The electric vehicle revolution promised a cleaner, simpler cockpit. Screens replaced knobs, sliders replaced switches, and for a while the auto industry treated physical controls like relics of a less sophisticated era. But recent research and new safety-assessment pressure are sharpening concerns that all-touchscreen dashboards can increase driver distraction during routine tasks, and some automakers are beginning to reverse course. The shift back toward real, tactile buttons is increasingly being framed as a usability and safety issue, not just a design preference.
Touchscreens Tax Drivers More Than Automakers Admitted
For years, the assumption was that a large central screen could handle every cabin function more efficiently than a cluster of dedicated buttons. That assumption has taken a hit. A study backed by the University of Washington and the Toyota Research Institute placed participants in a driving-plus-touchscreen simulator and measured what happens when a person tries to operate a flat display while keeping a vehicle in its lane. The results were clear: drivers using dashboard touchscreens struggled to multitask, with lane drift increasing during interactions and both the accuracy and speed of screen inputs dropping while driving.
One of the study’s key findings involved visual search, the cognitive process of scanning a screen to locate a target icon or menu item. Unlike a physical knob that a driver can find by feel, a touchscreen demands that eyes leave the road. The simulator data confirmed that this visual search penalty grows worse under real driving conditions, when attention is already split between steering, speed, and traffic. The practical takeaway is straightforward: the sleeker the dashboard looks, the harder it may be to use while maintaining full attention on driving. That tension between aesthetics and usability is exactly what the industry is now being forced to confront.
Why Volkswagen Is Bringing Back Real Buttons
Volkswagen offers one of the clearest examples of a major automaker saying the touchscreen-only approach went too far. VW design chief Andreas Mindt has said the company will restore key hardware controls for vital functions, identifying five priorities: volume, heating on each side, fans, and the hazard light. These are the controls drivers reach for most often and most urgently, sometimes in stressful moments when fumbling through a touchscreen menu is the last thing anyone needs. Mindt has also committed to physical steering-wheel buttons, a detail that signals VW sees this as more than a cosmetic tweak.
The rollout is expected to begin with the ID.2all production car, giving VW a concrete product timeline rather than a vague promise. That matters because VW’s earlier ID-series models were among the most criticized for burying basic climate and audio controls inside nested screen menus. Owner forums and automotive reviewers repeatedly flagged the frustration of adjusting cabin temperature while driving on a highway. The decision to reverse that design philosophy, publicly and with a named executive on the record, suggests the feedback reached a threshold that corporate pride could no longer absorb. It also puts pressure on competitors who still rely on minimalist screen-only layouts to justify their choices with data rather than design awards.
Euro NCAP Puts Safety Ratings on the Line
Automaker goodwill alone would not be enough to guarantee a broad industry shift. Safety-assessment programs can matter more. Euro NCAP, the European body whose star ratings heavily influence purchasing decisions, has announced new 2026 assessment rules designed to tackle modern driving risks, and touchscreen distraction is among the concerns it highlights. The updated scoring cycle will include Human-Machine Interface assessments that evaluate the placement, clarity, and ease of use of essential controls, rather than treating infotainment as a purely cosmetic feature.
What makes this protocol update especially pointed is that it references the availability of physical controls as a way to reduce distraction risks. That language turns a design debate into a ratings equation. A car that forces drivers to navigate multiple menu layers for an essential function may be evaluated differently than one that offers a dedicated control. For manufacturers selling into Europe, where a five-star Euro NCAP rating is practically a marketing requirement, the incentive to rethink control layouts is now baked into the testing framework. This is the kind of structural change that can influence product decisions across multiple model lines, not just individual design studios.
The Real Cost of Screen-Only Cockpits
The broader trend of button-based controls returning reflects a correction that has been building for several years. Electric vehicles accelerated the touchscreen-everything approach partly because their simpler drivetrains freed up dashboard space and partly because Tesla’s early success made a giant center screen synonymous with innovation. Other manufacturers followed, sometimes stripping out even basic stalks and rotary dials to achieve a similar visual minimalism. Replacing multiple mechanical switches with software menus on a single panel can also be attractive from a manufacturing standpoint, with fewer unique parts and less physical complexity.
But those changes can come with tradeoffs that are harder to quantify on a balance sheet. The University of Washington simulator data points to one: degraded lane-keeping performance and slower, less accurate interactions during routine cabin adjustments. Euro NCAP’s new scoring framework points to another: potential impacts on safety ratings that can affect marketing and consumer perception. And VW’s public reversal points to a third: brand damage when owners feel that a vehicle’s interface works against them rather than for them. Taken together, these pressures suggest that the all-touchscreen cockpit was an overcorrection, one that confused visual simplicity with functional simplicity.
What a Hybrid Dashboard Future Looks Like
None of this means touchscreens are going away. Navigation maps, media libraries, and vehicle settings menus are genuinely better served by a screen than by a wall of tiny buttons. The emerging consensus is a hybrid approach: screens handle complex, infrequent tasks while physical controls own the high-frequency, safety-adjacent functions like climate, volume, wipers, and hazard lights. VW’s five-function list is a useful template, though other brands may expand it to include demisters, drive-mode selectors, or key driver-assistance toggles that must be reachable instantly and by feel. The goal is not a nostalgic return to cluttered dashboards, but a deliberate hierarchy where the most critical actions are the easiest to execute without looking.
If automakers follow through, the next generation of electric vehicles could blend the best of both eras: clean digital displays for information-rich tasks and robust, well-placed hardware for the things that matter most when something goes wrong. That balance will likely be shaped as much by safety research and rating protocols as by design studios. In practice, success will be measured not by how futuristic a cabin looks in photos, but by how little a driver has to think about it at 70 miles per hour in the rain. The quiet comeback of buttons suggests the industry is finally starting to prioritize that kind of real-world usability over showroom sheen.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
