Volvo is planning to bring physical buttons back to its future vehicles as drivers and journalists continue to criticize interiors that rely too heavily on touchscreens. The automaker says it wants to create a better balance between digital displays and traditional controls.
Volvo Plans a Return to Physical Controls
Drivers have increasingly expressed frustration with touchscreen-heavy car interiors, particularly because navigating menus while driving can be annoying and distracting. Touchscreens also lack the tactile feel provided by traditional toggles, buttons and switches.
Volvo is now among the automakers responding to those concerns. The company had previously been at the forefront of the move toward digitalized controls, but its approach appears to be changing.
Thomas Ingenlath, who returned as Volvo’s head of design this year, recently promised that physical buttons will make a comeback in the company’s future models. Volvo plans to release 13 models by 2030, giving Ingenlath an opportunity to put that approach into practice.
“We have to listen to our customers and really recognize that how the interaction is in the cars today is, to say it frankly, not appreciated,” he said. “The overemphasis of screens and the interaction with the screens is something that customers and journalists heavily criticize, and we have to aim for a better harmony, a better balance, between the interaction that we have with our digital device and the physical interaction.”
Touchscreens Aren’t Going Away
Ingenlath clarified that Volvo does not intend to completely replace touchscreens with “rows and rows of exchangeable buttons.” Instead, the company plans to determine which functions are better suited to traditional physical controls and which can remain on the infotainment display.
In practical terms, Volvo’s goal is not “going away from [the] touchscreen, it’s just to use the screen for what it’s good at.”
The approach would give Volvo’s future interiors a combination of touchscreen technology and physical controls, reflecting Ingenlath’s stated goal of finding a better balance between digital and physical interaction.
