9 ms·

Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

92 points by citelao 2mo ago

citelao 2mo ago
OP here: I always disliked touchscreens in cars, so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. I always assumed I was weird in some way, and that most consumers preferred touchscreens or something (Reddit seems to argue this in circles all the time). I planned to keep buying Mazdas, with their lovely buttons and stuff. But when Mazda unveiled their button-lite 2026 CX-5 about a year ago, I started investigating. I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too!
- pwg 2mo ago
  > so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. The article explained why. Since 2018 in the US, due to the proliferation of giant trucks being used as passenger vehicles (SUV's) backup cameras have been mandatory safety equipment. A backup camera requires a screen. So the automakers have to install a screen in the dashboard. It is only a few dollars more to install a "touch screen" vs. a "basic display screen", and with the addition of those few dollars to the screen, that touch screen can now replace hundreds of dollars of physical buttons and their necessary wiring. Net result, the BOM cost of the car drops by several hundred dollars, and the cost to assemble drops by some measurable amount as well. So they why is: "because they save the automakers BOM and assembly costs".
  - birdostrich 2mo ago
    They're aware. You're replying to the OP of the article, lol.
    - nkozyra 2mo ago
      Obviously they read it, but it's 2026 and entirely possible to publish an article without having read a word of it :) All that said, I think initially it was a mix of a few things coming together. Yes, auto mfgs always want to reduce parts for cost and supply chain control. But there was also this moment of New Wow where the impractical nature of touchscreens was overshadowed by the holy crap I've got a tablet in my car. It implied a break with the last generation of cars, where you might have gotten a 4-inch screen (touch or not), and it became desirable at a surface level to users. Although I greatly dislike touchscreens for the obvious usability issues in a motor vehicle, I still kind of widen my eyes when I'm in a car with some new, ridiculous multi-screen dashboard setup. Mazda was mentioned in this thread, and I think they do a great job of separating the concerns here; you've got a big buttons of various sizes that do different things that can be memorized without sight.
  - jjav 2mo ago
    > So the automakers have to install a screen in the dashboard. Perfect example of reasonably good intention backfiring. So now you have a backup camera, which is useful, but you also have drivers fiddling around with a touchscreen while driving, taking eyes and concentration off the road. I don't have research numbers, but it feels like the latter causes way more accidents than the backup camera prevents. My partner has one of these newer cars where everything is a multi-menu operation through the touchscreen and it is very scary. Anything you need to change takes many many seconds of visual attention focusing on the touchscreen, which means not focusing at the road. I'm quite sure this will lead to an accident at some point. Personally none of my cars have a screen and none ever will. I can adjust everything that can be adjusted purely by feel without ever taking my eyes off the road. Clearly that is safer.
    - soco 2mo ago
      > Personally none of my cars have a screen and none ever will. I can adjust everything that can be adjusted purely by feel without ever taking my eyes off the road. Clearly that is safer. You can also have the best of both worlds. I'm not pretending it's an ideal car, but my Audi has plenty of knobs and buttons and switches for about anything I usually need. You only are forced to use the screen for switching between radio and bluetooth music (maybe there's a button for that too and I don't know it), for setting up the navigation and of course the zillion of car settings. So do I have a screen? Yes. Do I depend on it? Really no. So folks, there IS a way, we just have to push for it.
- nicce 2mo ago
  > I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too! I thought this is a pretty well-known thing already? For almost decade.
  - dieselgate 2mo ago
    I figured it was the most reasonable conclusion via Occam's Razor. Economical and the illusion of futurism
  - citelao 2mo ago
    OP: Perhaps it is, but this article honestly took me 12 months to research & write. I really struggled to find trustworthy sources. Do you know of any others I should look at? Also, I rather like the idea that blogging can simply be stating the obvious: https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvious/ https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvio.... Hopefully my argument is helpful to someone!
    - nicce 2mo ago
      > Also, I rather like the idea that blogging can simply be stating the obvious I thought about this before posting my reply, that should I. But if you really spent time for researching this blog, you would know that your conclusion is not rare nor the first one. It is widely discussed and appears in HN regularly. But regardless, the tone in the post or here in comments felt to me that you try to somehow own this idea. Thought, you even cited the Ferrari CEO who said exactly the same.
- Gualdrapo 2mo ago
  I think that nowadays people value "technological features", and how better to show "technological advancement" like a giant ass touchscreen and not some "old" XX century knobs.
  - cuu508 2mo ago
    I hope that changes and people start valuing simplicity and robustness over electric gimmicks (I know many people already do, but we need critical mass).
- guessbest 2mo ago
  It is so much easier to add internationalization to a touchscreen over physical buttons
  - ilinx 2mo ago
    How much is that needed? There was very little text on those buttons to begin with. Are there significant cultural differences in the iconography associated with them?
- prmoustache 2mo ago
  The reality is they want to serve us ads in the future. But they first need adoption.
  - nkozyra 2mo ago
    > But they first need adoption. I think they've got that. Short of budget stuff or the Slate truck, most new cars have some big dumb screen in them at all times. But advertising poses a new problem for both advertisers and mfgs not unlike the mid-90s ad sale issue. There was no consolidated ad server, so everyone was trying to build their own agency and advertisers had to navigate that. Which probably means some sort of Google or Google-like player in the space.
  - jasonjayr 2mo ago
    (a) cars have forward-facing cameras/computer vision for lane tracking (b) infotainment systems have always-on cellular internet connections (c) billboard impression counts can be tied to the vehicle IIRC infotainment systems are already showing ads in some form. And location + driving performance is being captured + monetized and shared with insurance companies. Unless this results in an EV car that I can rent for less than $100/mo, this really needs to be stopped.
  - scottyah 2mo ago
    Stellantis tried it already, had to back-pedal calling it a "glitch". I'm sure someone else will be bold enough to try again though.
- MisterTea 2mo ago
  > I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too! It amuses me that back in the 90's LCD color screens were magical fairy dust that cost about the same as what magical fairy dust would cost. Laptops with color LCD screens were like $6000 in the 90's, I think $3k over a greyscale. That's like $13k today. Whereas the little plastic buttons and knobs were cheaper to pump out of an injection molding machine and assembled. Now screens are cheaper to make than little plastic baubles.
  - elcritch 2mo ago
    Yeah it's sorta of fascinating. Likewise now cells phones are faster than supercomputers from two decades ago and everyone can afford one. Meanwhile hardwood furniture is much more expensive now that it's usually in the "rich peoples" category. From what I've read, the little plastic baubles part of buttons are cheap, it's the electrical wiring harnesses and assembly that are expensive part of physical controls.
  - bryanlarsen 2mo ago
    Injection molding is still quite cheap. I think it's the tooling and labor and wiring and parts management et cetera that makes the cost add up for fiddly little bits.
- gumby271 2mo ago
  I love the click-wheel on my Mazda3 and I love that it allows the screen to sit out of arms length up on the dashboard. Its a very nice interior. What I don't love is how Android Auto is slowly breaking since it assumes more and more that you have a touchscreen. It used to be that it would focus buttons in notifications, making it easy to interact with. Now the focus doesn't seem to change at all (or only sometimes) making it a nightmare to do simple things. I dare not use the new Gemini assistant since the last time I was completely unable to navigate to the buttons in its panel at all. I really hope they don't phase out the wheel just because Google sucks at supporting it. I know they have both touch and the wheel in newer models now.
  - aiisjustanif 2mo ago
    I cried when Mercedes go rid of the click wheel. Research in this article be damned, I’d argue that rotary knobs with directional shifting like Mercedes paired with great software are the best car infotainment interface in recent history for screens in cars.
    - scottyah 2mo ago
      I love voice control, have you tried/gotten used to that?
    - vardump 2mo ago
      Curiously Teslas currently have two click wheels in the steering wheel.
- OptionOfT 2mo ago
  They are. All BMWs have the same screen. It's one 1 screen, regardless of whether your car has heated seats, ventilated seats, sync, arm-rest warmers, separate blowers or a single blower. Within 1 production line, say for the BMW 3 series, some people don't select heated seats, some do. Now they only need to make 1 version of the plastic, and it's just a checkbox in the software to enable the heated seats.
kleiba2 2mo ago
I think there is a real market for modding news cars to have physical buttons again. Whenever this discussion pops up on the internet, there's plenty if people who prefer them (they're called "old folks" ;-)) so why not mod your dashboard to feature a - wait for it - volume button for your music!
- wat10000 2mo ago
  This company sells buttons for Teslas: https://www.enhauto.com/pages/buttons https://www.enhauto.com/pages/buttons The "cloud features included" line amuses me greatly given the low-tech theme.
  - bryanlarsen 2mo ago
    Here's another really nice looking one: https://www.ctrl-bar.com/ https://www.ctrl-bar.com/ Mine is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow...
- logancbrown 2mo ago
  The volume button (dial) broke on my Ford Maverick in summer. Moving to a touchscreen car felt like a sigh of relief that I no longer had to worry about buttons and dials breaking when I need to use them, and don't have to worry about a trip to a dealer or tearing apart a dash to replace them. I will say a button "feels" nicer, but the added risk to me wasn't worth it. To each their own
  - hatefulheart 2mo ago
    Yeah, wait until the whole thing is unresponsive due to heat or a bug, you’ll be wishing only your volume button was affected. The fact you can rip open the dashboard and fix something is great and what I call a feature, not a bug.
    - jjulius 2mo ago
      Or you reach for a certain area of the screen out of muscle memory, but the UI changed "just because" and now you're very distracted.
bijowo1676 2mo ago
Voice interface is the future, just have voice assistant do everything without relying on knobs nor touch screen same way people just talk to claude code via whisper
- macintux 2mo ago
  No. No, please, no. I won't buy a car that relies on voice for anything, and I really don't want to rent one either. Wildly inefficient, slow, unpredictable.
- drakythe 2mo ago
  Lordy I hope not. Cannot imagine having to childproof my car's entertainment system, or make sure I don't sing a trigger word, or try to turn on the defroster to dehumidify the windshield during an intense rain storm where I can barely hear myself think. Also: I don't want a microphone in my car at all times. Thank you.
  - _flux 2mo ago
    It could use array microphone to detect that the sound originates from the driver's seat (in addition to using it for filtering out not-from-driver's-seat sounds).
    - recursive 2mo ago
      I mean that's cool, if it actually works reliably. Automation tech enthusiasts are willing to be impressed by 99% reliability. To get buy-in from regular people, it needs to just work better. To be clear, I don't know how reliable this actually is now, but I'd be willing to bet that it's not reliable enough.
      - scottyah 2mo ago
        Then it seems like we should work on making it better instead of just trashing the idea?
dayyan 2mo ago
Just ask the car, unfortunately, asking rarely works unless you're in a Tesla.
deuplonicus 2mo ago
As an engineer in R&D, I've always known if I needed a cheap but amazing part, to look at automotive replacements from third parties for parts to build an MVP with. Those rear hatch motors are amazing and most have indexing.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
bryanlarsen 2mo ago
The $6,000 profit per car referenced in the article is gross profit, not net profit. Net profit is considerably lower, around 5% for the mass manufacturers. So a $100 cost savings is very significant against a ~$3,000 net profit on a Bolt.
- citelao 2mo ago
  OP: ooooo, that's neat. Do you have a source? I struggled to find a source for even that $6,000 number.
  - bryanlarsen 2mo ago
    The $6,000 number is a lot harder to calculate. The lower number is just vehicle profit from their investor reports divided by number of cars sold. The lower number is a lot more variable -- some years car companies lose money from their vehicle production side...
hackityhack 2mo ago
If we ever get flying cars, I hope they have real buttons. I imagine it's too late for land cars to ever go all the way back to buttons.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
proee 2mo ago
For touchscreens, I think there is an opportunity to make larger touch targets. For example, when you want to adjust HVAC controls, the UI should take over the ENTIRE screen with ridiculously huge targets. Something in the range of 1-4 square inches in size for a core button should allow your for reduced cognitive overhead. This is critical for safe driving.
helterskelter 2mo ago
There was a study from a few years ago that associated almost all increase in traffic deaths in the past decade or so with in car displays. Almost all deaths were pedestrians being struck at or after twilight. The thinking is that infotainment systems are making drivers take their eyes off the road to adjust anything in their vehicles, and also ruining their nightvision. Not sure how they were able to separate this from smartphones.
- scottyah 2mo ago
  Adjusting radios was the biggest cause of traffic incidents for a long time. IMO the super bright LED headlights from other vehicles is the worst thing for night vision.
iamdamian 2mo ago
There has been more pushback on car screens over the past couple of years, and the optimist in me hopes this leads to change. With enough pushback, manufacturers will have to listen to the market, cost savings be damned. A concrete step I take to push this along: I mention physical buttons as a dealbreaker to car dealerships when I shop. Of course, I'm only speaking to dealer reps and not the decision makers at $CAR_CO, but if enough people do this, it does get back to the them and will make a difference.
- oblio 2mo ago
  In Europe it's done through EuroNCAP: https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/ https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens... It has already started asking for physical buttons for key functions to give manufacturers the top safety rating, and it's working. Buttons are coming back.
  - scottyah 2mo ago
    Their source is "a Swedish motoring magazine in 2022". Europe sure does love regulation- no desire or call for finding the best way to implement vehicular controls, just a desire to lock in old functionality with a flimsy excuse.
    - oblio 2mo ago
      LOL. Go do more research if you have issues with their approach. HN really likes to assume that everyone except themselves are idiots.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  That works as long as you actually stick to your guns and keep them as deal-breakers. If you accept them with some grumbling, that's still a sale and that provides no backpressure to the manufacturer.
  - iamdamian 2mo ago
sedatk 2mo ago
More importantly, car touchscreens are dangerous. It’s impossible to operate a touchscreen without moving your attention from the road to the touchscreen itself. That’s why I think it must be a legal requirement for any car with touchscreen controls to operate car functions must have driver assistance features enabled, no exceptions.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
  > car touchscreens are dangerous. It’s impossible to operate a touchscreen without moving your attention from the road to the touchscreen itself They're dangerous for controls the driver would reasonably need to operate while driving the car. They're fine for more-complex at-rest configuration, or stuff a passener would care about.
- scottyah 2mo ago
  Just like the article mentioned, you can't just say that touchscreens are dangerous without bringing up how many buttons do not make it better UX. There are plenty of touchscreen designs that are way better than buttons. The only metric that matters is how fast you can get attention back on the road.
  - sedatk 2mo ago
    Simple. I can operate any button without taking my attention from the road at all as long as the said button has a distinct feeling and/or location. That’s immediately an infinitely better experience. BMW iDrive buttons are an excellent example for that.
  - Miraste 2mo ago
    There are zero touchscreen designs that are better than (physical, tactile) buttons. You can hit buttons without taking your eyes off the road. You cannot do this with a touchscreen. There's no way to design or engineer around it, it's simply the wrong tool for the job.
    - scottyah 2mo ago
aftbit 2mo ago
They're getting better though. The first gen touchscreens were tiny and unreliable. The one in my 2024 Ioniq 5 is pretty decent. I am really glad I still have physical AC controls though, even if they're capacitive. Touchscreens are modal. If I want to control the climate, I first have to press the Climate capacitive button or scroll through the screen to find climate. That takes my hands off the wheel and my eyes off the road for longer than just tapping the fan-up button. As for the cost, I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior. Heck, I chose to step up an entire trim model to the top of the line trim just for the fancy LCD screen mirror. I'd happily pay extra for better buttons. IMO touch screens are great for rarely used features, but anything that gets clicked on most drives should be a dedicated touch point (capacitive button, physical button, steering wheel control, whatever). Give me multifunction displays from aviation. Touch screen in the middle, rows of modal buttons along the bottom and left side. You can use muscle memory to find the button.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
  > I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior I'm guessing the cost difference is greater than this. Which means the end-user price difference would be north of $1k. Would be interesting to see if customers would pay $2 to 5k extra for a mostly-tactile interior. (I think back-up camera requirements make some screen unavoidable.)
  - MostlyStable 2mo ago
    I'm somewhat skeptical that the cost difference would really be that high, but honestly...yeah I probably would. If what I was getting was fully physical (not capacitive) media and AC controls, including pause/play, skip/tune, volume control, temp control, fan speed control, zone selection, etc? I interact with those systems multiple times every single time I get into a vehicle, which is essentially multiple times every day, for years. Improving the quality of those interactions even a little bit (and in my opinion the difference between good physical buttons and even a very good touchscreen, let alone a shitty one, is massive), is worth thousands of dollars. While I was not presented with the option on a given model to go with buttons or touchscreens, when I was shopping for cars, I did eliminate models based on their interface options. The models I was willing to consider were probably cut in half because I wouldn't get anything that was entirely touch screen or capacitive for both AC and media.
BorisMelnik 2mo ago
car touchescreens are in the same category of most laptop webcams/cams: just make it good enough, and make it fit (and they both suck, most of the time)
jms703 2mo ago
I hate the way climate controls take over the whole screen, causing me to lose my map screen.
urbsgpw 2mo ago
I gotta say, the one redeeming feature of Ferrari Luce, for me at least, was the interior. I don't dislike screens, I just hate the tesla-esque obsession (where, for them with FSD - for all the hate they get about it up here - it might actually make sense since u are gonna have a FSD+Grok car) with no buttons. I know buttons add cost, but going back to the Luce example again: you have a healthy sized screen (so u don't go to the pre-tesla days), but you also have wonderful buttons across the board. Now, I know it's not a very representative car. But nobody said the buttons need to be as flashy or as numerous.
- wilg 2mo ago
  Tesla arguably has better, more useful, and more obvious physical buttons than most cars. Most car manufacturers spray confusing physical buttons everywhere with esoteric icons and insane UX. Everything you'd want to do as a driver in a Tesla has a physical button or a set it and forget it "auto" mode.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    That's why Lyft/Uber drivers who use Teslas need to cover them in stickers explaining how to do such esoteric behaviors as "open door"
    - wilg 2mo ago
      That’s a physical button.
  - urbsgpw 2mo ago
    Uhm, I like Teslas a lot. The design and the philosophy of just minimizing the amount of components. But where I would draw the line is AC via touch screen (again, if Grok can now do it reliably, fine, otherwise, buttons please). Also, depending on the model, I know some models had turn signals in some weird places (above the head? or am I hallucinating?). Also to make your point: if it hadnt been for carplay and its android equivalent, legacy auto would have been cooked long ago. I never use my VW native apps. My point being, I think we havent found the sweet spot yet.
advisedwang 2mo ago
I have heard (but have no insider knowledge) that it's not just the cost of parts, but what parts do to the development lifecycle. With physical parts, the development process is highly sequential. Pick the look, design how it fits, engineer what parts are used, manufacture tooling etc etc in a waterfall. If a revision needs to be made, the whole process needs to be re-started adding a huge amount of delays. With a touchscreen, the physical touchscreen and the software that runs on it are parallel threads. You can make most UI changes without impacting the manufacturing/design pipeline at all. You don't even need to have planned what the interface looks like before you finalize the parts needed.
- mcphage 2mo ago
  I feel like you could solve that with some constraints defined early in the process—the controls must fit in dimensions XxYxZ, and have K-input wires, and draw at most 5V of power, or whatever. Then the control designer can go off and design whatever they want within those constraints, and the car designer can go off and design the interior of the car knowing what the head unit will require.
  - dghlsakjg 2mo ago
    That's what the term "parts bin parts" refers to in the industry. If you get familiar with any car brand you can normally tell what brand of car a particular switch came from because they all use the same parts. Corvettes will share a LOT of parts with Suburbans, eg. You still have the issue of having to build the panels that the switches get installed into, so if you can replace a bunch of switches with a touchscreen interface, you can get on with designing the interior before you even know how may switches need to be installed.
- joe_the_user 2mo ago
  I suspect that another thing that's expensive, besides analog controls, is creating and testing a new, better interface for driving ICE cars using digital controls. So the only thing old our old-tech car companies do is add ad-hoc extensions of the usual car controls. And it is economical to package all these in a touch screen along with all the standard controls they can get away with.
Whatarethese 2mo ago
Maybe people should stop buying cars with crappy touch screens then? The touchscreens in my Model 3 has been amazing. Ever since I took delivery of it in 2019. Manufactures need to do better.
jmward01 2mo ago
I realize the article is pro buttons. I think a huge thing missing from the button discussion (well, maybe lightly touched on in the article) is that physical buttons and controls help guide without looking. Other buttons give feedback that your hand is in the right place. Sure, at first contact that (very bad) reference radio is worse than the touch screen but within a few days of using that I would not need to look to make sure I was hitting the button I wanted because I could feel the face of it with my hand and know I was hitting the right button. So basically, even though the paper picked essentially the worst radio on the planet, it would likely be better than a well designed touch screen after just a few days of use. First day though? That thing is a nightmare.
- citelao 2mo ago
  Totally agree; I had to cut a few sentences about that :). (I also tried to steel-man the paper as much as possible). Oddly enough, it seems like, although the value of "blind operation" is well-understood, it's not super well researched. As one of the papers I cite puts it: > Little research deals with the optimal design of haptic features and how haptic feedback can support the user in searching for control elements. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6676796/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6676796/
- bs7280 2mo ago
  A while ago I was driving a loaner car - a brand new top tier Accura rdx and the infotainment system was truly the worst and most dangerously designed I had ever witnessed. It was essentially a lenovo thinkpad type touchpad by the cup holder, and the screen was far away. The first time I tried to use it, it was so distracting that I would of crashed the car if it weren't for the safety features. My car is a 2018 with car play and physical scroll knobs and buttons, while awkward, I can operate it with my eyes on the road (realistically I can do everything I need from the steering wheel). This weird middle ground carplay was somehow the worst combo of buttons and touchscreen.
  - jazzyjackson 2mo ago
    I test rode an electric pedal assist bicycle yesterday that has a little operating system by the throttle, basically just a speedometer + toggle the level of power assist from eco to turbo. Even it has a "avoid distracted driving" popup that I had to fiddle with to dismiss while riding this bike for the first time.
cs702 2mo ago
Sure, touchscreens are cheap, but high-quality touchscreen software is most def NOT CHEAP! Apple and Google have spent untold amounts of money developing iOS and Android. CarPlay and Android Auto are really nice. Tesla has spent gobs of money on its touchscreen software too. It's the only native car touchscreen UI I've tried that feels smooth, snappy, responsive, simple. I've tried the native touchscreen UI of quite a few US and European carmakers. All of them fall short. They feel janky, clunky, obtuse. Physical buttons are much, MUCH cheaper than high-quality touchscreen software.
- shapefrog 2mo ago
  I think the reality is that it is harder to sell a subscription to a button than it is to software.
  - cs702 2mo ago
    Yeah, that's true. Sigh.
exabrial 2mo ago
Car touchscreens are a safety hazzard. Everyone hates them (except tesla owners), they need to largely banned
AceJohnny2 2mo ago
I want to cheer (again) for my 2020 Ford Escape. Its infotainment design was a significant differentiator that led to my selection after testing a dozen different models across all US manufacturers. It has Carplay/Android Auto, naturally, but it also has physical buttons for play/pause/previous/next and volume, and physical buttons for A/C control. All buttons have fixed purpose, they don't change depending on whatever mode something is. It is an ideal amount of buttons compared to, say, the Honda CRV or Toyota RAV4 at the time that had extra buttons around the screen for flexible purposes. I hear the Escape was actually designed for the European market (as the Kuga), which may explain its design sensibility. Unfortunately, the Escape has not been a roaring success, and Ford will discontinue it in the US market in favor of the Bronco Sport which has, you guessed it, a huge touchscreen and few physical buttons.
kube-system 2mo ago
My biggest issue with touchscreen controls is that they are not ergonomic. 1. Usually they are high on the dash, higher than where conventional controls would be 2. You cannot rest your hand on the surrounding panel to press them, because this will cause unintentional presses on other buttons Resulting in two problems: 1. Because of the above, you must activate more muscles to steady your hand and arm in a moving car to accurately press them. This is less comfortable and leads to frustrating misclicks 2. This increases the amount of time required to use the controls, which is annoying for infotainment, but dangerous for anything safety related
- ninalanyon 2mo ago
  Neither of those are a problem in my 2015 Tesla Model S for the buttons that control the climate control or media player. It seems to me that many of the problems that people report related to touch controls are more to do with how they are laid out than the fact that they are touch controls.
  - kube-system 2mo ago
    They're at the bottom of a portrait screen (and IIRC there's a bit of a bezel to rest your hand on), which makes it a little better. Floating screens make this harder, especially as they get larger and further from the driver Tesla has also been guilty of some particularly awful designs on later models, like requiring the driver to navigate to a submenu to turn on the wipers (which I know they changed in an update, but still should have never done to begin with)
    - ninalanyon 2mo ago
      > Tesla has also been guilty of some particularly awful designs on later models, Absolutely! They loaned me a Model 3 while my 2015 Model S 70D was having the battery replaced (just before the warranty ran out). I really disliked it despite it being considerably newer and having longer range. The big portrait screen on the old Model S being firmly embedded in the dashboard makes it much easier to use. Also part of the landscape screen on the Model 3 was obscured by my left hand on the steering wheel (UK spec right hand drive car). I was very glad to get back into my ancient Model S.
t1234s 2mo ago
I think its easier to develop muscle memory to certain buttons. For instance I had a similar 1DIN head unit to the one pictured in the article. I never needed to look at it to operate it.
- scottyah 2mo ago
  On my last button car, I could control volume and turning on/off the radio without looking, but that was it. With the touchscreen, I do have to glance away but am way faster to get back looking at the road. Most things I just don't need to fiddle with anymore, before I'd need to redirect 3 fans, change a dial to put AC mode on/off, another two sliders to make driver and passenger the same (desired) temp (more or less- would have to change later), etc. Now I just adjust one smart "auto mode" a couple degree depending on what I feel like, then can get more granular in controls if I want in two taps. With voice control I never have to take my eyes off the road at all.
max8539 2mo ago
Not sure why the command knob in Mazda scares new users: it’s an option and you still could use the touch screen, it’s just a nice alternative for it… Absolutely love the command knob, so much better than using the touch screen
- wvenable 2mo ago
  You cannot touch the touch screen on a Mazda with the commander knob unless you're in Carplay/Android Auto and only if you've found the buried setting to enable it. It is not an alternative for touch screen, it replaces it.
  - max8539 2mo ago
    Oh, my bad, the touch screen isn’t working when the car is moving. But this is just a Mazda restriction, not a technical one.
kube-system 2mo ago
> In contrast, touchscreens are, quite literally, free. All US cars have screens, since rear-view cameras have been mandatory here since 2018, and most of those will be touchscreens Not quite true because automakers can satisfy the rear-view camera requirement with very cheap screens, e.g. integrated into the rear view mirror. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/83QAAeSwizNpjhlB/s-l400.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/83QAAeSwizNpjhlB/s-l400.webp
4fterd4rk 2mo ago
The anti-screen crowd vastly overestimates people's competence with buttons. "You can hit them without taking your eyes off the road!" Please observe the typical driver as they attempt to change their climate control settings and report back.
- wvenable 2mo ago
  Wait till have they have to swipe up from the bottom of a touchscreen to do the same thing. In many ways, it's all the same buttons with the same icons but now they're inside of menus!
- initatus 2mo ago
  My sense of touch contributes to making sure I actuate the control I want. I can glance at a knob for a split second and then my hand can get "close enough" to finally navigate to the correct position using only touch. Then I can manipulate that and adjacent controls as much as I want with no hassle. With capacitive, I'm holding my whole-ass arm in the air in a bouncing car trying to watch my finger tip float around a button, with the intensity of shooting proton torpedoes down an exhaust shaft. Alllmmoosstt tthhheerree!
wvenable 2mo ago
This is a timely article for me because I test drove a 2026 Mazda CX-5 and then ultimately purchased a 2025 instead. Disliking the giant touchscreen wasn't the only reason but it certainly was one of the reasons. The screen actually makes the entire experience feel cheaper compared to the extremely nice feeling buttons on the older model. They even cheapened-out on the steering wheel buttons on a car where those are now the only buttons! It was an incredibly frustrating drive -- I could barely successfully navigate the radio using the screen or the wheel buttons. I'm sure I would have gotten more used to it but it just wasn't what I was looking for. I'm a software developer, I deal with this technology every day, and I just didn't want that to be front and center on my drive as well. Now that being said, the commander knob on the older Mazda cars is also a terrible user experience. Turning and pressing physical knobs to change the climate control, volume, or radio stations is very satisfying and user-friendly. But the commander knob is a joy-stick for controlling an on screen cursor -- so you both have to be constantly looking at the screen and you have to translate knob motions to the movement of that cursor. It should be unsurprising that simply reaching up and pressing an icon on the screen is significantly easier and less distracting. Luckily I'm almost always in Carplay / Android Auto so it's best of both worlds -- you can press physical buttons to do most of the major tasks (open music, open maps, select favorites, volume, climate control, etc) but then press the screen when that makes sense.
havblue 2mo ago
I have a Mazda that uses the knob implementation of Android Auto... It's just okay. The first problem is that the screen cracks under heat, which is cheap to fix diy, expensive otherwise. Second is the firmware is difficult to update. Again, it's free diy, but you'll brick your infotainment if you screw up. The old firmware is bad: frequent disconnects and screen blackouts. Dealers don't seem to care much about patching it though. I know a mechanic that refused to touch the infotainment as well. You kind of need to flex your nerd abilities or go aftermarket if you want to keep a decent android auto experience.
thomas536 2mo ago
I refuse to believe this is the only way to make it cheaper. Standardization and modular components could help. Might not be cheap enough. But surely we can be more imaginative!

92 points by citelao 2mo ago

OP here: I always disliked touchscreens in cars, so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. I always assumed I was weird in some way, and that most consumers preferred touchscreens or something (Reddit seems to argue this in circles all the time). I planned to keep buying Mazdas, with their lovely buttons and stuff. But when Mazda unveiled their button-lite 2026 CX-5 about a year ago, I started investigating. I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too!

pwg 2mo ago
> so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. The article explained why. Since 2018 in the US, due to the proliferation of giant trucks being used as passenger vehicles (SUV's) backup cameras have been mandatory safety equipment. A backup camera requires a screen. So the automakers have to install a screen in the dashboard. It is only a few dollars more to install a "touch screen" vs. a "basic display screen", and with the addition of those few dollars to the screen, that touch screen can now replace hundreds of dollars of physical buttons and their necessary wiring. Net result, the BOM cost of the car drops by several hundred dollars, and the cost to assemble drops by some measurable amount as well. So they why is: "because they save the automakers BOM and assembly costs".
- birdostrich 2mo ago
  They're aware. You're replying to the OP of the article, lol.
  - nkozyra 2mo ago
    Obviously they read it, but it's 2026 and entirely possible to publish an article without having read a word of it :) All that said, I think initially it was a mix of a few things coming together. Yes, auto mfgs always want to reduce parts for cost and supply chain control. But there was also this moment of New Wow where the impractical nature of touchscreens was overshadowed by the holy crap I've got a tablet in my car. It implied a break with the last generation of cars, where you might have gotten a 4-inch screen (touch or not), and it became desirable at a surface level to users. Although I greatly dislike touchscreens for the obvious usability issues in a motor vehicle, I still kind of widen my eyes when I'm in a car with some new, ridiculous multi-screen dashboard setup. Mazda was mentioned in this thread, and I think they do a great job of separating the concerns here; you've got a big buttons of various sizes that do different things that can be memorized without sight.
- jjav 2mo ago
  > So the automakers have to install a screen in the dashboard. Perfect example of reasonably good intention backfiring. So now you have a backup camera, which is useful, but you also have drivers fiddling around with a touchscreen while driving, taking eyes and concentration off the road. I don't have research numbers, but it feels like the latter causes way more accidents than the backup camera prevents. My partner has one of these newer cars where everything is a multi-menu operation through the touchscreen and it is very scary. Anything you need to change takes many many seconds of visual attention focusing on the touchscreen, which means not focusing at the road. I'm quite sure this will lead to an accident at some point. Personally none of my cars have a screen and none ever will. I can adjust everything that can be adjusted purely by feel without ever taking my eyes off the road. Clearly that is safer.
  - soco 2mo ago
    > Personally none of my cars have a screen and none ever will. I can adjust everything that can be adjusted purely by feel without ever taking my eyes off the road. Clearly that is safer. You can also have the best of both worlds. I'm not pretending it's an ideal car, but my Audi has plenty of knobs and buttons and switches for about anything I usually need. You only are forced to use the screen for switching between radio and bluetooth music (maybe there's a button for that too and I don't know it), for setting up the navigation and of course the zillion of car settings. So do I have a screen? Yes. Do I depend on it? Really no. So folks, there IS a way, we just have to push for it.
nicce 2mo ago
> I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too! I thought this is a pretty well-known thing already? For almost decade.
- dieselgate 2mo ago
  I figured it was the most reasonable conclusion via Occam's Razor. Economical and the illusion of futurism
- citelao 2mo ago
  OP: Perhaps it is, but this article honestly took me 12 months to research & write. I really struggled to find trustworthy sources. Do you know of any others I should look at? Also, I rather like the idea that blogging can simply be stating the obvious: https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvious/ https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvio.... Hopefully my argument is helpful to someone!
  - nicce 2mo ago
    > Also, I rather like the idea that blogging can simply be stating the obvious I thought about this before posting my reply, that should I. But if you really spent time for researching this blog, you would know that your conclusion is not rare nor the first one. It is widely discussed and appears in HN regularly. But regardless, the tone in the post or here in comments felt to me that you try to somehow own this idea. Thought, you even cited the Ferrari CEO who said exactly the same.
Gualdrapo 2mo ago
I think that nowadays people value "technological features", and how better to show "technological advancement" like a giant ass touchscreen and not some "old" XX century knobs.
- cuu508 2mo ago
  I hope that changes and people start valuing simplicity and robustness over electric gimmicks (I know many people already do, but we need critical mass).
guessbest 2mo ago
It is so much easier to add internationalization to a touchscreen over physical buttons
- ilinx 2mo ago
  How much is that needed? There was very little text on those buttons to begin with. Are there significant cultural differences in the iconography associated with them?
prmoustache 2mo ago
The reality is they want to serve us ads in the future. But they first need adoption.
- nkozyra 2mo ago
  > But they first need adoption. I think they've got that. Short of budget stuff or the Slate truck, most new cars have some big dumb screen in them at all times. But advertising poses a new problem for both advertisers and mfgs not unlike the mid-90s ad sale issue. There was no consolidated ad server, so everyone was trying to build their own agency and advertisers had to navigate that. Which probably means some sort of Google or Google-like player in the space.
- jasonjayr 2mo ago
  (a) cars have forward-facing cameras/computer vision for lane tracking (b) infotainment systems have always-on cellular internet connections (c) billboard impression counts can be tied to the vehicle IIRC infotainment systems are already showing ads in some form. And location + driving performance is being captured + monetized and shared with insurance companies. Unless this results in an EV car that I can rent for less than $100/mo, this really needs to be stopped.
- scottyah 2mo ago
  Stellantis tried it already, had to back-pedal calling it a "glitch". I'm sure someone else will be bold enough to try again though.
MisterTea 2mo ago
> I'm pretty convinced that touchscreens today are primarily a cost-saving measure, and every other justification is secondary. I hope I can convince you, too! It amuses me that back in the 90's LCD color screens were magical fairy dust that cost about the same as what magical fairy dust would cost. Laptops with color LCD screens were like $6000 in the 90's, I think $3k over a greyscale. That's like $13k today. Whereas the little plastic buttons and knobs were cheaper to pump out of an injection molding machine and assembled. Now screens are cheaper to make than little plastic baubles.
- elcritch 2mo ago
  Yeah it's sorta of fascinating. Likewise now cells phones are faster than supercomputers from two decades ago and everyone can afford one. Meanwhile hardwood furniture is much more expensive now that it's usually in the "rich peoples" category. From what I've read, the little plastic baubles part of buttons are cheap, it's the electrical wiring harnesses and assembly that are expensive part of physical controls.
- bryanlarsen 2mo ago
  Injection molding is still quite cheap. I think it's the tooling and labor and wiring and parts management et cetera that makes the cost add up for fiddly little bits.
gumby271 2mo ago
I love the click-wheel on my Mazda3 and I love that it allows the screen to sit out of arms length up on the dashboard. Its a very nice interior. What I don't love is how Android Auto is slowly breaking since it assumes more and more that you have a touchscreen. It used to be that it would focus buttons in notifications, making it easy to interact with. Now the focus doesn't seem to change at all (or only sometimes) making it a nightmare to do simple things. I dare not use the new Gemini assistant since the last time I was completely unable to navigate to the buttons in its panel at all. I really hope they don't phase out the wheel just because Google sucks at supporting it. I know they have both touch and the wheel in newer models now.
- aiisjustanif 2mo ago
  I cried when Mercedes go rid of the click wheel. Research in this article be damned, I’d argue that rotary knobs with directional shifting like Mercedes paired with great software are the best car infotainment interface in recent history for screens in cars.
  - scottyah 2mo ago
    I love voice control, have you tried/gotten used to that?
  - vardump 2mo ago
    Curiously Teslas currently have two click wheels in the steering wheel.
OptionOfT 2mo ago
They are. All BMWs have the same screen. It's one 1 screen, regardless of whether your car has heated seats, ventilated seats, sync, arm-rest warmers, separate blowers or a single blower. Within 1 production line, say for the BMW 3 series, some people don't select heated seats, some do. Now they only need to make 1 version of the plastic, and it's just a checkbox in the software to enable the heated seats.

kleiba2 2mo ago

I think there is a real market for modding news cars to have physical buttons again. Whenever this discussion pops up on the internet, there's plenty if people who prefer them (they're called "old folks" ;-)) so why not mod your dashboard to feature a - wait for it - volume button for your music!

wat10000 2mo ago
This company sells buttons for Teslas: https://www.enhauto.com/pages/buttons https://www.enhauto.com/pages/buttons The "cloud features included" line amuses me greatly given the low-tech theme.
- bryanlarsen 2mo ago
  Here's another really nice looking one: https://www.ctrl-bar.com/ https://www.ctrl-bar.com/ Mine is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow...
logancbrown 2mo ago
The volume button (dial) broke on my Ford Maverick in summer. Moving to a touchscreen car felt like a sigh of relief that I no longer had to worry about buttons and dials breaking when I need to use them, and don't have to worry about a trip to a dealer or tearing apart a dash to replace them. I will say a button "feels" nicer, but the added risk to me wasn't worth it. To each their own
- hatefulheart 2mo ago
  Yeah, wait until the whole thing is unresponsive due to heat or a bug, you’ll be wishing only your volume button was affected. The fact you can rip open the dashboard and fix something is great and what I call a feature, not a bug.
  - jjulius 2mo ago
    Or you reach for a certain area of the screen out of muscle memory, but the UI changed "just because" and now you're very distracted.

bijowo1676 2mo ago

Voice interface is the future, just have voice assistant do everything without relying on knobs nor touch screen same way people just talk to claude code via whisper

macintux 2mo ago
No. No, please, no. I won't buy a car that relies on voice for anything, and I really don't want to rent one either. Wildly inefficient, slow, unpredictable.
drakythe 2mo ago
Lordy I hope not. Cannot imagine having to childproof my car's entertainment system, or make sure I don't sing a trigger word, or try to turn on the defroster to dehumidify the windshield during an intense rain storm where I can barely hear myself think. Also: I don't want a microphone in my car at all times. Thank you.
- _flux 2mo ago
  It could use array microphone to detect that the sound originates from the driver's seat (in addition to using it for filtering out not-from-driver's-seat sounds).
  - recursive 2mo ago
    I mean that's cool, if it actually works reliably. Automation tech enthusiasts are willing to be impressed by 99% reliability. To get buy-in from regular people, it needs to just work better. To be clear, I don't know how reliable this actually is now, but I'd be willing to bet that it's not reliable enough.
    - scottyah 2mo ago
      Then it seems like we should work on making it better instead of just trashing the idea?

dayyan 2mo ago

Just ask the car, unfortunately, asking rarely works unless you're in a Tesla.

deuplonicus 2mo ago

As an engineer in R&D, I've always known if I needed a cheap but amazing part, to look at automotive replacements from third parties for parts to build an MVP with. Those rear hatch motors are amazing and most have indexing.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

bryanlarsen 2mo ago

The $6,000 profit per car referenced in the article is gross profit, not net profit. Net profit is considerably lower, around 5% for the mass manufacturers. So a $100 cost savings is very significant against a ~$3,000 net profit on a Bolt.

citelao 2mo ago
OP: ooooo, that's neat. Do you have a source? I struggled to find a source for even that $6,000 number.
- bryanlarsen 2mo ago
  The $6,000 number is a lot harder to calculate. The lower number is just vehicle profit from their investor reports divided by number of cars sold. The lower number is a lot more variable -- some years car companies lose money from their vehicle production side...

hackityhack 2mo ago

If we ever get flying cars, I hope they have real buttons. I imagine it's too late for land cars to ever go all the way back to buttons.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

proee 2mo ago

For touchscreens, I think there is an opportunity to make larger touch targets. For example, when you want to adjust HVAC controls, the UI should take over the ENTIRE screen with ridiculously huge targets. Something in the range of 1-4 square inches in size for a core button should allow your for reduced cognitive overhead. This is critical for safe driving.

helterskelter 2mo ago

There was a study from a few years ago that associated almost all increase in traffic deaths in the past decade or so with in car displays. Almost all deaths were pedestrians being struck at or after twilight. The thinking is that infotainment systems are making drivers take their eyes off the road to adjust anything in their vehicles, and also ruining their nightvision. Not sure how they were able to separate this from smartphones.

scottyah 2mo ago
Adjusting radios was the biggest cause of traffic incidents for a long time. IMO the super bright LED headlights from other vehicles is the worst thing for night vision.

iamdamian 2mo ago

There has been more pushback on car screens over the past couple of years, and the optimist in me hopes this leads to change. With enough pushback, manufacturers will have to listen to the market, cost savings be damned. A concrete step I take to push this along: I mention physical buttons as a dealbreaker to car dealerships when I shop. Of course, I'm only speaking to dealer reps and not the decision makers at $CAR_CO, but if enough people do this, it does get back to the them and will make a difference.

oblio 2mo ago
In Europe it's done through EuroNCAP: https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/ https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens... It has already started asking for physical buttons for key functions to give manufacturers the top safety rating, and it's working. Buttons are coming back.
- scottyah 2mo ago
  Their source is "a Swedish motoring magazine in 2022". Europe sure does love regulation- no desire or call for finding the best way to implement vehicular controls, just a desire to lock in old functionality with a flimsy excuse.
  - oblio 2mo ago
    LOL. Go do more research if you have issues with their approach. HN really likes to assume that everyone except themselves are idiots.
SoftTalker 2mo ago
That works as long as you actually stick to your guns and keep them as deal-breakers. If you accept them with some grumbling, that's still a sale and that provides no backpressure to the manufacturer.
- iamdamian 2mo ago

sedatk 2mo ago

More importantly, car touchscreens are dangerous. It’s impossible to operate a touchscreen without moving your attention from the road to the touchscreen itself. That’s why I think it must be a legal requirement for any car with touchscreen controls to operate car functions must have driver assistance features enabled, no exceptions.

JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
> car touchscreens are dangerous. It’s impossible to operate a touchscreen without moving your attention from the road to the touchscreen itself They're dangerous for controls the driver would reasonably need to operate while driving the car. They're fine for more-complex at-rest configuration, or stuff a passener would care about.
scottyah 2mo ago
Just like the article mentioned, you can't just say that touchscreens are dangerous without bringing up how many buttons do not make it better UX. There are plenty of touchscreen designs that are way better than buttons. The only metric that matters is how fast you can get attention back on the road.
- sedatk 2mo ago
  Simple. I can operate any button without taking my attention from the road at all as long as the said button has a distinct feeling and/or location. That’s immediately an infinitely better experience. BMW iDrive buttons are an excellent example for that.
- Miraste 2mo ago
  There are zero touchscreen designs that are better than (physical, tactile) buttons. You can hit buttons without taking your eyes off the road. You cannot do this with a touchscreen. There's no way to design or engineer around it, it's simply the wrong tool for the job.
  - scottyah 2mo ago

aftbit 2mo ago

They're getting better though. The first gen touchscreens were tiny and unreliable. The one in my 2024 Ioniq 5 is pretty decent. I am really glad I still have physical AC controls though, even if they're capacitive. Touchscreens are modal. If I want to control the climate, I first have to press the Climate capacitive button or scroll through the screen to find climate. That takes my hands off the wheel and my eyes off the road for longer than just tapping the fan-up button. As for the cost, I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior. Heck, I chose to step up an entire trim model to the top of the line trim just for the fancy LCD screen mirror. I'd happily pay extra for better buttons. IMO touch screens are great for rarely used features, but anything that gets clicked on most drives should be a dedicated touch point (capacitive button, physical button, steering wheel control, whatever). Give me multifunction displays from aviation. Touch screen in the middle, rows of modal buttons along the bottom and left side. You can use muscle memory to find the button.

JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
> I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior I'm guessing the cost difference is greater than this. Which means the end-user price difference would be north of $1k. Would be interesting to see if customers would pay $2 to 5k extra for a mostly-tactile interior. (I think back-up camera requirements make some screen unavoidable.)
- MostlyStable 2mo ago
  I'm somewhat skeptical that the cost difference would really be that high, but honestly...yeah I probably would. If what I was getting was fully physical (not capacitive) media and AC controls, including pause/play, skip/tune, volume control, temp control, fan speed control, zone selection, etc? I interact with those systems multiple times every single time I get into a vehicle, which is essentially multiple times every day, for years. Improving the quality of those interactions even a little bit (and in my opinion the difference between good physical buttons and even a very good touchscreen, let alone a shitty one, is massive), is worth thousands of dollars. While I was not presented with the option on a given model to go with buttons or touchscreens, when I was shopping for cars, I did eliminate models based on their interface options. The models I was willing to consider were probably cut in half because I wouldn't get anything that was entirely touch screen or capacitive for both AC and media.

BorisMelnik 2mo ago

car touchescreens are in the same category of most laptop webcams/cams: just make it good enough, and make it fit (and they both suck, most of the time)

jms703 2mo ago

I hate the way climate controls take over the whole screen, causing me to lose my map screen.

urbsgpw 2mo ago

I gotta say, the one redeeming feature of Ferrari Luce, for me at least, was the interior. I don't dislike screens, I just hate the tesla-esque obsession (where, for them with FSD - for all the hate they get about it up here - it might actually make sense since u are gonna have a FSD+Grok car) with no buttons. I know buttons add cost, but going back to the Luce example again: you have a healthy sized screen (so u don't go to the pre-tesla days), but you also have wonderful buttons across the board. Now, I know it's not a very representative car. But nobody said the buttons need to be as flashy or as numerous.

wilg 2mo ago
Tesla arguably has better, more useful, and more obvious physical buttons than most cars. Most car manufacturers spray confusing physical buttons everywhere with esoteric icons and insane UX. Everything you'd want to do as a driver in a Tesla has a physical button or a set it and forget it "auto" mode.
- estearum 2mo ago
  That's why Lyft/Uber drivers who use Teslas need to cover them in stickers explaining how to do such esoteric behaviors as "open door"
  - wilg 2mo ago
    That’s a physical button.
- urbsgpw 2mo ago
  Uhm, I like Teslas a lot. The design and the philosophy of just minimizing the amount of components. But where I would draw the line is AC via touch screen (again, if Grok can now do it reliably, fine, otherwise, buttons please). Also, depending on the model, I know some models had turn signals in some weird places (above the head? or am I hallucinating?). Also to make your point: if it hadnt been for carplay and its android equivalent, legacy auto would have been cooked long ago. I never use my VW native apps. My point being, I think we havent found the sweet spot yet.

advisedwang 2mo ago

I have heard (but have no insider knowledge) that it's not just the cost of parts, but what parts do to the development lifecycle. With physical parts, the development process is highly sequential. Pick the look, design how it fits, engineer what parts are used, manufacture tooling etc etc in a waterfall. If a revision needs to be made, the whole process needs to be re-started adding a huge amount of delays. With a touchscreen, the physical touchscreen and the software that runs on it are parallel threads. You can make most UI changes without impacting the manufacturing/design pipeline at all. You don't even need to have planned what the interface looks like before you finalize the parts needed.

mcphage 2mo ago
I feel like you could solve that with some constraints defined early in the process—the controls must fit in dimensions XxYxZ, and have K-input wires, and draw at most 5V of power, or whatever. Then the control designer can go off and design whatever they want within those constraints, and the car designer can go off and design the interior of the car knowing what the head unit will require.
- dghlsakjg 2mo ago
  That's what the term "parts bin parts" refers to in the industry. If you get familiar with any car brand you can normally tell what brand of car a particular switch came from because they all use the same parts. Corvettes will share a LOT of parts with Suburbans, eg. You still have the issue of having to build the panels that the switches get installed into, so if you can replace a bunch of switches with a touchscreen interface, you can get on with designing the interior before you even know how may switches need to be installed.
joe_the_user 2mo ago
I suspect that another thing that's expensive, besides analog controls, is creating and testing a new, better interface for driving ICE cars using digital controls. So the only thing old our old-tech car companies do is add ad-hoc extensions of the usual car controls. And it is economical to package all these in a touch screen along with all the standard controls they can get away with.

Whatarethese 2mo ago

Maybe people should stop buying cars with crappy touch screens then? The touchscreens in my Model 3 has been amazing. Ever since I took delivery of it in 2019. Manufactures need to do better.

jmward01 2mo ago

I realize the article is pro buttons. I think a huge thing missing from the button discussion (well, maybe lightly touched on in the article) is that physical buttons and controls help guide without looking. Other buttons give feedback that your hand is in the right place. Sure, at first contact that (very bad) reference radio is worse than the touch screen but within a few days of using that I would not need to look to make sure I was hitting the button I wanted because I could feel the face of it with my hand and know I was hitting the right button. So basically, even though the paper picked essentially the worst radio on the planet, it would likely be better than a well designed touch screen after just a few days of use. First day though? That thing is a nightmare.

citelao 2mo ago
Totally agree; I had to cut a few sentences about that :). (I also tried to steel-man the paper as much as possible). Oddly enough, it seems like, although the value of "blind operation" is well-understood, it's not super well researched. As one of the papers I cite puts it: > Little research deals with the optimal design of haptic features and how haptic feedback can support the user in searching for control elements. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6676796/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6676796/
bs7280 2mo ago
A while ago I was driving a loaner car - a brand new top tier Accura rdx and the infotainment system was truly the worst and most dangerously designed I had ever witnessed. It was essentially a lenovo thinkpad type touchpad by the cup holder, and the screen was far away. The first time I tried to use it, it was so distracting that I would of crashed the car if it weren't for the safety features. My car is a 2018 with car play and physical scroll knobs and buttons, while awkward, I can operate it with my eyes on the road (realistically I can do everything I need from the steering wheel). This weird middle ground carplay was somehow the worst combo of buttons and touchscreen.
- jazzyjackson 2mo ago
  I test rode an electric pedal assist bicycle yesterday that has a little operating system by the throttle, basically just a speedometer + toggle the level of power assist from eco to turbo. Even it has a "avoid distracted driving" popup that I had to fiddle with to dismiss while riding this bike for the first time.

cs702 2mo ago

Sure, touchscreens are cheap, but high-quality touchscreen software is most def NOT CHEAP! Apple and Google have spent untold amounts of money developing iOS and Android. CarPlay and Android Auto are really nice. Tesla has spent gobs of money on its touchscreen software too. It's the only native car touchscreen UI I've tried that feels smooth, snappy, responsive, simple. I've tried the native touchscreen UI of quite a few US and European carmakers. All of them fall short. They feel janky, clunky, obtuse. Physical buttons are much, MUCH cheaper than high-quality touchscreen software.

shapefrog 2mo ago
I think the reality is that it is harder to sell a subscription to a button than it is to software.
- cs702 2mo ago
  Yeah, that's true. Sigh.

exabrial 2mo ago

Car touchscreens are a safety hazzard. Everyone hates them (except tesla owners), they need to largely banned

AceJohnny2 2mo ago

I want to cheer (again) for my 2020 Ford Escape. Its infotainment design was a significant differentiator that led to my selection after testing a dozen different models across all US manufacturers. It has Carplay/Android Auto, naturally, but it also has physical buttons for play/pause/previous/next and volume, and physical buttons for A/C control. All buttons have fixed purpose, they don't change depending on whatever mode something is. It is an ideal amount of buttons compared to, say, the Honda CRV or Toyota RAV4 at the time that had extra buttons around the screen for flexible purposes. I hear the Escape was actually designed for the European market (as the Kuga), which may explain its design sensibility. Unfortunately, the Escape has not been a roaring success, and Ford will discontinue it in the US market in favor of the Bronco Sport which has, you guessed it, a huge touchscreen and few physical buttons.

kube-system 2mo ago

My biggest issue with touchscreen controls is that they are not ergonomic. 1. Usually they are high on the dash, higher than where conventional controls would be 2. You cannot rest your hand on the surrounding panel to press them, because this will cause unintentional presses on other buttons Resulting in two problems: 1. Because of the above, you must activate more muscles to steady your hand and arm in a moving car to accurately press them. This is less comfortable and leads to frustrating misclicks 2. This increases the amount of time required to use the controls, which is annoying for infotainment, but dangerous for anything safety related

ninalanyon 2mo ago
Neither of those are a problem in my 2015 Tesla Model S for the buttons that control the climate control or media player. It seems to me that many of the problems that people report related to touch controls are more to do with how they are laid out than the fact that they are touch controls.
- kube-system 2mo ago
  They're at the bottom of a portrait screen (and IIRC there's a bit of a bezel to rest your hand on), which makes it a little better. Floating screens make this harder, especially as they get larger and further from the driver Tesla has also been guilty of some particularly awful designs on later models, like requiring the driver to navigate to a submenu to turn on the wipers (which I know they changed in an update, but still should have never done to begin with)
  - ninalanyon 2mo ago
    > Tesla has also been guilty of some particularly awful designs on later models, Absolutely! They loaned me a Model 3 while my 2015 Model S 70D was having the battery replaced (just before the warranty ran out). I really disliked it despite it being considerably newer and having longer range. The big portrait screen on the old Model S being firmly embedded in the dashboard makes it much easier to use. Also part of the landscape screen on the Model 3 was obscured by my left hand on the steering wheel (UK spec right hand drive car). I was very glad to get back into my ancient Model S.

t1234s 2mo ago

I think its easier to develop muscle memory to certain buttons. For instance I had a similar 1DIN head unit to the one pictured in the article. I never needed to look at it to operate it.

scottyah 2mo ago
On my last button car, I could control volume and turning on/off the radio without looking, but that was it. With the touchscreen, I do have to glance away but am way faster to get back looking at the road. Most things I just don't need to fiddle with anymore, before I'd need to redirect 3 fans, change a dial to put AC mode on/off, another two sliders to make driver and passenger the same (desired) temp (more or less- would have to change later), etc. Now I just adjust one smart "auto mode" a couple degree depending on what I feel like, then can get more granular in controls if I want in two taps. With voice control I never have to take my eyes off the road at all.

max8539 2mo ago

Not sure why the command knob in Mazda scares new users: it’s an option and you still could use the touch screen, it’s just a nice alternative for it… Absolutely love the command knob, so much better than using the touch screen

wvenable 2mo ago
You cannot touch the touch screen on a Mazda with the commander knob unless you're in Carplay/Android Auto and only if you've found the buried setting to enable it. It is not an alternative for touch screen, it replaces it.
- max8539 2mo ago
  Oh, my bad, the touch screen isn’t working when the car is moving. But this is just a Mazda restriction, not a technical one.

kube-system 2mo ago

> In contrast, touchscreens are, quite literally, free. All US cars have screens, since rear-view cameras have been mandatory here since 2018, and most of those will be touchscreens Not quite true because automakers can satisfy the rear-view camera requirement with very cheap screens, e.g. integrated into the rear view mirror. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/83QAAeSwizNpjhlB/s-l400.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/83QAAeSwizNpjhlB/s-l400.webp

4fterd4rk 2mo ago

The anti-screen crowd vastly overestimates people's competence with buttons. "You can hit them without taking your eyes off the road!" Please observe the typical driver as they attempt to change their climate control settings and report back.

wvenable 2mo ago
Wait till have they have to swipe up from the bottom of a touchscreen to do the same thing. In many ways, it's all the same buttons with the same icons but now they're inside of menus!
initatus 2mo ago
My sense of touch contributes to making sure I actuate the control I want. I can glance at a knob for a split second and then my hand can get "close enough" to finally navigate to the correct position using only touch. Then I can manipulate that and adjacent controls as much as I want with no hassle. With capacitive, I'm holding my whole-ass arm in the air in a bouncing car trying to watch my finger tip float around a button, with the intensity of shooting proton torpedoes down an exhaust shaft. Alllmmoosstt tthhheerree!

wvenable 2mo ago

This is a timely article for me because I test drove a 2026 Mazda CX-5 and then ultimately purchased a 2025 instead. Disliking the giant touchscreen wasn't the only reason but it certainly was one of the reasons. The screen actually makes the entire experience feel cheaper compared to the extremely nice feeling buttons on the older model. They even cheapened-out on the steering wheel buttons on a car where those are now the only buttons! It was an incredibly frustrating drive -- I could barely successfully navigate the radio using the screen or the wheel buttons. I'm sure I would have gotten more used to it but it just wasn't what I was looking for. I'm a software developer, I deal with this technology every day, and I just didn't want that to be front and center on my drive as well. Now that being said, the commander knob on the older Mazda cars is also a terrible user experience. Turning and pressing physical knobs to change the climate control, volume, or radio stations is very satisfying and user-friendly. But the commander knob is a joy-stick for controlling an on screen cursor -- so you both have to be constantly looking at the screen and you have to translate knob motions to the movement of that cursor. It should be unsurprising that simply reaching up and pressing an icon on the screen is significantly easier and less distracting. Luckily I'm almost always in Carplay / Android Auto so it's best of both worlds -- you can press physical buttons to do most of the major tasks (open music, open maps, select favorites, volume, climate control, etc) but then press the screen when that makes sense.

havblue 2mo ago

I have a Mazda that uses the knob implementation of Android Auto... It's just okay. The first problem is that the screen cracks under heat, which is cheap to fix diy, expensive otherwise. Second is the firmware is difficult to update. Again, it's free diy, but you'll brick your infotainment if you screw up. The old firmware is bad: frequent disconnects and screen blackouts. Dealers don't seem to care much about patching it though. I know a mechanic that refused to touch the infotainment as well. You kind of need to flex your nerd abilities or go aftermarket if you want to keep a decent android auto experience.

thomas536 2mo ago

I refuse to believe this is the only way to make it cheaper. Standardization and modular components could help. Might not be cheap enough. But surely we can be more imaginative!