Testing, testing

We at Autocar talk a lot about buttons and other physical controls in cars and how having at least a few well-chosen ones for essential functions is important.

- ILLYA VERPRAET

The good news is that it does seem manufacturers are slowly getting it. Volkswagen, one of the pioneers of touch-sensitive nonsense, recently let me have a poke around an early prototype of its ID Cross EV, which featured a compact array of physical buttons in the centre console and on the steering wheel. Hurrah!

A button that's less discussed is the one to turn the car on and off, which is strange because it's the one that is actually contentious.

Most people agree that having buttons rather than touchpads on the steering wheel is a good thing. Dials for the interior temperature and fan speed are uncontroversial too. And having physical controls for the indicators is so universally agreed that even Euro NCAP has decided it won't award the full five stars to cars that don't have any. I'm fairly sure that was the reason for Tesla's mirror-signal-U-turn on column stalks, rather than any naturally acquired common sense.