Volkswagen has listened to the people, has listened to the criticism and has reconsidered the trend of capacitive controls on the steering wheel. It is something that makes us very happy and that is worthy of praise, since, on many occasions, it is wise to rectify. But bearing in mind that this is not the only design technique that many clients have complained about, being the integration of air conditioning in the screen and the eradication of physical controls other reasons, Will the Wolfsburgs go further with their penance?
And it is that although it is true that the capacitive steering wheel controls are easier to correct, remove the air conditioning from the infotainment system and put physical controls back requires more tedious and complex work at this point in the film. However, it is never too late if happiness is good, so we could find ourselves with a restyling and with the most immediate generational leap full of turns back.
All past times were better, but is it enough, Volkswagen?
Be that as it may, we are glad to know that the physical controls will return to the multifunction steering wheel, a type of control that never had to disappear, or at least not for the sake of unintuitive touches and that made it easy to touch where one did not want. And it is that this has been confirmed by Thomas SchäferCEO of Volkswagen, who could announce that they take another step in this cable pickup.
Although it is true that the Volkswagen Golf has a small dial with physical controls to access different menus, neither the SEAT León nor the CUPRA León have this system. The only one from the German consortium that offers a perfectly balanced measure between technology and practicality is the Audi A3, that uses a small strip of physical buttons for the air conditioning system. The Skoda Octavia offers a somewhat more successful option than that of the rest of the Group’s vehicles, but it falls halfway with respect to the four rings.
In turn, other models from the rest of the subsidiaries that have not yet changed generation but have received a restyling boast a series of touch controls but that are at least separated from the infotainment system. So if we take into account that both modern vehicles and those with a recent renovation can not only recover previous controls, but also make use of the latest generation systems combined with physical buttons, why not apply them also in all the models “affected” by this trend and those to come?
This is the million dollar question, because there are many users who also protest the way in which the air conditioning and other functions that were previously at the touch of a button are associated with a screen. Screen that by the way is not as fluid as one expects and that forces us, for example, to have to wait for it to load to turn on the heating.
Regardless of this, we are already facing a transcendental change, which is none other than the return to the physical controls for the multifunction steering wheel. And we are sure that the Volkswagen Group -and many other manufacturers that advocate this irritating fashion- are aware of the general discontent that exists regarding the presence of numerous tasks delegated to a screen, so it would not be unreasonable to see a Golf and a restyling SEAT Leon recovering buttons from those of a lifetime.
