Overview
- Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius publicly conceded over the weekend that the car industry “might have gone a little bit too far” replacing tactile buttons with touchscreen or haptic-only controls and promised to reintroduce the most sensible physical buttons.
- The company has already restored physical steering-wheel controls and says it will continue adding buttons where they improve operation without taking drivers' eyes off the road.
- Källenius made clear that large, dashboard-spanning systems like Mercedes’ MBUX Hyperscreen will remain part of cabin design and that the goal is a mix of screens, buttons and better voice and UI systems rather than removing digital displays.
- Other manufacturers including Ferrari, Volkswagen and Hyundai have acknowledged similar problems with touch-only layouts and are also moving back toward more physical switches as a practical and sometimes lower-cost fix.
- Independent distraction testing has shown mixed results for button-heavy versus touchscreen-heavy cabins, so automakers are balancing user feedback, safety data and improved voice controls when redesigning interiors; the MBUX rollout that began in 2021 and reached smaller models helped spark the debate.