Hyundai Is Bringing Back Buttons Because Touchscreens Are ‘Annoying’

Hyundai is listening to what consumers want much more readily than other manufacturers, and their body designs strike an incredible balance between modern familiarity and retrofuturism. It's almost exactly what I want from a new vehicle, other than the fact that they use all the same forced telemetry that other brands are using.

They're also offering a great spread of electric AND hybrid vehicles to satisfy consumers worried about charger availability as well as consumers worried about the impact of gasoline-powered vehicles.

I won't be surprised if they continue to increase their market share for a long time to come. If only privacy concerns were as common among the broader population as they seem to be here in the Fediverse, then maybe they might address those issues as well and be a no-brainer purchase.

Congratulations on taking a fucking DECADE to realize what should've been FUCKING OBVIOUS from the start.

a screen is good for navigation and music, basically it

Good. This should be forced via regulations. Touchscreen controls are provably more dangerous than buttons due to the distraction.

"Annoying", "serious safety hazard", safe difference, right?

More importantly, they are dangerous.

I just got a new Hyundai and I think they already have the perfect amount of touch vs buttons. Everything you need to access has buttons, the things which would be too annoying to do during the drive are touch

The problem is not touchscreens. It's the awful implementation. I have a Tesla(never again, ugh) and a Hyundai Ioniq5.

The Tesla has a fantastic touchscreen that integrates well with the car. Also no display behind the wheel. I'm tall, I can't see it.

Hyundai the rear seat warmers are buttons. My passengers are happy. The driver's warmer is buried in a touch screen menu. Which would be fine but the shitty screen takes a minute to boot up which means I can't adjust my seat until I've already driven off and now it's dangerous and fiddly.

In summary: I don't mind if it's touchscreen or not, it has to be fast and reactive.

Not having touch anything is a selling point for me. Bonus points if I can roll up the window too.

Absolutely my creed. In my industrial niche, touch screen never took hold - when your action is actually (or at least perceived) important, nobody wants to rely on touch screens.

The bathrooms in hell all have automatic sinks where you can't tell where the sensor is and an inconsistent delay.

Honestly. I'd be fine with a touchscreen for things you wouldn't likely be adjusting on the go anyways - but basic stuff like the radio and AC/Fans should always be easy to distinguish, don't need to look away from the road to operate buttons. Making basic stuff require touchscreen is inconvenient at best and outright dangerous at worst.

First good news I've heard in a while.

Goddamn right!!

The only thing I need on a screen is the GPS, everything else is an annoyance.

I have a pre-touchscreen era (for its model anyway) 2012 car. I'm hoping by the time I have to get a new car this touchscreen fad will have come and gone. How are you supposed to use those things in the winter when you have gloves on?

Good. Can every other company please do this too??

I once rented a Mini Countryman and was pleasantly surprised by the highly tactile switches they use. They felt like aircraft switches in that they had weight and springy resistance to them. Much better than all this touchscreen nonsense.

Pffft they're doing it because the EU is going to force this in a year or two, I bet

To me it's about balance and design. I've been in cars with too many physical buttons and those can be a distraction too.

I drive a 2023 Sonata N-Line. I feel like Hyundai got this one absolutely perfect as far as balancing physical buttons versus touch screen buttons. Every single important driving control has a physical button that is easy to reach and feel while keeping your eyes on the road. The only exception might be the control to turn the highway driving assist feature on and off. The touch screen is large and extremely responsive and has a multitude settings, but nothing that you would need immediately while driving. Absolutely love this car

My current car has a fairly large screen for media, gps, and some other in depth settings that don't need to be addressed while driving.

The rest is physical buttons and I honestly really like that hybrid approach to this.

Now if only they could start building usable engines, it'd be great.

Just make it a good amount of buttons. Not 500 that all look and feel the same. And it'll be alright. My car is old and has very few buttons. Plus a radio and 3 large knobs to control the AC. I think that's the best concept. I don't even have to look at them most of the times, because it's not that many similar ones.

I think, in general, the shift to having MOST functions be on the touchscreen is a good one.

When driving? You should generally only be futzing with (off the top of my head):

• Windshield wipers
• Climate control
• Not the music but let's be honest here
• Turn signals and headlights

And the rest make perfect sense to keep behind menus you deal with when you are parked. And with modern cars, climate control stops being about balancing the knobs and becomes about setting the preferred temperature and MAYBE tapping the defrost/circultaion button. Which actually also makes sense to not need direct button access.

But yeah. Still 100% need physical buttons and knobs for the rest.

I think it is Subaru who have the big display screen and then a small row of dedicated buttons below it?

The fast forward and rewind options on my car stereo are both touch only, and they rarely (if ever) work. I like everything else about my car, which thankfully didn't do away with too many buttons and mostly uses the touchscreen for the backup camera and stereo. But those two functions specifically being part of the touchscreen makes no sense and drives me crazy.

Biggest button needs to be "Disable lane keeping assist" and that should sort most of the stress he refers to.

I recently had a Kona loaner with that. It was so dumb.