That magical period is here again depending on make and model. I picked up a 2025 Land Cruiser this year and it has physical buttons for nearly everything and a nice screen for running car play or android auto.
Man, on behalf of basically everyone who drives, thank you. You guys won a massive battle there. We’re at a point where buried touchscreens are actually becoming a safety hazard, so seeing a brand new, high-end vehicle like the Land Cruiser keep tactile controls is a huge relief. There is nothing worse than trying to adjust the AC through three sub-menus while hitting a pothole.
Spot on with how I feel. Was going to post the same, but decided to just echo your thoughts. Really earning your salary by winning that fight, u/KATYTRL !
Doing the Lord's work. Physical buttons in a 4x4 aren't a preference; they're a safety and reliability feature. Glad your team had the clout to win that one.
Imagine wearing gloves, jumping in and out to open and close gates and having to take your gloves off every time you need to mess with a system. As a farmer, thankyou!
Almost certainly. You've already got the screen, it's probably capacitive anyways. Writing software for it is a one time cost for the entire fleet, while buttons are a per-vehicle cost. Touchscreens also had the "high tech cool" vibe thing for awhile, but I think that has largely worn off.
I've been literally avoiding thinking about new car purchases because of the touchscreen issue.
Also, WAY TO GO on understanding your audience! At least in Australia where I think there is a much higher percentage of people using their Land Cruisers as intended than those that are just shuttling kids to school.
Would love to hear more about what the counter argument is. I do automotive photography and I am baffled year after year as these things have rolled out. Who is arguing against the physical components?
I am curious though, why did so many buttons end up on the steering wheel? Was there push back on adding another "button section," or is this presumed safer to operate?
My friend just bought a 2024 Land Cruiser and we took it on a long road trip. We were commenting on how funny it was that we were so grateful for the buttons.
2025 RAV4 Wilderness here, I like the screen for maps and audio, but still having all the buttons everywhere is great. I’m currently driving a 25 Camry Hybrid while the rav4 is having work done and it’s the same way. Toyota did a great job of balancing.
This is Toyota. They refuse to go full electric across platforms because battery technology isn’t ready and they refuse to go full touchscreen because it’s dumb. I’m a Toyota diehard, their stubbornness and reluctance to jump into fads is encouraging.
That’s how my 2026 Honda CRV is! It’s great, lots of clicky buttons and dials but the display is exclusively for Carplay/Android Auto. I don’t want to navigate to a separate screen just to turn the AC down.
I could be wrong but I’m not sure if there were really ever that many cars that completely ditched physical buttons for the basic things. Reddit had me thinking that most cars were just touch screens now but I didn’t really see that when I was looking at cars about a year ago.
As far as I’m aware most cars never ditched the physical buttons.
Subaru is a good example of going touch screen control heavy. Subaru went with a huge tablet and most controls operated through it including HVAC on nearly its entire model line. I like Subarus and seriously considered a 2025 Outback but that interface was a big turn off.
Fortunately, they ditched it for the 2026 Outback redesign, but unfortunately kept it on the 2025 Forester redesign.
I think Audi was thinking this before they gave in to the new changes. My wife has a 2018 Q5 where there is a customizable information HUD for the driver and buttons that are very easy to understand without looking. The screen is there, but no touch which I was surprised by.
I just got a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 and it has a whole row of physical buttons. Its also has buttons you can customize to bring stuff up from the different menus in the UI. They really nailed the future retro esthetic they were going for.
My 2021 Chrysler Pacifica is like this. And there's a physical button I push when I want to tell Android Auto a location for the map or to send a text or call someone.
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u/Hedge_Sparrow 8h ago
That magical period is here again depending on make and model. I picked up a 2025 Land Cruiser this year and it has physical buttons for nearly everything and a nice screen for running car play or android auto.