Cars With Physical Buttons (Not Touchscreen-Only in 2026)
Even people whose profession is designing touchscreens are beginning to admit that they’ve gone too far.
Simon Loasby, Hyundai’s Senior Vice President of Design, stated in an interview with Autocar that physical controls are far safer for functions drivers use frequently, and hiding them behind a screen only distracts drivers from the road.
It’s a strange thing to hear from someone whose entire job is designing the car you sit in.
But after years of watching automakers strip buttons out to chase a minimalist, phone-like dashboard, I’ve started paying attention to which brands are quietly walking that back, and which ones haven’t gotten the memo yet.
Quick Picks
- Mazda CX-50 — Full row of physical HVAC knobs plus a rotary infotainment controller instead of touch-first menus. Best pick if you want tactile controls without giving up modern tech.
- Toyota Corolla — Dedicated temperature, fan, and airflow knobs on nearly every trim. Good if budget and simplicity matter more than flash.
- Honda Civic / CR-V — Three climate knobs below the vents plus steering wheel buttons for media and driver aids. Best for buyers who want Honda’s usual ergonomic logic.
- Subaru Forester — Physical knobs for climate, minimal touch-dependent functions. Good if you want an SUV that still feels analog inside.
- Jeep Wrangler — Nineteen buttons on the steering wheel alone, plus knobs for volume, blower, and temp. Best if you’re the type who wants a button for everything.
- Ford Mustang Mach-E — Ford actually reversed course here, adding a real temperature knob back via software/hardware update after owner backlash. Worth noting as proof automakers can undo a bad call.
- Hyundai Palisade — Real volume and tuning knobs, shortcut buttons to the infotainment home screen, and a dedicated climate panel with physical controls. Best pick if you want proof Hyundai’s “buttons matter” talk actually made it into a showroom vehicle.
Why This Is Suddenly a Big Deal Again
For a decade, the industry logic was simple: fewer buttons means fewer parts, less wiring, and a dashboard that photographs well in a showroom.
Tesla started it with the Model S back in 2012, and pretty much everyone else followed, some more aggressively than others.
Volkswagen went all-in on capacitive touch sliders and haptic surfaces in its early ID models. It didn’t go well.
VW’s own design chief, Andreas Mindt, later told Autocar the brand was reversing that decision, making the point that a car isn’t the same thing as a phone.
hat’s not a small admission from a company that spent years pitching the opposite.
Now there’s a regulatory push behind the trend too.
Starting January 2026, Euro NCAP won’t hand out a five-star safety rating unless five specific functions — turn signals, hazard lights, horn, wipers, and emergency SOS — have real physical controls with tactile feedback, even with gloves on.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has draft rules doing something similar, targeting vehicles built after July 2027.
None of this bans touchscreens outright. It just means the stuff you need mid-drive can’t live three menus deep anymore.
The Case Automakers Keep Making
Loasby’s argument isn’t just aesthetic preference.
Hyundai ran its own focus groups and found people got genuinely frustrated when they couldn’t grab a control quickly — his word was that users felt “stressed” and “annoyed” when a function they wanted mid-drive was buried in software.
Hyundai’s design chief SangYup Lee has made a similar point about HVAC specifically, saying burying climate controls in a touchscreen simply doesn’t make sense once the car is moving.
The data backs this up outside of Hyundai’s own testing too. Euro NCAP has cited internal research showing even a two-second glance away from the road can double crash risk, and some tests found completing a task via touchscreen takes roughly twice as long as pressing a physical switch.
Vehicle-by-Vehicle: What’s Actually Available Right Now
Mazda CX-50 and CX-5 (older gen)
Mazda has quietly been one of the better holdouts here. The CX-50 keeps physical HVAC knobs and pairs its touchscreen with a rotary controller mounted near the shifter, so you’re not smearing fingerprints across a display while driving.
Worth flagging: the redesigned 2026 CX-5 actually moves toward a more touch-dependent layout, so if buttons matter to you, the CX-50 is the safer bet within Mazda’s own lineup right now.
Toyota Corolla
Toyota kept it simple. Temperature, fan speed, and airflow direction all get their own knobs on most Corolla trims, alongside the infotainment screen rather than instead of it. It’s not exciting, but it’s exactly what you’d want if you just need the AC to work without hunting for it.
Honda Civic, CR-V, Pilot
Honda’s approach has stayed pretty consistent across generations.
The CR-V’s LX trim, for example, keeps three knobs below the vents controlling temperature, blower speed, and airflow mode left to right, with a separate volume knob tucked at the bottom corner of the display.
Steering wheel buttons handle media, voice assistant, and driver-assist toggles, so your hands rarely need to leave the wheel for common tasks.
Subaru Forester
Subaru has always leaned conservative on touchscreen dependency compared to competitors, and the Forester keeps that reputation intact with dedicated climate knobs and a layout that doesn’t force you into sub-menus for daily functions.
Jeep Wrangler
The 2026 Wrangler is almost aggressively button-heavy by modern standards — 19 controls on the steering wheel alone, separate knobs for volume, blower, and temperature, four overhead light controls, and a dedicated SOS button.
If you’ve ever complained that a car has “too few” buttons, the Wrangler will not be that car.
Ford Mustang Mach-E
This one’s interesting because it’s a reversal, not a holdout.
Ford originally launched the Mach-E with a fully touch-based climate interface, and pushed back a physical temperature knob later via an update after enough owners complained.
It’s a small case study in what happens when a manufacturer tests the touchscreen-only approach in the real world and has to walk it back.
Hyundai Palisade
The redesigned 2026 Palisade is basically Hyundai putting its own talking points into production.
Alongside twin 12.3-inch screens, you still get real knobs for volume and tuning, physical shortcut buttons to the home screen, navigation, and media, plus a separate climate panel with its own set of hard controls for temperature, seat heating and cooling, and the heated steering wheel.
Olabisi Boyle, Hyundai Motor North America’s senior VP for product planning, told The Drive in April that volume and climate are functions the brand will keep as manual knobs, period, regardless of how the rest of the interior evolves.
The one odd omission: second-row passengers don’t get their own physical climate controls, so tri-zone adjustments back there route through the main dashboard screen.
What Owners Are Actually Saying
I dug through some longer-running car forum threads instead of just press releases, since owners tend to be more specific about what actually bugs them day to day.
On one automotive forum thread specifically about this topic, a long-time poster made the point that with buttons, you eventually learn their position by feel after a few years of ownership — something a flat touchscreen simply can’t replicate, no matter how good the software gets.
A different commenter on a tech forum made a related but slightly different point: it’s not that all buttons are automatically better, it’s that a small number of physical controls paired with a screen tends to beat both extremes — a dashboard covered in switches, or one that’s nothing but glass.
There’s also real frustration on the ownership side once the touchscreen-only approach actually ships.
One Volvo EX30 owner, writing into a UK motoring newsletter, described regretting the purchase specifically because of how the car handles basic functions through the screen, calling it an ergonomic letdown despite otherwise liking the car.
The Luxury and EV Segment Is Catching Up Too
This isn’t just a budget-brand thing anymore.
Audi confirmed updated 2027 A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron models will bring physical steering wheel controls back, walking away from the capacitive-touch sliders that defined its recent interiors.
Mercedes-Benz software lead Magnus Östberg told Autocar the brand is doing the same starting with an upcoming electric GLC, adding rockers, rollers, and physical buttons to a new steering wheel design.
Even Ferrari’s leadership has publicly acknowledged that touch-first interiors don’t translate well from smartphones to cars moving at speed.
The pattern across nearly every one of these announcements is the same: automakers ran real user testing, and the touchscreen-only approach kept losing.
FAQ
Not in the US as of now. Europe’s Euro NCAP rule kicks in January 2026 but it affects safety ratings, not legality — a car can still be sold without meeting it, it just won’t earn five stars. China’s proposed rule would apply to vehicles built after July 2027 if finalized.
Mazda, Toyota, Honda, and Subaru have generally kept climate controls physical across most trims, even as they’ve added bigger infotainment screens. Jeep goes further, keeping buttons for nearly everything.
Not that’s been announced publicly. Tesla remains the most touch-dependent mainstream brand, and its approach is part of what pushed Euro NCAP toward the 2026 rule change in the first place.
Occasionally, yes — Ford did this with the Mustang Mach-E’s temperature control. But it’s the exception, not something you should count on for a car you’re about to buy.
Final Word
If you’re cross-shopping right now and buttons are a dealbreaker for you, check the specific trim, not just the model.
A lot of these vehicles change their control layout between the base trim and the top one, and dealership demo units don’t always reflect what ships six months from now.
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