use vastly different settings in order to see the HUD while driving. She didn’t realize it existed for nearly a year since we’re about a foot height difference and I’d set it up when we got the car.
- trinix912 6mo agoThis! The LCDs are a big eyestrain for me driving at night. I've dialed down the brightness but it's still nowhere near as pleasant as the old red-illuminated physical gauges.
- AnimalMuppet 6mo agoArgh. I just rented a car on a trip. It had a big central dial on the dash, which was not the speedometer. It was the fuel economy gauge. The speedometer was a digital readout in the center of that. Given the history of car user interfaces and what they have taught users to expect, it was a terrible design.
- hackerlytest 6mo agoI really like what Jony Ive did with Ferrari. It’s the perfect blend of digital and analog instruments. High quality material and finishing. Many of these German car companies are following what sells well in Chinese markets, more and more screens. IMO, nothing beats the feeling and assurance of tactile buttons/toggles/knobs.
- tris_timb 6mo agoJust commented the same thing! I loved the clock turning to a compass and screens being set back
- cuu508 6mo agoFingers crossed the Chinese eventually figure out the screens are the mark of cheapness, and start demanding 100% physical controls.
- bilbo0s 6mo agoI'm a bit confused. Were you aware there is actually a law in China requiring physical buttons? I think from next year it applies to everyone. Not only Chinese makers. What were the other physical controls you were thinking of?
- dzhiurgis 6mo agoIt is really really good, loved it too. But doing on a niche car is such a waste of development resources (as all Ferraris are of course). Or maybe given this is going to be EV perhaps Ferrari is finally planning mass manufactured car, but I doubt.
- Bluestrike2 6mo agoI for one am quite happy that Mercedes is committed to a physical button for hazard lights, parking assist overrides, and the other controls that are used so very...rarely. Perhaps they'll do something about the less commonly used buttons like climate control for the next model redesigns in five to seven years. I really struggle to understand what's so damned difficult about this. They've admitted touchscreens annoy the hell out of drivers and capacitive touch buttons are even worse. Is it really going to take yet another lifecycle before they actually do something about it?
- greenavocado 6mo agoMy guess is that people impulse buy things that look sleek and shiny then suffer through the consequences
- macintux 6mo agoAnd many stupid decisions have no direct impact on the driver, but instead on those around the car. Like red beltline lights that don’t function as brake lights, instead using red lamps near the road that are easy to be obscured/ignored because the giant red lights above them look like brake lights. Or dashes that are fully lit at night even if the headlights aren’t on, so the driver doesn’t have an obvious visual indicator that their tail lights aren’t lit. So many rules I’d enforce were I king of the automakers.
- a96 6mo ago> Mercedes is committed They are not.
- shcheklein 6mo agoIf they have custromer feedback and focus groups like they mention how did it happen in the first place? Some overoptimistic head-of-something? Really curious. I own previous -2021 mb and had to drive the upgrade (touch buttons) once as a replacement car. UX is terrible. Period. I even checked then in the dealership what they did to S-class and mybachs - and yes, same crappy wheel, etc. Anyways, I was mostly surprised that they didn’t know this before. Something is wrong with their research / decision making.
- aurareturn 6mo agoThat was my first thought. How did they go all screen if they ran the study groups?
- Spooky23 6mo agoYou don’t know what the group was presented and how. Remember you have the stupid stuff that Tesla pushed hard during the peak Elon reality distortion field time. I regularly are in a Toyota, BMW and Honda, and all of these have well thought out touch/knob implementations.
- ryandrake 6mo agoIt's pretty straightforward to structure and conduct a focus group to give you the feedback that you want to hear. If the money guys told you "touchscreens save us 1% on the BOM, make it happen," then you could design your demos and question wording to ensure that your report said "customers love this shit."
- Spooky23 6mo agoOh totally. I’m just saying when this stuff was at its peak, everyone was excited about the future bullshit. I remember my father in law was legit excited about it, until he drove his new car for a few weeks!
- iterateoften 6mo ago
- Scene_Cast2 6mo agoWhat I'm surprised by is that cars are chock-full of ornate, unique parts (cupholders are a good example). I would have imagined that car infotainment controls would be a small fraction of the BOM, so I've been wondering if it's not really a cost thing. Sort of like small phones or 3D TVs from the early 2000's.
- garyfirestorm 6mo agoIf you can save a dollar on a part, and that part goes into millions of cars per year… then it will be on the chopping block. That cost and weight savings are then passed onto other things, better rear camera? More electrical current to charge your phone faster. Quicker HVAC operation? Everything is a compromise and tradeoff. Source - I work in an OEM.
- everdrive 6mo ago>better rear camera? More electrical current to charge your phone faster. Quicker HVAC operation? Modern vehicle luxury is disgusting and decadent.
- joe_mamba 6mo ago>If you can save a dollar on a part, and that part goes into millions of cars per year… then it will be on the chopping block. Mate, they're saving fractions of a cent on a part, let alone a dollar. You're probably getting promoted to CEO if you manage to save a dollar on a part. I've seen them cut 2mm of copper wiring in the ECU for the cost savings. 2mm! Also worked for an OEM.
- SpicyLemonZest 6mo agoYeah, I have to agree. People always talk about it that way, but to me it seems clear that removing buttons is just people trying to chase Tesla’s ball. There’s genuine consumer demand for buttons to go away in phones, kitchen appliances, etc., I’m not sure how obvious it was without hindsight that cars wouldn’t go the same way.
- HPsquared 6mo ago
- rolph 6mo agoit wont matter how many physical buttons you apparently have, if its not physical all the way through, that "button function" can be redefined, or taken away at any time.
- SilverElfin 6mo agoI’m seeing some brands say they have physical buttons but they aren’t the same. They’re more like touch based buttons that are not in a screen. And I feel they’re just as bad. I want to be able to use the button without looking. Like one car had a touch based slider for operating the air vents. Ridiculous
- teo_zero 6mo agoAnd for those commands that do not deserve a physical button and are only accessible via touch, please adhere to a few simple rules. 1. Put them always in the same place. Especially the "back" or "exit" button! 2. Each button should do one thing, not switch between 3 or more modes that you should look to understand which one you've just activated. Negative example: one button to cycle from cuise control, to drive assist, to speed limit, and back to off. 3. The area where a tap is interpreted as a button press should not also be where a swipe is recognized. In moving vehicles it is too easy for your finger to swing just an inch before touching the screen. 4. The active area of a virtual button must be large, larger than the icon it displays, so large that you shouldn't be distracted from driving just to aim at it!
- beachy 6mo agoAlso - move the tech forwards! Buttons can be cool. Software controlled detents for rotary encoder knobs, back lit stream deck style buttons, cool knobs that combine twisting and pulling in/out.
- ted537 6mo agoTwist it! Bop it!
- brikym 6mo ago1. Drives me crazy on iPhone. On Android there is one button to go back. Very simple. On iPhone sometimes it's top left, some times it's called 'done'. Sometimes the app doesn't have it at all and I have to use a menu instead.
- rwoerz 6mo ago[flagged]
- tris_timb 6mo agoI saw the new Ferrari dash and infotainment controls. They struck such a nice mix of digital and analog. Reminded my of the iPhone Dynamic Island and coincidentally designed by Jony Ive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv1btxCjVE
- oxag3n 6mo agoMore prevalent in luxury cars, although Japanese had their share of bad experiments as well. My 10yo Honda has all climate control buttons, but no volume knob, which is mitigated a bit by having volume button on the steering wheel. IMO luxury manufacturers like MB and BMW tried to squeeze larger screens, more of them and there was not enough space to put those screens, buttins and vents. Some luxuty brands make vents supper slim.
- grassfedgeek 6mo agoI hope Elon Musk can take a lesson from Mercedes. Tesla went in the other direction: there are barely any physical buttons to remove, so they removed the stalks for signaling and even for changing gear! You have to use the touch screen to shift gears!
- prymitive 6mo agoNo alphabro wants to learn from anyone else, they already know everything
- fasteddie31003 6mo agoTesla does a great job not having buttons. I think the real issue is that other car companies have bad interfaces that make physical buttons necessary. Tesla just has a great UI that does not need physical buttons.
- grassfedgeek 6mo agoEven a great UI requires you to take eyes off the road.
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoVoice control exists.
- a96 6mo agoNot when the great UI is a button or switch that's where you know it is and does one thing only. Can even argue that a HUD doesn't require eyes off the road at all, but regular dash instruments are readable at a short glance. Having to aim at controls on a smooth surface, let alone menu diving and things moving around, being hidden or otherwise depending on state is the problem.
- Synthetic7346 6mo agoI disagree, taking my eyes off the road to change climate controls is bad UI/UX
- aenis 6mo ago'He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." ' I am a big believer in keeping "product people" away from UI design for dangerous machinery. The eyes and the attention of the driver should be on the road. All the audio visual noise from the car is just plain dangerous. I don't want my car to draw my attention to itself for anything less than a critical engine/tyre pressure failures. I do not want beeps on anything else distracting me while I am driving. My Volvo will, for instance, flash the same type of visual alert when fuel level is low (permanent "do you want to navigate to a fuel station" modal window obscuring navigation, speedometer and so on) -- as when it encounters a serious engine malfunction. It will steal a bit of my attention when it pops up. One of those days, someone will have an accident because of this moronic design, its statistically certain. Same with wipers fluid level low. I need to click on the button to hide the message. It will on occasion beep very loud when it thinks I am not braking hard enough. The map in the google android car navi rotates when i am just trying to pan. When I want to select an alternative route I need to very precisely touch a very small area on the screen, and more often than not instead of selecting the alternative route it will actually rotate the map. It is clear to me that either the people designing car UIs are staying away from those cars, or are just incompetent. (Or, I guess, both).
- NotGMan 6mo agoThats what happens when you put engineers/programmers in charge of UI & UX development. Engineers should be delegated to the worker-bee level and you should just get some gear heads and some soccer moms to design to UI.
- wiseowise 6mo ago> Engineers should be delegated to the worker-bee level and you should just get some gear heads and some soccer moms to design to UI. This, but unironically.
- Barbing 6mo agoMUST include the elderly. Big Tech, WTF guys you let gen-z/millennials design your interfaces and ship w/e works for them alone? Seniors have money and can’t use your products
- lifestyleguru 6mo agoWhatever is happening in car industry, it is so unexciting, over-engineered, and too glossy. I'm so happy I don't have to work for people who prefer new car toy over paying me a decent salary.
- leke 6mo agoI don't own an EV yet, but if I ever do, I don't want a single screen. I don't even want electric windows.
- boredatoms 6mo agoYou may be interested in Slate truck/SUV https://www.slate.auto/ https://www.slate.auto/
- jim33442 6mo agoIt's not for sale yet
- jim33442 6mo agoElectric seats and windows are always the first thing to go in an old car. And they're so unnecessary.
- jim33442 6mo agoWow that interior in the article looks awful. I haven't driven a Mercedes since my C230 from 2004.
- Beijinger 6mo agoVW has commited already. Here a preview from the newest model: https://ibb.co/dYYMFWG https://ibb.co/dYYMFWG
- pokstad 6mo agoNeeds more buttons
- dzhiurgis 6mo agoCalculator on the left, dialpad on the right.
- a96 6mo agoFunnily, an old dialpad like dumb phones used to have would be a stellar text entry system for a navigator. Can type pretty fast without looking at the pad or a screen with a little practice. Unlike common touch screens where typing makes you want to murder someone even if you're warm and have all the time in the world.
- mihaelm 6mo agoI always wanted my car to feel like a plane pilot cabin.
- Beijinger 6mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuODGZ30vsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuODGZ30vsc
- prabhu-yu 6mo agoThere is another thing that reduces the safety of car - it is sunroof. In India, all top trims come with sunroof. I believe, sunroof can not provide the safety that of one without sunroof. More ever, it can absorb significantly more heat compared one without sunroof.
- jmyeet 6mo agoWhenever you add a touchscreen to something it makes the UI/UX a software issue instead of a hardware issue. You can ship updates. You can cheap out on UI/UX designing because you can ship it later. So you find commonly used features buried 4 menus deep. You also find that the positions of things in menus will randomly change by OTA updates. Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe. The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.
- speedgoose 6mo agoPrevious legacy car manufacturer to say so, that I remember, was Mazda in 2019. They now resell a Chinese EV with a very Tesla model 3 inspired interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_6e#/media/File%3AMazda6e_Automesse_Ludwigsburg_2025_DSC_2597.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_6e#/media/File%3AMazda6e... I didn’t find the original press release but you can find a lot of copies like the following article. https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-of-touchscreens-cars/ https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/mazda-getting-rid-...
- elorant 6mo agoToo little too late. I was a long time advocate of German cars, owned a bunch of them but after this fuckery with touch screens everywhere I moved to other brands and I’m staying there for the foreseeable future. BMW, Mercedes and VW have really dropped the ball when it comes to usability. At least BMW has a decent OS that kinda makes the whole experience less dreadful than that of the other two.
- eurekin 6mo agoNever understood any appeal of a screen inside a car: 1. Reflections make you tilt, just to make some pesky highlights go away. Even if they are angled properly, there's always something (like a sun reflected by a watche's face) what causes nuissance at any angle 2. Car can go from a tunnel to a sunny valley in few seconds. That's 5 to 8 stops of dynamic range difference, that a human eye is easily designed to handle. Auto adjusting screen brigtness is never as bright as necessary in sunny conditions. Even if it were, it would be a significant battery drain and an element, that heats the cars interior already unnecessarily. 3. You don't have pure blacks in many of them, so that annoying halo at the corner of the eye is often present. You can solve it with an OLED, but those are even worse in bright daylight 4. All of the usually mentioned tactile feedback facts - you can reach with your hand to a AC knob, feel it's current set by finding the bulge with a finger and gently turn exactly how you want them. Zero lag, no eye contact necessary at all (keep that on the road!), instant feedback. Nothing that any screen can ever give. 5. Biggest gripe of all - modality. I think that there were some high ranking studies done early in design exactly against this type of input for high risk applications. Modality is the biggest enemy of discoverability and throws extra delays into otherwise instant input. 6. If you use a LCD variant, they interact with sunglasses polarity filter and, at some orientations, can be blocked altogeter. As you often use sunglasses exactly, because you want to see the road the best, it's contrary to the main objective of the control again. 7. Refocusing. If you can use a tactile control, with a good feedback, you're freeing your eyes from the need to adjust it's lens to focus from far to near to far again. Not many people are aware, that this is even happening, and can lead to overestimating your ability to keep engaged attention on the road. I'd pay extra for a zero screen variant in a jiffy. Had I ever need to use a screen, I would've put my phone in a holder instead.
- r0fl 6mo agoTo expand on #4 WINTER AND GLOVES! Yes it’s a first world proven that I have to take gloves off to turn on my heated seats but buttons made sure stupid problems like this never happened in the first place
- eurekin 6mo agoTouchscreens can also leave fingerprints and those will catch light at any angle and reduce effective contrast
- dhorthy 6mo agofunctional programming taught us this decades ago. State is the root of all evil. If the outcome of my interaction with the interface (e.g. tap a place on the screen) is a function of not just where i tap but the last 2-6 places i recently tapped (menus etc) suddenly you've added massive complexity and mental overhead. can't wait to get back to a button that does the same thing every time every time i press it [1] tesla screens, carplay, mercedes screens, its been getting worse for a while 1) I know in reality most are sliders or an on/off toggle but the point stands
- gregorygoc 6mo agoCurrying is a thing in FP too.
- picsao 6mo ago[dead]
- raffael_de 6mo ago> He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen." This statement is logically on a level with something like "yesterday is colder than outside." ... he believes in screens - because if you want to connect - you have to make the magic work behind it? I mean what? This is Olympic level marketing bullshit. It's frightening that somebody blurting gibberish like that is heading a department. But then again this car company is anyway merely a pale shadow of its former self and about to get eaten by the Chinese and very deservedly so.
- swiftcoder 6mo agoIs is Mercedes-Benz deciding to bring back buttons, or is it that the EU's NCAP safety rating mandated that they bring back buttons, and they are spinning it as a voluntary decision?
- user3939382 6mo agoMy money is on the latter. I’ll take it, but being bullshitted by these big corporations is the norm. Auto makers have been aware for years of consumer sentiment around the physical dials is my guess based on the complete consistency I’ve seen.
- rsynnott 6mo agoI'd assume some combo of NCAP and the new Chinese rules, yeah. Though consumer backlash may also be a factor.
- resters 6mo agotouch screens in cars are mainly a cost saving measure, just like plastic that is supposed to look like wood (cheaper than real wood), or economy class tires instead of higher end tires, or steel rather than aluminum.
- platevoltage 6mo agoExactly why Tesla started doing it in the first place. I don't know if it's cheaper to build at scale, but it's definitely cheaper to engineer.
- 2143 6mo agoThough I don’t own one, I’m fortunate enough to occasionally be able to drive around a “Benz”. It’s my dad’s. Over here we prefer saying “Benz” rather than “Mercedes”. It’s a W212 E-Class, bought new just a few months before the all new generation hit the market. It has no touchscreen. But the UI/UX is terrible anyway. My dad still has no idea how to bring up the tire pressure monitoring screen, for example. Using the buttons to navigate a myriad of menus is not exactly straightforward. The physical user manual book that came with the car has limited information and recommends viewing the user manual through the screen. The screen is not a touchscreen. There’s a knob in between the seats to navigate the system. Very terrible experience. On the other hand, a Honda economy car that I used to have had the most straightforward physical controls imaginable. I guess what I’m trying to say is, eliminating touchscreen by itself will not necessarily make anything easier, especially if the car itself is complex.
- tomwheeler 6mo agoI also own a W212 E-Class, which I purchased used a few years ago specifically because it's the ideal balance of features I care about (e.g., heated seats and the ability to play MP3 files) without most of the ones I hate (touchscreens and subscription services). Despite being nearly a decade old at the time of purchase, it was in nearly perfect condition, well-maintained, had low mileage, and had already faced most of the depreciation it ever would.
- jcgrillo 6mo agoThe enshittification began even before that. My W210 is a fully computerized, fly-by-wire machine as well. While the user interface is nominally simpler than your W212, the computer systems are still quite user hostile. In particular, anything service related. Servicing the car without Mercedes-Benz's proprietary Star Diagnostic System is an exercise in frustration. Computers make cars worse. Full stop. I really miss my 1984 W123 wagon. That was an excellent car. It had no software in it.
- tw04 6mo agoTesla removed as many physical buttons and controls as possible to reduce cost and called it revolutionary. Their faithful parroted it because they loved Tesla. Other manufacturers tried to copy it, and when any normal person had to interact with touch everything - the real opinions of how absolute garbage it was came out. Having a big screen to display navigation and audio is awesome. Removing things like physical vents, volume control, gear selection, turn signal stalk - those are all idiotic decisions made to maximize margin on every car sold and COMPLETELY user hostile. I'm just pleasantly surprised the germans listened to their customers.
- goosejuice 6mo agoCommon argument on the internets, but meh, I think most of it is totally fine and I prefer it to my other car with buttons galore. I do enjoy physical controls for things that are constantly being used while driving for safety purposes and all of that exists for my model. Dropping stalks was too far imo, but for a car maker that wants to remove the driver it's not surprising. Mine has two stalks and I think that's the Goldilocks version. The auto shifter is surprisingly good though. Everything else in the Tesla is completely fine where it is. Even if I do need to reach for something there's always voice. Saying I'm hot/cold or take me to X or play my playlist or whatever works completely fine. If it's not, just adjust it when you stop like you should be doing anyway. Plenty of things to dislike about my car but this isn't one of them. The only button, or a thing a button replaced, that is missing on my car is the manual door release in the back which is a pretty egregious omission that does make me a tad angry. I'm going to have to drill a hole in my door for that one.
- NetMageSCW 6mo agoThe problem is like much of copying they put in the screen and took out the buttons without realizing how important the UI becomes when you do that. Tesla optimizes and improves constantly and while they’ve made mistakes, other manufacturers just leave the terrible UI in place for five or ten years and leaves everyone who purchased stuck with cheap, unresponsive screens and UI. It is ridiculous that an Android potato can be more responsive than many cars screens and UI.
- laweijfmvo 6mo ago5 years ago I didn’t want to buy a new car, because of the lack of buttons (general lack of reasonable interfaces); today I can’t afford to buy a new car with the luxury of plastic buttons
- viburnum 6mo agoNext they should bring back round steering wheels.
- livinglist 6mo agoPhysical buttons are another reason I absolutely love my 24 4Runner, absolutely huge and clear labeled knobs and buttons all over the place, I feel like being in a cockpit when I drive it.
- ConanRus 6mo ago[dead]
- casey2 6mo agoCompany/State bends to the mindless whims of boomers yet again.
- platevoltage 6mo agoThere's no way you actually like the giant iPad.
- BoardsOfCanada 6mo agoAs an MB owner this delights me.
- FerretFred 6mo agoGreat, but what they haven't told you is that they'll probably create a subscription for the buttons. Gotta recoup those R & D costs!
- maxvij 6mo agoThat’s another good step. I wrote about this last week < https://www.maxvanijsselmuiden.nl/blog/touch-screens-everywhere/ https://www.maxvanijsselmuiden.nl/blog/touch-screens-everywh...>. Touch screens are an unsuitable form of interaction because of the implicit requirement to ‘watch what you are doing’, inherently slower and more dangerous to use in a car.
- Waterluvian 6mo agoI dunno how intentional but my 2020 Forester seems to have been designed with the rule that you should be able to do absolutely everything without touching a screen. It feels great. The touch screen is there for finer control when I’m stopped or for the passenger. But I can do everything in memorable ways using the knobs and buttons.
- sreekanth850 6mo agoAlso hate this digital odometers.
- misiek08 6mo ago'So what are we gonna do with those thousands of people, who changed the UI and could be fired? Let's make them roll whole controls idea back'
- mahinbinhasan 6mo agoWithout physical buttons, it always seems risky.
- rsync 6mo agoThe questions are not "are touchscreens performant" or "are touchscreens dangerous" ... we already knew the answers to those questions and there was no reason to run this multiple model generations experiment. The question is: who was in charge of these design decisions and what kind of respect and esteem did these people command as leaders at these large companies ? A followup question: what professional consequences accompany terrible design decisions in an arena where such decisions are life threatening ?
- nxpnsv 6mo agoI imagine the buttons sunk deep into the panel only to come out wheen subscribing to the monthly premium package....
- Simulacra 6mo agoIn the future, physical buttons will be considered a luxury.
- jmp1062 6mo agomaybe i'm old school but i hate the ipad like interfaces in cars... especially if i'm trying to change settings while driving. i suppose we're very close to all of that just being voice activated but still this is a win in my book... also while i'm ranting can we teach people about regenerative braking? every uber or lyft driver that has an EV actually uses the brakes and i'm getting whiplash every time we have to stop.
- gyoridavid 6mo agoEVERY designer should read the `Design of everyday things`. It teaches the basics of good interface design. I had to choose a smaller entertainment system so I can have knobs..
- mk89 6mo agoI gave up on "people should read things". Especially with AI now telling you how to think and what your final design should look like, I would be at least happy if they did some test of their own design and criticize it constructively. Just put a "designer" in one of these cars and let them drive in real life situations like: - a wasp entering your car, while you're approaching the entrance to the highway - a child suddenly appears on the street from behind an SUV so big you could barely see the sidewalk - a traffic light, green for you, but red for the car coming straight for your door. We're past the "happy path". Try real life shit in your tests and maybe we'll install less screens and more sensors to actually help you drive, instead of distracting you. Saving someone's life should be more important than a dumb undeserved promotion because you digitalized the whole car.
- cromulent 6mo agoThey have more usability problems than that. Driving Mercedes Benz hire cars a couple of times recently in UK and Ireland was a shock - they have the automatic gearbox PRND selector on the right-hand stalk, and indicators on the left hand one. I could maybe excuse that on a LHD car, but on an RHD car, it is infuriating. Using the windscreen wipers instead of indicating is a trivial low-consequence mistake, bumping into neutral is not.
- mattlondon 6mo agoMost cars I have driven in the UK have the indicators on the left stalk? I think that is the norm here. Gear selector for automatics tends to vary but usually center-console, but my id3 has it on an extra stalk on the right of the steering wheel (coming off of the dashboard - it's weird). I've never seen it on a normal steering wheel stalk like lights or indicators or wipers.
- smetj 6mo agoSome years ago I owned a Mercedes CLA which had Android auto controlled using the rotating joystick with push down to select. The experience was perfect. It was fast, could be handled without any distraction, never misbehaved and never detoriated over time. Now I drive a car with touchscreen ... it's bullshit but I guess it looks fancier.
- ricardonunez 6mo agoIt doesn’t look fancier, it is just cheaper to manufacture than using the buttons and wheel.
- dotancohen 6mo agoThe touchscreen also enables different engineering divisions to work in parallel, without waiting on one another. This drastically reduces development time. It is also cheaper to manufacture, more reliable as there are less moving parts, and reduces parts inventories at dealerships.
- geodel 6mo agoLast time it was VW bringing it back, then Mazda bringing it back, and so on. Also luxury cars will not use touch controls, thats only for cheap cars. It appears wishful thinking that physical buttons are coming back. This would be an idea whose time has gone. It does not even matter companies that physical buttons are better, or they can offer as choice (at higher price) if someone wanted. Like remote working, office cubicles, fast and lightweight websites, ad-free content, one time purchase software incentives of all parties are aligned against people who bear cost of these decisions. So I do not expect this to change.
- gonzalohm 6mo agoWhen did Mazda get rid of buttons? They always provide both choices no? Touchscreen and the dial (which I love). Temperature controls are also physical. Except for the new 2026 models. I think those removed physical buttons
- jval43 6mo agoEven Toyota is going touch now, with the 2026 models lacking climate control knobs. I don't know why. Every review always praised the previous models for the physical buttons, and literally nobody asked for them. The physical buttons were perfect, yet they've taken them away. There must be some grand anti-button conspiracy, it just doesn't make any sense.
- mparkms 6mo agoChasing trends and it's now cheaper to have a single touchscreen with software controls than to design and manufacture physical controls.
- xxmarkuski 6mo agoGlad that Mercedes-Benz is doing this change. The management team has been misguided for a couple years. The "only luxury" strategy has not been working out as anticipated, partly due to quality not living up to the level to be truly luxury. The EVs, including the top line EQS, have also not been received to great success.
- mvkel 6mo agoThe argument of buttons vs no buttons is missing the forest for the trees. Teslas have a mere two buttons and are generally a joy to use. Why? Because the UI/UX was taken seriously, and the cpu hardware wasn't sourced from the dolllar store. This combination resulted in a screen-only experience that is responsive and easy to use (if you disagree with this, I will point you to Tesla's consumer satisfaction ratings, which say otherwise). Every other car manufacturer followed suit, but made a critical mistake in that they only saw the cost savings in not needing to manufacture and build a bunch of switches. They forgot to do the necessary UI/UX work, and fitted their vehicles with a cpu out of a TI-83. The reason why consumers are complaining about every other car manufacturer isn't because they have no buttons; it's because the screen-only experience isn't intuitive. Make it intuitive and the complaints go away.
- fooker 6mo agoTesla software is in no way a joy to use. I had rented one and it was infuriatingly bad. I'm sure people can get used to it, but people can get used to literally anything. The map looks like it really wants to be in Star Trek more than than it is meant to be usable software. Doing simple things takes getting into menus 2-3 layers deep, often while driving.
- eknkc 6mo agoI’ve been driving a Model Y for a year now. Used to have a Volvo with android automotive and before that a Mercedes Benz with the.. I’m not sure whatever that OS is called. Tesla sw is miles better than the previous two. It is responsive and laid out well. When you get used to it, it is intuitive. Android was not that bad but the visual design was much worse and it was laggy. The MB software can die in hell. It is the worst piece of shit ever been built by humans. And it is running on hopes and dreams instead of a capable processor. Note that this was an E class so not an entry model. (Even then, there is no excuse)
- fooker 6mo agoThe comparison, for the purpose of this article, is not against Mercedes or Volvo or Toyota software or even Android auto/carplay. It's against old fashioned tactile buttons for essentials.
- m463 6mo agoI think they should distinguish between controls and settings. Settings are great on a touchscreen. A wide variety of options, easily navigated to and explained. They suck on physical buttons, it ends up being like setting the time on a VCR. Controls on the other hand deserve physical buttons. Or levers. or dials/knobs/spinners. It should depend on muscle memory, and the type of control. I also thing driving status should be on a dashboard in front of you, not on the central display. (looking at you tesla) And some should be multiple places. It might be nice to set your volume with a physical knob, but also on the steering wheel.
- pcurve 6mo agolove that distinction.
- andrewaylett 6mo agoI have a pre-facelift MB A-class, and I think it's the best car I've driven for controls. You don't have to touch the screen ever if you don't want to: there's a trackpad on the centre console that just works even (most of the time) with Android Auto (and the back/home/map/media/phone buttons will still save you even if Android Auto won't always let you move the cursor to the back arrow in YouTube Music). The steering wheel has two touch-sensitive buttons, one for each screen (duplicating the trackpad, which itself duplicates the media touchscreen). I can't even easily reach either screen when driving, so I don't. Driving controls are all available on the stalks and wheel, volume is adjustable from the wheel or the centre console, all physical buttons, levers, or scroll inputs, unless you need to change a setting using the trackpad. The only thing that's missing is wheel control for skipping tracks :P.
- yourusername 6mo agoAnd then in the facelift they replaced the buttons on the steering wheel with touch sensitive ones and just removed the touch pad and replaced it with nothing. It's still useable and nice, but worse than the older model and there was no need to change anything.
- sgustard 6mo ago
- OptionOfT 6mo agoI was in the market for a new car, and was looking at an M4. The iPad taped to the dash was horrible. Too many presses to do anything climate related, which is something you do mess with a little more when driving a convertible with the top down. But the worst part was when you start the car and it starts to heat / cool. While it is working to reaching your desired temperature, it shows an indeterminate progress bar in the button to adjust the temperature. REALLY distracting. Ended up getting an M8, the pinnacle of BMW before hybridization and full touch screens. If only it had an analogue cluster...
- jbverschoor 6mo agoStreamDeck exists for a reason ;-)
- philjohn 6mo agoThis was one of the reasons why, when looking for an EV, I went with the Kia EV6. All of the buttons on the steering wheel are physical buttons, the heated seats, steering wheel heater etc. all physical buttons. The only blip is the capacitive buttons that are dual use for climate control or media control (you press a button to switch between the two modes) but even that's preferable to having to hunt in a touchscreen interface to set the AC when trying to keep your eyes on the road - especially with dials to change the temperature/change the volume.
- mjcarden 6mo agoI think that the EV6 User Interface is pretty spot on, including things like side mirrors complemented by cameras that activate when you indicate, a nice HUD and real buttons for most things. If ONLY I didn't have to manually deactivate lane keep warning alerts EVERY time I start the car, it'd be nudging perfect.
- 01jonny01 6mo agoThis is sensible. My Mercedes has 3 different methods of using the touch screen, each one is fiddly. It's like the juice isn't worth the squeeze, just give me a nice tactile button like the good old days.
- docmars 6mo agoI'm still waiting for Volkswagen to do this after stating the same plan not long ago.
- samsam92 6mo ago[dead]
- mikeyinternews 6mo agothey're following subaru's lead
- Animats 6mo agoBut do you have to look at the display to tell what the buttons and knobs are doing. If you have, say, a HVAC fan speed knob with mechanical stops at the low and high end, and a detent, you never have to look at it. If you have an increase/decrease switch, you may need to look at the display to find out what you're doing. In a car, this means head-down time, eyes off the road. I have a Black and Decker branded humidifier, which comes from "W Appliance Ltd", a licensee of the Black and Decker name. It's an ultrasonic humidifier with a 1.45 gallon tank and a big filter to remove dissolved solids, so it runs well on tap water. It's an effective humidifier. This device is an example of how to botch the user interface for a very simple device. There's a big round display, about 12cm across. This has various dedicated icons and a central number display. Around it is a ring which displays a moving bar pattern when the device is running. From left to right, we have five buttons. They're just touchable areas on the case, not actual pushable controls. The first button is On/Off, and, inevitably today, the same button does both functions. The display lights up when on. The second button turns on a negative ion generator. This isn't an advertised feature, and it may not actually do anything. If this feature is on, a tiny icon illuminates on the display. This thing is down on the floor and you can't see the smaller icons without getting down on your knees. If you hold this button down for two seconds, the decorative bar pattern on the display is toned down, but not fully turned off. The third button is fan speed. Available values are 1 to 3. Default is 2. 1 is useless, and 2 is mostly useless, because the water condenses on top of the unit rather than humidifying the room. The fourth button sets the humidity. Values from 45% to 90% can be cycled through. There's one two-digit display, and it shows the humidity being set when the button has been pushed recently. Otherwise it shows the humidity being measured. The fifth button sets a timer to turn the thing off after some number of hours. When the water tank is empty, a tiny icon illuminates. The main display does not change or go dark. The one actionable piece of info the device can give the user is barely visible. Removing the water tank or turning the device off resets all settings to the defaults. So after each refill, the user must go through setup again. There's an optional remote available, with the same five buttons. All this thing needed was one big knob for setting the humidity, with an off position. Plus a nice big indicator light to indicate an empty tank. Instead, they designed a complex user interface that makes it worse. This kind of mistake appears when UI people design button systems.
- 6mo ago
- caogecym 6mo agoHope this change comes sooner. My 2025 BMW X5 got AC control as secondary touchscreen menu while giving prev/next song a dedicated button. Every time I turn on/off AC, I would wonder what the industry designer was thinking about when working on this? That made me use voice control to toggle the A/C, which I have to say their voice recognition is pretty decent, got it right 90% of time except when my toddlers are in the back seat mimicking me.
- maxdo 6mo agoby the time they do so , autonomous driving will be solved, and they will have to redo it again, since they screw up first time. Tesla despite fsd gimmick and clearly failing timelines and promises... They really created an infotainment system with a very clear and functional design in mindm that is very understandable and extensible: 1. long(er) vs gas car charges need a "TV/gaming experiences" 2. real self driving car needs the same as #1 ^ 3. every ui needs to be fully remotely accessible/adjusted due to no human driver. Temperature, seats preferences, even how A/C blows your face. Ideally by voice. This is why grok lands very well, even on very old cars with powerful enough chip. German cars just blindly follow tesla "large screen" with no idea how to even watch a movie or plan any real game there. In same manner they are not built to survive autonomy.
- iamthejuan 6mo agoIt is always better to use tactile inputs especially during diving where eyes need to have undivided attention on the road.
- rconti 6mo agoI'm looking at buying a used Porsche Macan. Through 2021 they were absolute button-fests, with a console absolutely littered with physical buttons. In 2022, they moved to a piano black console with haptic "buttons". It also seems like there are somehow fewer of them; I'm not sure if more functions moved into the touchscreen or what. Anyway, needless to say, I have no interest in the 2022+ with the haptics.
- tim333 6mo agoMy 2010 merc is a button fest. About a hundred of the things and no touch screen.
- Uptrenda 6mo agoWhat people really want on their dash are giant screens. So they can watch movies and automate having to manually have car crashes. I think the manufactures understand human drivers just fine.
- mgoetzke 6mo agoThey already have a hundred buttons, VW just showed of steering wheels with like 20 buttons
- BrenBarn 6mo agoThis is sort of like Microsoft saying they're making Windows better. It's just undoing a change that should never have been made in the first place, because it made things worse.
- a96 6mo agoAlong with adding some even worse changes.
- josefrichter 6mo agoEvery single designer knows buttons are better than touchscreens. Except car designers. Fascinating.
- spectry 6mo agoGoing to better direction. Big tablet screens and everything hidden under UI tabs, not to my liking.
- Yizahi 6mo agoRemember how Volkswagen exec promised exact same thing many years ago and just blatantly lied? I do. I will judge only by the actual actions and not by the empty arrogant lies.
- rsynnott 6mo agoDid they? The id.Polo (I think the first car to come out since VW said they were reversing course there) has quite a lot of buttons. Like arguably a comical number of buttons.
- Yizahi 6mo agoYeah, newest Polo seems to have physical controls now. By all models released after their statement two and half years ago came with shitty capacitive clusters.
- rsynnott 6mo agoWhich models are these? Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_ID._series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_ID._series the only one released since (before the 2026 models) is the ID.7 Tourer, which does have buttons.
- Yizahi 5mo agoThe original statement was in 2023, so starting from 2024: Id.5 2024 - touch capacitive buttons (even worse than display buttons) Id.7 2024 - touch capacitive buttons Id.4 2024 - touch capacitive buttons Id.3 2024 - touch capacitive buttons Id.Buzzzzzz 2024 - touch capacitive buttons Only models starting in 2026 like Id.Polo and Id.3 Neo seems to have real buttons back again.
- jcgrillo 6mo ago> "If you want to connect to the customer, you’ve got to find a way to translate this digital experience from your phone to the customer." Absolute brain rot. The customer already has a phone. They don't need your screen, they already have one.
- aristofun 6mo agoIt’s nice. But unless they commit to bring back reliable and comfortable cars - who cares?
- Rover222 6mo agoI don’t know, I’m driving a rental 2026 RAV4 coming from Tesla, and it all just feels so meh. The physical buttons are not less confusing. Apple CarPlay is just shit. Solid, soulless vehicle though.
- gilbetron 6mo agoHyundai and Honda (especially Honda) have brought back more physical buttons in the past several years. The CRV especially has a great button/control layout. A big reason we went with the Ioniq 5 is due to the physical controls.
- sudo-tak 6mo agogood. who knows how easily today's vehicles can be hacked? And taken over remotely?
- lynn_lee 6mo agoshould be
- pachico 6mo agoI must say this, and the absence of piano black, were some key determining factors for me to buy the new Hyundai Kona (of course, maybe not the most important ones, but decisive nonetheless).
- mhb 6mo agoMaybe normal height grills will also make a comeback. We can dream.
- techdmn 6mo agoAs an old man yelling at clouds, I've been hanging onto a car from the 80s. Not only does it have physical controls, the controls are directly attached to the mechanical systems they operate. Currently the door locks are a little sticky (I need to pull the skins and lubricate everything). The electric solenoids can't quite overcome the friction, but with a little extra pressure I can muscle the lock to open or closed. If the controls were a touchscreen, OR an physical switch that operated the locks electronically, the locks simply wouldn't work at all. I hate all the latency and ignored commands from physical buttons that work through software almost as much as I hate touchscreens. The empowerment and psychological difference between a world where I /make/ things happen and a world where I /request/ things that may or may not happen feels like it is often overlooked.
- danans 6mo agoI personally find Chevy's recent infotainment control center great (Equinox/Blazer, maybe others too). Physical buttons with lots of travel (almost feel like an old IBM keyboard) for HVAC essentials, knobs for temperature and volume, and a big screen. They have struck a really good balance between traditional interfaces and the benefits of screens.
- aboardRat4 6mo agoI rented a Nissan Sylphy last weekend, and it had no screen or any digital interfaces. It was great. It's only issue is AT, which is a stupid thing removing one level of control.
- knorker 6mo agoImagine buying a luxury car and finding the manufacturer saved like $10 on the very thing you interface with every single time you drive all the time, making the overall experience absolute shit. "Can I pay you the $10 and you make my car not shit?" — "No, I'm sorry, we only make shit now".
- grisha8 6mo ago[dead]
- a456463 6mo agoNobody said this but the latest dodge durango is amazing in this aspect. so many buttons and the door work and the shifter works without needing internet. or so it seems.
- rootusrootus 6mo agoThere is a happy medium somewhere. I've seen cars with a hundred buttons, and that is just as big a disaster as a touchscreen. A good solution would be hybrid -- the things you use regularly while driving should be tactile buttons and knobs that you can hopefully recognize without having to look at them. There should be a very limited number of these controls; radio & climate being the obvious ones. The rest of the customizable features and such can be in a touchscreen and then only accessible when parked.
- Amhais 5mo agoI don’t understand how they thought removing these buttons was a good idea in the first place. There was a lot of intentional fart-sniffing happening at these companies.
- MarkPeterson 5mo ago[dead]
- KrisDavidson11 5mo agoThe China regulation angle is the elephant in the room. Mercedes claims they listened to customers, but the timing is suspicious right when China mandates physical buttons. Either way, the result is good. Touchscreens for everything were a dangerous fad. I shouldn't have to take my eyes off the road to adjust the temperature. Buttons you can find by touch save lives.