Cars will need fewer screens and more buttons to earn five-star safety rating in Europe

This is genuinely good for safety.

Common European W.

Controlling everything in a car through screens is a safety hazard. It's insane that's even allowed.

Bring back physical keys!

The first time I heard that many car manufacturers are getting rid of traditional buttons and odometers in favour of touchscreens, I already thought that it is dangerous.

As always, corporations don't give af.

Customer can choose any car they like as long as it has an ipad on the center console.

they already did a study that touchscreens are too distracting and dangerous, buttons are more intuitive and quicker to use, without looking at the menu.

Good.

Thanks, Europe!

I would also ban touch sensitive fixed controls. My father's Avalon has dedicated controls for the HVAC but they're touch sensitive, so you set the climate controls to 80C and full fan if you just wipe dust off the panel while the car's on.

You should be able to train your hand on the control, get a good grip on it, and then move it in such a way that a control input is realized. It shouldn't have to beep at you to tell you it's done a thing.

I can turn the air conditioner in my pickup on and off by feel alone, same with the basic radio controls.

The screen should be strictly for the radio, and maybe some android-auto like thing.

Europe is being awesome once again!

But if there’s less screens then where will manufacturers put the advertising???

I want to be able to replace my infotainment system without hassle or loss of functionality

I prefer my 2014 car to anything new i have tried. Buttons are just better.

My car is pretty old and doesn't have any screens. I was using a rental car last week for a few days and I was definitely missing my physical buttons. I had to ask the guy in the passenger seat to change things for me because whenever I tried to without taking my eyes off the road I'd almost never hit the right buttons. Especially when I was going over bumps on the road.

good

i kinda wonder if this is motivated as a non tariff trade barrier to chinese cars designed for the china market which loves apps, touch screens and karaoke in your car 🤔

No no no, cars need the least amount of software, no touch and all buttons. And 0 OTA. Zero, Nada. And the only software that should be there is that very minimal radio and some dash functions controllers, that's it. I'm so sick of having a phone on wheels. It's a car, and can be called "death on wheels" and drivers need the most attention they can.

Bout bloody time, I really hate modern cars

Zero is the correct number of touchscreens for a car. This has seemed obvious to me since the first time I saw one and I've never understood how anybody could think otherwise.

I remember back in the mid 2000s with my flip phone a T9 texting. Could text and drive without looking away from the road because of muscle memory. Once I got a touch screen I realized that wasn't the case anymore. So imagine this anecdote with car buttons to touch screens.

I'd like to buy a European EV

I know people like to harp on Tesla about this, but ALL of the mandatory controls can be done with stalks/buttons/wheels and have been for awhile

Hazard warning lights - button

Indicators - stalks or buttons

Windscreen wipers - button to initiate, wheel to choose intensity (or press button again to increase intensity). Button then wheel to turn off.

SOS calls - N/A

Horn - Press the wheel

The only one that Tesla didn't always follow was the wipers, but that's no longer the case, glad they finally listened on that one.

Is there actually any OEM that doesn't meet these requirements? I agree though, these are good bare minimum requirements.

Edit: I could also see merit to adding a defog one as that could be a critical timing thing.

Europe rules!

Thank fuck. I'm still keeping my 2013 civic forever.

My parents' Duster has volume buttons, but… they randomly regulate different things: navigation voice loudness, media volume, something with microphone icon. If you want to change something else, you need to tap a button on the far top right corner of the display, which is incredibly difficult. And even then, the decision isn't remembered, so if you press the volume button after the popup disappears, it will change not what you want again.

I swear, the cars are not even tested these days

I'm still waiting for someone to try haptic screens.

Is there proof that screens are resulting in more crashes?