"Driving enthusiasts rejoice. Volkswagen will ditch its screen-happy control interfaces in favor of old-fashioned physical controls beginning with its next generation of electric cars, company design chief Andreas Mindt told Autocar. Why? Well, as popular and versatile as touchscreen interfaces are, they ignore one important fact: It’s not an iPhone. “We will never, ever make this mistake any more. On the steering wheel, we will have physical buttons. No guessing any more. There’s feedback, it’s real, and people love this,” Mindt told the publication. “Honestly, it’s a car. It’s not a phone: it’s a car.” I really couldn’t have put it better myself. And while VW’s touchscreens won’t be going anywhere, they will be joined by tactile controls for the audio volume, heating and cooling, and the hazard light, said Mindt. “They will be in every car that we make from now on. We understood this,” he added, citing both critical and customer feedback. Cars will need to leave real estate for screens to accommodate nav systems and mandatory reverse cameras, but no longer at the expense of having dedicated knobs and buttons for these critical functions."