There’s one thing that’s been running rampant in the car industry, and it’s something even more prevalent than the electric car revolution: the destruction of interior controls.
As new cars are getting increasingly advanced, and shoving in more ridiculous and mostly unnecessary features, it becomes either pointless or too expensive to engineer and install physical switches for all of these functions.
So what have most automakers done about this? Oh, that’s right, they’ve crammed nearly everything into the infotainment screens. Sometimes, it’s not that bad, but other times, you really start to question the legality of having so many functions inside the screen. Looking at you, Tesla.
Just as a reminder, it’s currently illegal everywhere in the world to talk on the phone while driving, yet it’s somehow legal to be distracted by a massive screen.
Don’t worry, though. Several carmakers have proven that this whole thing can be done properly. All that’s left is for automakers to actually want to sort out the interior controls in creative ways.
Multi-Purpose Physical Controls
Skoda’s Smart Dials is a great example of how to reintroduce physical controls in car interiors and also give them a new lease of life. These genius pieces of equipment come as standard in the new Superb and Kodiaq, and every automaker that has sworn off physical controls should be worried.
Here’s how the Smart Dial trio works in Skoda: the outer two dials adjust the climate control temperature. If you push either one in, you can adjust your heated seat, and if you push it again, you can adjust the ventilated seats if you have those equipped.
Holding down the dial will sync the temperatures for both sides. The helpful screens on the dials show you exactly what’s happening. The dial in the middle, meanwhile, controls the fan speed, mostly. However, that one is also configurable.
By diving into the infotainment system, you can select up to four different functions that the middle dial can control, from stereo volume to climate zones and drive modes.
This is absolutely genius. I’ve used the Smart Dials a couple of times, and although they do sometimes lag just a little bit, they’re a much better option than waiting for a potentially unresponsive screen. This system also allows the driver to pay more attention to the road — which is especially important.
Taking something we already have and adding more functionalities to it is always a good bet. There are, however, other ways of retaining physical controls in cars.
One interesting approach practiced by Audi and Toyota is giving all the climate controls identical buttons. While this is not the case in every vehicle these automakers build, notable examples include the new Camry on the Toyota side, and the e-tron GT in camp Audi, the latter being praised by Top Gear Magazine.
Most of the AC controls in those cars are exactly the same, they’re just assigned different commands, and the tiny LCD screen above the controls lets you know which one does what. It saves money on engineering custom switches for certain commands, while also being extremely easy to understand.
Renault is also doing something similar in some of its most recent vehicles. There are several identical levers just below the infotainment screen, and they’re responsible for most of the AC controls, and certainly the ones you’ll adjust most frequently. Some options, like the heated steering wheel, can only be accessed through the screen.
This is not as bad as it sounds, as I discovered in the Megane E-Tech Electric when I drove it: you can program the star button on the steering wheel to adjust the heated steering wheel, among other things. Job done.
As we’ve also seen in the upcoming electric Twingo, Renault is definitely in the mood for proper physical AC controls that include knobs. The rest of the car industry just doesn’t want to bother with any of this. While we can somewhat understand why, in this case, the cons of not doing it far outweigh the pros.
The Importance of Physical Buttons and Switches
Obviously, safety is a key factor here. Trying to prod a screen while driving at highway speeds is not safe in the slightest. There’s now scientific evidence to back this up, as the Norwegian Council for Road Safety recently did some research and came to that exact conclusion.
You might spend too long waiting for the screen to respond to your rapid-fire clicks to adjust the fan speed, and before you know it, you are (God forbid) in a ditch.
Physical controls, on the other hand, facilitate muscle memory, and you can make small adjustments while you’re driving and spend far less time looking at them.
The other part of the importance equation is the functionality. At the end of the day, these are screens and electronics powered by electronic components. What can happen to electronics? Oh yeah, they can fail.
The infotainment screen in the Skoda Kodiaq I recently drove randomly shut down. While I was driving. And then it got stuck in a short bootloop. Volvo EX30 owners had so many issues with the infotainment system and other important aspects, Volvo actually issued them a refund.
If these electronics fail, and it’s not completely inconceivable that they will, you’re stuck with no audio, no climate control, and depending on what car you’re in, you might not even be able to adjust your mirrors or change gear!
By moving to physical controls for some things, or at the very least making them separate from the infotainment screen even if they are capacitive, they can still be functional while your infotainment system reboots itself.
Automakers, I don’t care how cool you think it looks and how much money it saves, safety and functionality should always come first!
