- Volkswagen is committed to righting the wrongs of its branding and design choices.
- CEO Thomas Schäfer says that bringing back physical controls is a “non-negotiable.”
- This could be the kick-start that VW needs to get back on track in the EV game.
Volkswagen, like many brands, moved away from good-old buttons in its cars for some time. The brand’s CEO, Thomas Schäfer, has committed to changing course.
In a recent interview with Top Gear, Schäfer called physical controls a “non-negotiable,” committing the brand to rediscovering the so-called secret sauce that made the German automaker a success in the past.
Photo by: Volkswagen
Volkswagen leaned into the idea of ditching physical clicky buttons. You can’t really blame it, though, since this was a trend industry-wide. But Volkswagen’s use of capacitive touch controls on surfaces instead of physical buttons didn’t jive well with consumers. Even the window switches—which were physical buttons—turned out to be extremely controversial, because there weren’t dedicated ones for the rear windows by the driver.
Schäfer said this was the result of a “spirit of iPhone-ish kind of design,” and noted that it was difficult to move the VW designers away from that idea and back towards more intuitive physical controls. To him, there wasn’t any other option:
“I said, ‘listen, there’s two things that are absolutely non-negotiable for me: door handles and buttons,'” said Schäfer. “I don’t understand why anybody would have [touch-sensitive] sliders.”
VW is far from the only brand that is deliberately moving back toward a more old-school approach. The whole auto industry chased Tesla until big iPad-like touchscreens in cars became the norm. One problem was that most auto companies failed to make user interfaces that feel as smooth and easy to use as a Tesla. And consumers started to push back. Scout Motors, another VW Group brand, has put satisfying, tactile controls at the center of its strategy.
Despite it selling more than two million electric cars to date, the Volkswagen brand is facing choppy waters in multiple markets. Schäfer is pushing to set some core principles that will help to drum up demand, from more physical buttons to the move back to more familiar model names.
“A VW should have a friendly face. A door handle must be intuitive—easy to use when you arrive at the car with hands full of shopping. And we will bring back real buttons and real names, for cars you can understand immediately,” he said.
