European car safety body is coming for touchscreens. The European New Car Assessment Programme mandates that key controls need physical buttons or switches
The European New Car Assessment Programme mandates that key controls need physical buttons or switches.
Carmakers are equipping their latest models with fancy touchscreens, but that could cause problems with Europe’s largest car safety authority.
The European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) is revamping its rating system starting Jan. 1, 2026 to mandate that five of a car's primary controls — its horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features — will need physical buttons or switches.
Car models will have to comply to get NCAP's coveted five-star rating. The scheme is voluntary but is heeded by most automakers because it's closely monitored by consumers.
Belgium-based NCAP says that purely digital controls are a potential safety issue.
to mandate that five of a car's primary controls — its horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features — will need physical buttons or switches.
Good, but would be great if climate control, volume/mute, and other things that need frequent adjustment while driving were also part of the mandate.
Car seat adjustment, above seat vehicle interior lights, steering wheel adjustment, door handles, door locks, main rear view mirror, climate controls for vents and seats, car starting, and trunk and seat releases should all have controls that can be operated either directly or with physical buttons.
If there is ALSO a screen driven element, that’s fine, but this stuff needs to work without a screen.
This stuff is not being done for the sake of UX. It is for saving money at the expense of consumer safety.
I can see the case for some of them after you’ve been in a crash (although if the pyro fuse has blown, not much requiring switches will work anymore, regardless of the type of controls), but if you want physical controls for the rear view mirror for safety, you should probably start adjusting that before you start driving.
Same for cabin lights, whatever you’re doing that needs the lights on should probably be done stationary, if you care about safety.
It is for saving money at the expense of consumer safety.
People keep saying this but I don't buy it. Like, how much does some fucking buttons cost? Hell the cheap cars still have buttons and mechanical controls with cables and shit.
And at the cost of consumer dissatisfaction. I think this is just more "change for the sake of change" so that someone can justify their job at the company that we've all come to know from the tech world.
You shouldn't be adjusting your seats, steering wheel, and mirrors while driving. Interior lights neither, they should be off if you need them you're not looking at the road. Climate control is also non-critical all that might be annoying but you don't need to do it while driving. "car starting" isn't really a thing with many cars any more, even gasoline ones, they switch the motor off automatically when you're standing for a while and start once you select a gear, hit the throttle, whatever.
Door handles though I absolutely agree, it's a safety thing: You can make them fancy schmancy electric all you want but they also have to open the lock mechanically, e.g. by pulling the lever with some force none of that Tesla "open the maintenance hatch and find a steel cable to pull on".
I have Tesla and their old design I could do easily while driving. They did a UI update and not everything takes several clicks.
Anything that is critical to running the car should have a manual control. If touch screen isn’t available, you need to be able to operate the car, if nothing else to get to a repair center.
Eh, I think this strikes the perfect balance where it ensures safety while not stifling innovation. Touchscreens are bad, and the consensus around that is growing. But the solution might not be a return to physical buttons, there are many possibilities and some might turn out easier and safer.
I'm sincerely appreciative of everything they do for consumers as a whole. Not everything makes it across the pond but at the very least it sets precedent and a lot of the groundwork is done if our politicians ever decide to get their shit together and give us a ground to stand on against corporations and lobbyists.
except of course for the blatant racism against non-western people, the current shift towards neofash politics (meloni etc), the militarization and the impeding economic collapse.
how do liberals manage to ignore problems so efficiently?
except of course for the blatant racism against non-western people, the current shift towards neofash politics (meloni etc), the militarization and the impeding economic collapse.
All of which already happen in the US, but worse.
The entire world sucks, can’t we be happy of living in a place that sucks a bit less?
Car models will have to comply to get NCAP’s coveted five-star rating. The scheme is voluntary but is heeded by most automakers because it’s closely monitored by consumers.
Bollocks. F*ck this shit. Make it mandatory and take those ticking time bombs of the road. They are endangering OTHER people's lives. Voluntary my ass.
I love some EVs, but I drove a Polestar 2 and a Model 3 on road trips for work in California. Never again. The nighttime driving experience is miserable imo, and the issues with the lack of stalks and buttons is real.
The Polestar is the only car to ever make me so angry I had to pull over. It had some kind of sensor issue, and decided the right way to notify my at 80mph on the highway was to A) cover my gate cluster with the error notification B) disengage my cruise control suddenly, at 80mph, and C) begin beeping.
I almost drove my rental into the Pacific Ocean out of spite.
All of the functions described in the article are already on physical buttons and stalks in the Polestar 2 (I have one), so not sure how this is going to change anything? I'll agree that some of its error reporting and collision avoidance in particular are almost dangerous in their implementation, but that has no bearing on the physical buttons thing.
Zero dog in the game (I own a Mazda3) but I rented a Polestar and found it very enjoyable. Different, absolutely, but good enough that I was glad there is an alternative EV to Tesla if I wanted to get one.
I am glad there are other players in the market but the user experience was just miserable for me. Between the lack of buttons for all the climate control and the error messages, as well as subpar android auto support in favor of their own janky android OS (not great for rentals).
If Android Auto is active, it blocks me from opening Google Maps on my phone and I have to mess with the touchscreen interface a bunch before it offers to let me use my phone's keyboard while stopped. It would be less annoying if the voice search option and the search interface on the car's touchscreen was less bad.
Good, there's no reason for there to be more information displayed than you can read at a glance. And you should be able to feel for the controls you need instead of having to look at the screen and flip through menus.
I’m afraid they won’t. When I was a Student I had a summer job at Mercedes assembling cars. At the time cars sent to the US needed bigger airbags - you’d think it’d be less error prone at negligible extra cost to just equip all cars with the bigger airbags but they didn’t.
If they can save a couple of cents by having less buttons they’ll have less buttons.
Got very happy seeing the title, but we’re just talking about the bare minimum like horns and windshield wipers. A tiny step in the right direction, but not much else
This is just the Euro NCAP guidelines, not actual EU regulation, but still a positive development.
And I agree that the EU have been on an amazing streak lately, they seem to be the only governing body actually fighting for consumer rights.
It's going to be funny when there's an entire decade of vehicles no one wants to buy on the used market. I'm looking forward to it. These touchscreens are terrible.
Capacitive buttons are the fucking worst. Even when the manufacturers try to incorporate haptic feedback, it's never enough when you're in a moving vehicle with bumps in the road..
I am specifically talking about the micro pads they put on the Mercedes Benz steering wheels. Everything is still done at the touchscreen, but now you have a track pad to navigate it with. It is faster and safer to reach over and touch the screen. Less time with your eyes off the road when you are driving a big ass van.
mandate that five of a car’s primary controls — its horn, windshield wipers, turn signals, hazard warning lights and SOS features — will need physical buttons or switches.
Would love to see cruise control added to that list.
Didn't even occur to me that it was missing - I can find the cruise control buttons to turn it on/off, and set or change speed, with my eyes closed. Which is the whole idea. Eyes nowhere near the buttons, muscle memory takes over.
weirdly Tesla Cruise control is a physical stick. just about everything else is touch screen, but indicators, gears, and cruise. (i think the new models it's actully all screen though)
Well, I like it for showing me what song is playing and to have my navigation up - but other than that - I don't want to be touching or interacting with it at all.
well you could design it so, that vehicle just has a hud [heads-up display], or maybe a second passenger screen too, that way engaging with them could be more safety oriented and more aesthetic.
Hard disagree. Modern dash displays give tons of useful information that would be very hard to display legibly with dials. The flexibility they offer is good too, often having more than one dash layout. Nav screens are also extremely useful. Going anywhere and never getting lost? Get outta here.
And rear camera? Don't get me started on how a little dirt destroys your rear view until you pull over to clean it or how they represent a more difficult scenario for your eyes, increasing the amount of time you don't have your eyes on the road every time you check it. Unless you mean a back up camera and not a replacement for a rear view mirror, in which case yes those are super awesome.
I have a rear camera instead of my mirror for a few years now. I don't know what you are talking about. Never had the issues you talk about. The only time it gets dirty, is when it sits for a while out in the open. You check it the exact same as you do a rearview mirror. The only issue with them is when it's raining, but then you can turn the screen off and just use them as a regular rearview mirror anyway.
I think they need to be super explicit to stop the likes of Tesla weaseling out or doing the bare minimum:
Wipers, speed settings, auto on/off should be on a stalk for front and rear wipers
Indicators should be on a stalk with
Hazard lights must be a physical button
Horn may be on the wheel or a button
Lights on/off/full beam/dip/auto must be a dial or a stalk
Demister / heated window must be physical buttons
Gears must be a physical rocker, lever or dial
And button / dial etc here means an actual push up/down button not some haptic / touch sensitive shit.
Because at the moment Tesla are basically cheaping out of providing physical controls to save money. It doesn't matter if someone crashes their car fiddling to set the wiper speed because Tesla saved $20 on a stalk and that's all that matters.
And, for the love of dog, please require that the volume knob not rely on software! I hate trying to turn down/off the radio and then wait while the car decides whether I'm serious.
When I first start my car, the screen has to go through the boot up sequence and safety warning before the volume knob starts responding. The music starts playing right away, though, at whatever volume the previous driver deemed appropriate.
Eh. I don't think you need to specify "stalk". I would be fine with physical buttons anywhere within easy reach. If they want to make a racing wheel that has 30 switches on it, I think I'm fine with that.
I appreciate that SOME things don't have buttons now: getting into a BMW with that has the same number of buttons and switches as the cockpit of an airliner is ridiculous.
I feel like when I tell people in my life this, they act like I'm crazy. The only person who truly believes me is my partner, who has been graciously enduring every time I point out that someone has their brights/fog lights on. It is a constant in my life, getting blinded by assholes.
I don't understand the touch screens in cars, I would expect them to be more expensive than physical buttons. Are there that many people who think it's fancy that it's a selling feature?
Think of it this way. Cars already need an LCD panel for infotainment these days. New cars that lack them get passed over. At the very least, people want CarPlay and Android Auto for maps and music.
Secondly, physical switches and gauges haven’t been dumb analog or electric circuits for years. They all communicate with the car’s onboard computers.
So, if the car already needs a touch screen, and all the garages and switches are digital behind the front end anyway, it’s going to be cheaper to make the gauges out of software than plastic.
And with display panels getting cheaper and cheaper, you can slap a bigger panel in the car, and still save money on manufacturing.
Buttons and dials aren't cheap. Even in economy cars it probably costs the manufacturer a few bucks for each one, accounting for the switch itself and all the trim that goes with it.
It only takes a handful to outweigh the cost of the typical LCDs used in car systems.
My understanding was the screen itself is the expensive part. In the US, it’s required for a backup cam. At that point it’s cheaper and easier to assemble, just having everything on the network and doing software. Physical controls take more build time
Belgium-based NCAP says that purely digital controls are a potential safety issue. "What we now see is we have more and more ... crashes where people are having collisions because they're being distracted," said Matthew Avery, NCAP's director of strategic development. That matters because fatal car accidents are on the rise in the EU. More than 20,000 people died on the roads in 2022, a 4 percent increase over 2021. The bloc wants to halve the number of road deaths by 2030, with the goal of zero fatalities by 2050. Moreover, if the displays don't have tactile feedback, drivers can be distracted by having to poke at the screen — unsure if the controls are registering. "The problem with touchscreens is that there is inherently a lag in them, and more importantly, there is no haptic feedback," car interiors become increasingly high-tech, the different systems are starting to diverge. Gone are the days of getting into a car and immediately knowing where all the controls are; nowadays drivers have to adjust to each new car. the illumination from the screen diminishes the ability to see down dark road[s] because pupils normally adjust when [cars] have more light inside and [the] instrument panel and touchscreen causes an additional amount of light in the car, therefore diminishing nighttime vision," Carmakers like Tesla which rely heavily on new tech will have to decide if NCAP's five-star rating is worth reversing its interior design
Side note: touch screen are a gimmick not a new technology. the scale you have at the mall has a touch screen and has had one since the 90's. These touch screens are used in specific locations and settings to manage complex ui, with a lower maintenance cost and the chance to keep a device running for longer with a simple os update. Most touchscreen are, believe it or not, still resistive, as they have a strong feedback and they work across most temperature ranges. Most touchscreens are added to static tools like lab tools or workstations like lifts, scales, and so on. At no point they added resistive touchscreen in cars when the tech was new. Wanna know why? Touchscreens suck. Than the Iphone came and brought us here. Now we think that touchscreens are futuristic and fancy. Not, they aren't. Star wars and even Star trek had all physical control with full sets of buttons for the management of the ship. If a starship that you always liked had physical buttons why shouldn't your car have that design?
the scale you have at the mall has a touch screen and has had one since the 90’s.
Not in my experience. Touchscreens arrived in the late 90s, yes, but only really with transport ticket machines, and then only if complex interaction was needed, e.g. selecting destination station or something.
To this day scales in supermarkets are either a) completely passive, that is, only display stuff, because the actual weighing is done at the till or b) have a keypad you punch a number into, generally foil. Works well enough. ATMs aren't touchscreen either they have a screen with what eight or ten buttons total to the left and right to select options. There's Braille on them I bet it's also an accessibility thing.
Getting away from screens, capacitive buttons have their place and I definitely rather have slightly funky capacitive buttons on e.g. a scale than physical ones which get dirt into them, foil ones which are I guess fine but still somehow revolting, or worst of all the scale using its weighing feet to figure out whether you pressed the left or right button. But generally speaking capacitive buttons have one simple advantage for manufacturers: They're by far the cheapest option.
Every super market that I go to, where I am expected to weigh vegetables and fruits myself, has touchscreens for the scales. This has been the case for many years now, I can't recall when they changed from buttons to touchscreens, so probably 15+ years.
The bank ATM where I withdraw money has a touchscreen in addition to the old buttons and keypad. Both work, but the touchscreen has more options.
Wow, have any car manufacturers actually tried changing these functions to touch buttons? I know Tesla got rid of the stalks, but my understanding was they still had physical buttons on the wheel to replace them.
My father has a relatively late model Toyota Avalon. It has a touch screen infotainment system; there are physical buttons on the steering wheel for most functions and a physical volume knob on the dashboard.
The HVAC controls have their own panel, but they're touch sensitive. So you can't feel for the knob or button you want and then interact with it. That shouldn't be legal.
Yeah I've seen plenty of HVAC and other auxiliary functions like radio moved to touch (and absolutely agree it shouldn't be legal), but never the five they're legislating in the article (horn, indicators, wipers, hazard, SOS). Imagine touchscreen indicator buttons! The market would rip them apart.
I thought Tesla put handbrakes on the touchscreen as well, which seems all sorts of crazy to me.. Might as well make a list of stuff we really dont want on there now I guess.
I only have a touch screen for entertainment and configuration and still notice how distracted I get when I have to use it. No haptic feedback and multilayered menus are just a bad idea while driving.
Cherry in top is driving at night with astigmatism when theres's a whole illuminated panel in your face.
That's actually a good idea, because when your finger is wet the touchscreen doesn't work and on touchscreen is more difficult to develop muscle memory, so you spend more time distracted trying to find the spot on screen to touch
Newer Teslas don't have a turn signal stalk. They've put the turn signals on capacitive touch elements on the steering wheel because of course they have.
Thank god mine still came with a turn signal stalk. I've sort of come to terms with most of Tesla's touchscreen-only shenanigans but adjusting the AC or just changing the station still seems like an unnecessarily complicated chore. Worst is windshield wipers though, I don't want to tap through three menus or even talk to my car to just turn the damn things on because the rain sensor doesn't seem to do jack shit in a Tesla, yet here I am.
This requirements should apply too AT THE VERY LEAST to air conditioning. I hate new models that require you to interact with a screen to turn it on, or to operate the infotainment volume.
This is the perfect example of, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Physical buttons are always more reliable without having to take your eyes off the road.
If they were truly focused on safety, they would have all commonly adjusted features able to be adjusted without having to take your eyes off the road. I have a 2020 Nissan versa and the only time I look at the screen is to press pause/play and to check who's calling. Everything else I can do by feel.
i haven’t driven in a while but i can’t remember really needing to control my keys that much. usually they stay put pretty well once they’re in the ignition