Featured European New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) Requires Buttons For Top Safety Ratings

i love it! now if they'd just get rid of touch screens and phones

 

Tracing links, I could not find hard requirements. Just a proposal for something in Jan 2026.

Regardless, a trivial problem for a software defined car. Tesla already has alternate steering wheels on some models. Switches that feed a micro-controller, a higher cost option, can easily integrate with the dual, redundant, ring Ethernet.

Perhaps a grocery store, kiddy cart copy.

Bob Wilson

 

They missed the defroster, but this does look like real progress.

 

I'd be for getting rid of touch screens on phones. I can't hardly get my phone to type anything I want it to. I hate, hate, hate touch screens with a passion. In the time it takes me to type about 3 words on a touchscreen I typed this entire post on a real keyboard.

Not the mention that the three cars I've had with touchscreens have all had a problem (from irritating to major) with the touchscreen and I haven't been able to get any of them fixed.

 

Yeah, this one is neck-and-neck with the dearth of spare tires, for me.

One quibble, with the term "buttons". Our 10's got pletny of buttons, for the HVAC controls. A row of them, uniform in shape. The one for controlling vent mode somewhere down the row, a single button you need to push multiple times to cycle through the options, while watching a small LCD screen.

This is, the current highwater in "tactile" controls, is a cruel joke, takes protracted eyes-off-the-road attention:



Ditto for adjusting cabin temp or fan speed:


For comparison, base model 2019 Honda Fit:


Honda has discontinued this model in North America, and I believe even where it is available, discontinued this style of controls, siwtched instead to the high level style, interactive touch-screen.

 

I don't mind a departure from the three-knob thing, but I like it when the result is approximately as simple.

Our Prius c: Push the two buttons on the top right of the panel to get front and rear defrost and see a confirmation LED. Push them again to resume whatever it was doing before.

​

 

I suspect the Honda mode dial has intermediate detents, so you can find all 5 modes purely by touch.

Off-topic, but it’d be nice if Toyota could add a windshield-only vent mode. Ours has front defog button, which does that, but also forces full blast AC, is not useful as a steady use mode.

 

Oh man! Don't get me started on the terrible way windshield air is done on the Avalon!

The HVAC controls in the 2013 Avalon are the worst I've ever seen. When it's -35 °F and I'm trying to get the ice on the windshield warm enough to chip it off without my plastic scraper breaking is when I'd really, really like better controls. I can do a windshield-only control, but it's also exterior air only. I'd like recirculation so I can heat it up as much as possible. But even if I choose floor+windshield and recirculation it then decides to bump off recirculation automatically every minute, which at that point the engine never heats up past 115 °F.

 

Is there a humidity sensor in the cabin? Warm air and recirculate on the windshield can quickly lead to fogging up, and the feature is technically a defogger.

 

recirc = fogged windows in most places I've traveled.

But way up in the Rocky Mountains, the humidity is consistently low enough that recirculation actually does work to clear windows faster.

 

I don't know if there is a humidity sensor.

I get the reasoning behind designing the defroster to work this way. I've been with people who have been driving for several years and yet still can't figure out why their windshield fogs up with the recirculation setting on. And even after I tell them they forget what I said a few days later and I tell them again, and again, until one day they get it. (Makes me question if the requirements for getting a driver's license are strict enough. Maybe knowing how to defog or defrost a windshield should be a requirement for getting a license).

But at any rate it's a pain. And the audio system not working due to a glitch in the infotainment system is a pain, which can only be fixed at a dealer and will stop working again a few months to a year or so after getting it "fixed." And the infotainment system not being replaceble or user repairable is also a pain.

Oh, well, that's what I get for not being rich enough to afford a new car with a warranty. I guess the good thing is nobody has every tried to break in to my car to steel the non-working radio.

 

I like automatic temp control - it been 5 years since I've fooled with heater controls in a car.

Ours has buttons if you want to use them, knobs or a touch screen for temperature control if you prefer that.

Ours is set for 72 degrees automatic temperature control no need to ever touch it.

Does have pushbutton front and rear windshield defrost if you want to get fancy, but automatic temperature control does a great job of taking care of this on its own.

 

Mine has automatic temperature control too. It's ok for road trips. Around town (aka. commuting to work, school, store, etc.) I don't need HVAC except for keeping the windshield clean, regardless of whether it's 105 °F or -30 °F.

 

I “think” the cabin air temp sensor also senses humidity. That said I’ve never seen the automatic system switch the vent mode to heat/defog, even when it’s nigh impossible to see through misted up windshield.

 

Mine just kicks of recirculation, nothing else.

It and everything else seems so predictable that either the humidity is always the same here or it's not a sensor but rather a timer that doesn't want me to use recirculation in cold weather.

 

Personal preference, but I almost never use recirculated air. Referring to the Fit pic, that’s also dead easy to set, by feel alone, a slider you push to left or right extreme.

in our 3rd Gen, recirc is yet another button in a row of identical buttons; you need to look down to identify and get a finger on it, then keep looking down after pushing to confirm on the LCD display which tiny icon is showing.

 

The homelink mirror’s garage door opening function is another row of buttons. Mercifully we only need the one, have the left end button programmed*. As I’m approaching the garage, negotiating a curve, I just manage, reaching up a hand to touch the mirror frame, then find the slight edges of the (proverbial) row of buttons, slide my fingers till I find the leftmost one, press firmly, watch garage door for confirmation. Too, you need to grip the mirror, front and back, both for stability and to avoid pushing the mirror out of alignment.

* Somewhere in the 600+ page owners manual there’s an “instruction” for programming the homelink buttons; I was incapable of doing it, my son managed it for me.

 

Man I miss my BlackBerry keyboard. I can't type a word on this touchscreen without at least one typo that autocorrect will fix (or make worse). Never had that problem with the keyboard.

As for my cars, the only buttons I touch while driving are mounted on or around the steering wheel. I hardly go for the touch screen while driving, beside moving the navigation map to have a zoomed out view of what's ahead.

 

An auto defog would also need to know the glass temp to work. Humidity alone could be used to decide on whether to switch recirculate off.

I don't use recirculate in the cold. The engine will have plenty of waste heat. I do use it when it is hot to reduce the load on the AC. Max AC settings auto turn on the recirc.

The Outback auto climate likes recirc for some reason. If I turn off the auto AC cause the temps are pleasant, I'll have to manually set reirc to off, or the system will turn it on, and I start wondering why it is getting warm and stuffy in the car.