European New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) — an independent and well-regarded safety body for the automotive industry — is set to introduce new rules in January 2026 that require the vehicles it assesses to have physical controls to receive a full five-star safety rating.
While Euro NCAP testing is voluntary, it is widely backed by several EU governments with companies like Tesla, Volvo, VW, and BMW using their five-star scores to boast about the safety of their vehicles to potential buyers.
“The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes,” said Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP, to the Times. To be eligible for the maximum safety rating after the new testing guidelines go into effect, cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for hazard warning lights, indicators, windscreen wipers, SOS calls, and the horn.
The Euro NCAP’s safety guidelines aren’t a legal requirement, however, car makers take safety ratings pretty seriously, so any risk of points being docked during such assessments is likely to be taken into consideration.
Before anyone forgets, this all started with Tesla. They lacked the skill, talent, know how, money and manufacturing capacity to make a decent center console. They then decided to move everything to the touchscreen because software is cheap to add to cars, thousands of small precision engineered objects are not. It was a margins game by the man “with the most knowledge on manufacturing in the world”. The rest of the industry followed because the bougie idiots made the brand so popular “they could not be doing something wrong, right?”. Queue the competitors copying that absolutely regarded idea. Everyone calling this regarded, was screamed into oblivion by tesla fanboys and design savants: “You’re just too dumb to understand minimalist design”. And here we are, turns out designing something that makes the driver take their eyes off the road on a 2000Kg murder machine is actually NOT good design.
Also it accelerates the design-to-manufacture cycle of a new model - just slap a huge touch screen on it and start building the car, and hope the software is ready in time. If not, well, just ship it as is and patch it later.
Builds in a very expensive replacement component too.
A control button breaks? New button is a (still over-inflated) $75 to replace.
A Tesla control screen breaks (and they do, just as often as buttons) - $1500.
https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/tesla-screen-replacement-cost-process#Cost
Tesla doesn’t have that excuse. The original Roadster, Model S and Model X all had fairly conventional controls. They deliberately undermined the safety of their vehicles over time by aggressively removing physical controls in the model 3 and Y and revamped S. It probably saved them a few bucks, but at the cost increased risk to human life. If they get penalized in safety tests for their penny pinching then so be it.
Queue
Cue
regardedr.tarded, right?Edit, .lm-censoring
Yes, and I know that because I too am highly regarded.
Fucking finally.
While we’re at it get rid of retina frying headlights. Sure, you can see great but I’m blind as I drive into you at night. At least make it so they don’t look like point sources and can’t aim upwards.
Also make the auto headlight setting the default if the car is in drive. Too many people driving in the twilight with no headlights on.
If you’re in the US like me, we should be aware the problem isn’t bright lights; it’s that our regulations don’t allow for the European beam alteration tech that will dim sections at a time based on oncoming traffic.
Brighter lights are a huge boon to safety, but we need the corresponding tech to keep it that way.
and good luck getting those regs passed with this congress and this administration. it’s likely never going to happen unless the auto industry demands them.
People do that on purpose, there’s a huge aftermarket for 10x brighter headlights.
New models have LED headlights and they’re awful. They’re angled down, but any sort of hilly back road means you’re blinding anyone in front of you anyway. Halogen are much better because it’s a softer glow instead of a laser beam.
Jesus finally. Death to touch screens in cars
Monkey paw curls
Same exact cars but with button navigated non-touch screens.
I’d take that deal. My touch screen died in my car and guess what can’t control it? The steering wheel buttons, despite having full directional/enter/return.
That’s a plus. I drove a hire car with a joystick/dial/button thing that could control the touch screen. It was so much easier to pay attention to driving while controlling something on screen. With touch screens you need to watch your finger as you press because there’s no tactile feedback.
people don’t seem to understand what’s going on here.
Nothing on the infotainment unit needs to be adjusted while driving, it can have a brail interface for all it should matter.
Core controls are being put behind touch screens, that’s the whole point of changing NCAP requirements.
leaving them on a screen with less direct control is objectively worse. need to use turn signal? now you need to select it first.
button navigated
2000s Volvo?
Or 2000s BMW?
Same exact cars but with button navigated non-touch screens.
I love it!
As someone who drives a mazda with infotainment designed before touchscreens (it has one), I’m fine with this.
I bought my Mazda 3 used. The captain’s knob will be sorely missed if I ever get a different car.
My car is the same. I know the current state of the infotainment based on what is entering my ears. I also know the location of the physical controls and how they alter that state without taking my eyes off the road. Non-touch screens and physical controls is fine.
This whole thing started because manufactures are putting core controls behind touch screens. This would in fact be the very definition of “not fine”
literally nothing important should be on the infotainment system anyway.
I borrowed a Mazda 3 with the joystick dial a few times. It’s absolutely brilliant.
Gimme a keyboard and mouse. I can drive the whole car and operate the infotainment with my 250 apm
Replace the steering wheel with a Steam Deck.
What’s your EPM though, like 20?
common EU w
I’m actually a fan of big screens, HOWEVER they should be limited to being an actual “infotainment” system only. All essential controls should be buttons, switches, and dials.
I think I agree. I would be fine with an infotainment system that:
- doesn’t cripple the car when broken
- isn’t integrated with non-screen controls like climate
- still has functional buttons on the steering wheel
My malibu meets 2 and 3, but the fact that if the infotainment system breaks it cripples the entire car, puts me on edge. This would be mitigated if actual functionality was outside of it, and that the touch screen was just a control layer.
I disagree. I don’t want to have to take my eyes off the road to change my music, or turn the volume up/down. They need to be physical buttons/knobs.
There are buttons on the steering wheel to skip songs and adjust the volume.
If you get the fancy steering wheel option
You’ll be hard pressed to find a new car in 2025 that doesn’t have steering wheel controls unless you go out of your way to look for one (if there is any).
I have a giant screen, and physical buttons for volume and air temp.
Super happy with it.
My vote is:
- Button layouts that have worked for 20-30 years
- Heads-up displays for readouts of current values. Mph/kmph is displayed by default and the display temporarily changes when something like volume, heat, radio station, track, etc. is adjusted
Best of both worlds
One thing I really like about the Lucid Air is that the big screen retracts. Makes it look and feel quite different, almost like an older car without the big screen.
Important controls like seats, temperature, and volume/pause are physical. So you can have the big screen when you want it, and it goes away when you don’t. More cars should do that, though the additional moving part probably isn’t great for longevity.
There should be two screens. One only visible from the navigators seat and always available. The other can be where it makes sense, but it should be disabled for all input when the car is not in park. When the car is in motion only limited information is allowed - you shouldn’t be able to tell what the name of the song playing is as that isn’t something you have any business reading. You should get some indication of what the next turn is, but even that needs serious UX work to ensure it is not distracting.
Exactly!
This pretty much summarises it.
sounds like europe is really sending a very loud, deafining FUCK YOU to elon and tesla.
and I am absolutely here for it.
Not just them, but a lot of the car platforms coming out of China right now, including Volvo cars. I have an EX40, which has a lot of physical buttons, and a physical lever for the glove compartment (🤯), but when I tried the EX30 I was blown away by the poor driving experience. So crappy. Everything is done via the screen, and it sucks. Not even a speed indicator in front of the driver, but you have to glance over to the center screen.
Also the one-pedal drive was really bad on the EX30, but that’s another story. I also hated the gear lever behind the wheel instead of a stick between the driver and passenger seat.
Tesla was the trailblazer, but what’s worse is that everyone else followed. Now Mazda of all companies is kind of a trailblazer in getting back to sanity (there were articles about them ditching touchscreens or at least touchscreen-only setups a couple of years ago already).
What’s really funny to me is that even so-called premium German brands went to pretty much full touch. Used to be they’d put in the engineering time to make buttons feel more solid to push and nowadays they just give you a big slab of touchscreen you can’t even feel properly while driving.
Everyone is just pinching pennies because touchscreens are cheaper than buttons.
While this does fuck him, it’s also sound safety science. Touch screens have made cars less safe. It just so happens that Musk’s company makes shitty unsafe cars which got rid of buttons to cut costs.
oh I agree. the thing is elon has explicitly said that he doesn’t want a bunch of knobs in his cars and they should only have a central control screen to run everything. even the backup shift device is a touch sensor somewhere around the rear view iirc (never driven one nor do I want to). I essence, an entire continent is telling one company explicitly that your cars are not the safest on the road no matter what you claim. that’s going to be a massive hit on the company’s reputation and value and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving induhvidual.
How about just banning touchscreen use while driving altogether?
E: I meant the OEMs, not drivers
We already have distracted driving laws here. You can’t use electronic devices like phones while driving. How a giant iPad in the middle of your dashboard doesn’t count blows my mind.
Well, presumably this group is more about models of cars and less about individual driver behavior.
I didn’t mean individual driver behavior, I mean ban touchscreens from accepting any inputs at all while driving.
Would be lovely, but what I’m afraid is going to happen is that you have to stop in order to change the climate settings because some idiot bean counter told the UX and engineering departments to find a way to save money so they got rid of the climate control module and put it in the infotainment screen. And the passenger can’t even change the song while driving because they got rid of the forward and backward buttons too.
Mandate physical controls for everything that the driver has a reasonable need or desire to touch while driving (climate, seated heats, horn, etc). And then also do what you suggested in addition to that. Can’t let car manufacturers have too much free reign.
Wait, which car models lack that for “hazard warning lights, indicators, windshield wipers, SOS calls, and the horn”?
Don’t get me wrong, I agree these need physical buttons or similar. But everyone is celebrating as if it’s for things I’ve seen hidden behind touch or capacitive buttons in the cars I’ve driven and that really annoy me, like temperature, volume, mute, and cruise control inputs. Or have I just not driven the worst of the worst (Tesla).
Tesla, tesla lacks all of those
They don’t have a physical horn? Wtf…
I’ve only been in a Tesla with an Uber driver, so not paid attention to it… but no indicator or wiper control?
Jeez.
I’ve had a couple of cars with automatic wipers and they’re not that great… Having no controls would do my head in
That’s not true, though. At least in 2022 models the indicator is in the standard place, and wipers are controllable via a button and scroller.
The latest models seem to have gone crazier on this though. Along with its owner I guess.
All older car models have all the physical controls, but sadly that’s not how it goes currently
No wiper controls, indicators are a touch control on the wheel…
Which are really easy to use when you have to indicate you are going to leave the next exit on a roundabout, btw. Just gotta take your eyes off the road to hunt where they’ve moved to, take your hand off the wheel, and boop the capacitive touch button. Easy!
So easy that Norway is banning the use of Teslas for driving schools.
That’s insane.
thank god. I hope this trend migrates to other countries. The amount of effort/distraction for touch screens combined with the additional cost of having to replace full on infotainment systems is annoying.
Screen consoles in 4000lb bullets were the dumbest engineering idea ever. It’s probably a contributing factor as to why accident rates are up.
Up until 2018 I could manipulate my entire console without shifting my eyes from the road. Doing this by touch alone only works with physical buttons and knobs.
The second dumbest engineering idea. The dumbest was clearly the car itself, letting the average person control a device that can accelerate hundreds or thousands of kilograms to speeds where reaction times of fractions of a second matter for safety was clearly one of the stupidest ideas ever.
Maybe the evolution. My grandmother told stories of her dad scaring her mom with his “crazy” driving, speeding up to 40, sometimes even 45 mph.
I hope the standard makes it clear that touch buttons are about as bad as a touch screen is
Finally!!!
cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for […] the horn
Very excited for when I get cut off in my 2030 Polestar 3 and can adjust my honk volume dial all the way to 11 before Family Feud smashing that sucker through my dash and into the gates of hell.
Ya know what? Lets get a mulligan. Lets go back to the begining. Let’s start from the begining with vehicles again. From now on, the only vehicle allowed to be produced is the Ford model T that came out in like 1914. Every car is now that car.
No screens. No gimmicks. No seatbelts. Not even a heater or an enclosed surface. If you crash, your ass is getting thrown from the car onto the pavement! HEADS UP ASSHOLE!!! PAY ATTENTION TO THE GOD DAMNED ROAD YOU CELL PHONE DRIVING DISTRACTED FUCKCLOWN!!!
Let’s just get back to basics, ya know?
