Driving between the buttons

[RobertArthur]

Department: thinking before designing. Anything new? No. As published in the international press China, and a little bit hesitating also the EU, plan to bring buttons back to the cockpit. Buttons could soon be making a comeback in cars! Touchscreens have dominated the cockpits of modern cars for years. Many drivers and testers miss having buttons, switches and knobs in the cockpit – in short, the good old tactile feel, do you remember?

In China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has drafted a plan that mandates physical controls for key functions. It addresses the complaints of many drivers and focuses on driving safety: the more you have to search for a function on a display, the greater the distraction – and the higher the risk of an accident. The programme has been running since 2023. According to the current draft from China, buttons or switches for indicators, hazard warning lights, window regulators and windscreen wipers will be mandatory in future. Gear changes will also have to be made physically, rather than via the touchscreen. You never know, more reliable, perhaps also back to this, not any switch or electric motor and sensors. The aim is to improve road safety.

The new regulations are to apply to vehicles whose production begins on or after 1 July 2027. Selling a car in China? You will have to comply., also the European car manufacturers, everybody back to the drawing board. Two production lines, one for the old fashioned touchscreen cars and the other for the reborn switches? Not very likely.

In case such a modern designer were to look around questioningly, wondering what a switch actually looks like, and visit this (highly unlikely) friendly forum, I took a photo as a reminder. You have to help them a little to get over the mental shock of building a Fred Flintstone car.

[curtis]

That reminds me of those switches or similar which I had in early competition cars. You could get plastic extension that pushed on. They looked like licorice sticks. But, when you were strapped in you couldn't reach and that solved it.

[Hotrodder]

Gear changes will also have to be made physically, rather than via the touchscreen.

I thought these new all-electric computermobiles didn't have gearboxes. ???

[RobertArthur]

@ Hotrodder, you're completely right, interesing question. A quick google search showed that there are also multi-speed transmissions. And things as sport mode, normal, eco, weather and terrain modes and several others. Sometimes using a simple rotary switch. And even modern ICE cars have impressive touchscreens. Let's wait and see how these future obligations will be implemented. Better still: study the original Chinese regulations. How to learn a new language....But even with simple texts like these, with an appropriate red colour as a background, that proved impossible. Fortunately, numbers and symbols speak an international language. The same for the automotive press: they will undoubtedly have already put some ideas about this on paper. On to the first road tests in the spring of 2027.