Whoever wants to get a full five-star rating in the Euro NCAP crash tests has to offer a number of electronic assistance systems some Friday. From 2026, another condition will be added to this. Physical buttons for basic functions. Euro NCAP wants to reduce driver distraction.
“The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, almost every manufacturer has integrated basic function controls into them, which forces the driver to stop looking at the road and increases the risk of an accident due to distraction,” Matthew Avery, head of strategic development at Euro NCAP, told The Times. “The new tests from 2026 will thus force manufacturers to use separate physical controllers for basic functions in an intuitive concept,” forwards a person from the Belgian organization.
If you follow the trends among new cars regularly, you will surely have noticed the decreasing share of classic buttons. After all, even motoring journalists often draw attention to their lack and the necessity to search pointlessly in the menu of the on-board system, even in order to adjust the air conditioning. Volkswagen, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz or Audi are just some of the car companies that move many functions to touch screens, or various touch surfaces, for example on the steering wheel.
But it is also necessary to say that with the rapid development, even the touch control has improved significantly. Some may remember Volkswagen’s first attempts to control everything by touch a few years ago. But the system failed, was unintuitive and unresponsive, and criticism poured in on the German concern from all sides.
However, designers and technicians were able to fine-tune the system over time, today there can be no question of unintuitiveness and some hacking or “freezing” of the system happens to a degree standard for the entire industry – that is, almost not at all.
Another example is Tesla, where criticism of the blinker or wiper buttons on the steering wheel instead of the classic levers below it is justified, however, the control of all functions using the touch screen does not distract the driver and after a few drives he can intuitively find all functions. Similarly, as if it had the classic buttons that Euro NCAP will now demand from automakers.
The new rating scheme will be put into practice in 2026, so brands have more than a year and a half to prepare for it. Physical buttons must be used to control blinkers, hazard lights, horn, wipers and the emergency call system. The list could theoretically be further expanded, it was similar when deploying security assistants, but so far it only contains the most basic functions.
Frank Mütze of the European Road Safety Committee welcomes the new rules as a step in the right direction. “But now we also need follow-up regulation from the European Union, which will anchor the requirements legally for all vehicles,” he adds.
Ondřej Velebný, the boss and founder of the Czech company Kontrolka, which specializes in the design of user interfaces for the interiors of new cars, is reserved when it comes to controlling various functions and sees the advantages of both buttons and touch screens. However, it rejects mandatory regulation. “If something was simple at the first press, I think it must not be more complicated in the next generation,” he said in an interview for Hospodářské noviny.
“However, if you come up with a faster touch option, where the icons can also be enlarged, then at that moment you have advantages in digital,” he adds. At the same time, according to him, some functions, such as blinkers, among others, should not have a separate control at all. They could be controlled automatically depending on which direction the driver turns the steering wheel.
He also adds that the poorly resolved control of certain functions in the car is often the fault of insufficient communication between individual departments in car factories or restrictions due to parts suppliers. They already have a ready-made solution, and therefore it cannot be changed in favor of greater user-friendliness.
