Carmakers Must Bring Back Buttons, Says Europe
Key dashboard touchscreen functions will soon be kicked into touch and physical switches will be required instead for car manufacturers to be granted the highest safety ratings.
Euro NCAP, the automotive safety industry body for Europe, is introducing new guidance for 2026 which means that five important tasks in every car will have to be performed by actual buttons instead of by accessing a screen.
Indicators, hazard warning lights, windscreen wipers, horn, and SOS features will have to be controlled by proper switches in order for cars to be granted Euro NCAP’s coveted five star safety rating.
“The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes,” explained Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP.
“New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving.”
Several manufacturers have already come under fire for excessively complex touch screen controls forcing drivers to access menu after menu to adjust seats, mirrors and ventilation—we’re especially looking at you Tesla and VW.
Although it won’t be mandatory to comply with Euro NCAP’s new rules car makers that don’t will lose valuable points in their safety ratings. It sounds like a sensible idea—a positive move in the battle against distracted driving—and one, that, hopefully, the NHTSA will follow.
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The worst are “luxury” cars with a big stupid tablet planted in the middle of the dash. There is nothing luxury about an LCD screen or instruments.
These comments are spot-on. New vehicles have become rolling gee-whiz video games that require the driver (player) to shift attention to the screen from the task at hand – actually driving and paying attention to the road and other vehicles. We should be able to locate every control in my cars by touch, day or night, and not take our eyes off the road.
Now, can we talk about the disappearance of two-door pickup trucks, which have been largely replaced by huge long-wheelbase four-door trucks because those are much more profitable (and expensive)? Watch the TV ads for Ford, GM/Chevy/ and Ram…all hype four-doors. Drive past a dealer and that’s all you’ll see. On the street, most have only a single occupant. Most four-door trucks, especially long-wheelbase models, don’t fit in regular parking spaces or garages. What’s the point?
You’re baiting me Never too old, but this is a column about driver controls….I’ll say again touch screens are here to stay because they are cheaper to implement than physical controls. (The screens may cost more per piece but the same one can be used across the entire model lineup with different software.) And I question whether manufacturers would spend the extra money just for a few points on a safety rating.
You can always tell when Tinkerah has been baited – he gets serious enough to proofread his comments. That’s not true, but it’s kind of like something I read somewhere and it sounded good to insert here…😂😁😂😁😜
Clearly those folks don’t do REAL winter driving, or they would have included the heater/defroster controls on the “must-be-buttons” list. A sudden and unpredictable frost-over of the windscreen is a heart stopping moment when you’re driving in a blizzard. You are NOT going to take your eyes off the road to navigate a frickin’ menu!
Great comments and I tend to agree across the board.
I Love my 72 MGB, 68 MGC, 2000 Silverado 4×4 regular cab, short box AND I love my 2017 Nissan LEAF and our 2022 Hyundai Ioniq5 AWD!
The last 2 are EV’s but they have enough buttons and stalks so that I rarely have to touch the displays and the displays are not the huge crazy tablets you see on many cars today.
I just love vehicles in general, we road trip in our Ioniq5, grocery getter is the Leaf, the Silverado is awesome and I use it for hauling and getting ice cream (a form of hauling 🤣) and the MG’s I usually just tinker with, being British cars they need a lot of tinkering!!
In any case, yes physical buttons is way better than doing everything on a touchscreen.
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
2022 Ram Limited Ecodiesel. Every required item on the NCAP list is a switch, all are in the steering wheel/ column except the hazard light switch. The large center screen has a ton of features and after 6 months i know where they are all at, mostly related to the radio but there are still volume and tuning dials. There is a reason Ram is the number one rated truck in the world right now.
The main n reason for touchscreens is cost. Super cheap compared to mechanical parts.
Touch screens should only be accessable when in park. Anything you need while driving should be a switch or a shift handle.
If we read the content, not just the title, of this article, we will find what NCAP says will not help radio, AC or phone’s controls.
Thank God give me knobs and switches and a normal friggin radio. And if modern vehicles didn’t have such horrible rear visibility we wouldn’t NEED backup cameras. Basically im saying just build me an 05 crown vic. Haha