Despite the prevalence of touchscreens, Audi knows the importance of physical controls

Audi says its future vehicles will continue to feature some physical buttons, switches, and dials, despite many other car manufacturers going all-in on touchscreens.While speaking during the recent virtual unveiling of the Grandsphere concept, Audi interior designer Maksymilian Nawka confirmed that the automaker will look to its past when designing the interiors of forthcoming models, Drive reports.

“A clear yes to this, because when you look into the future, you always have to look back, to double-check or just find what was really good in the past,” Nawka said. “Audi was – and still is, but was maybe more so in the past – known for this joy of use, the haptic sensation when you push and toggle buttons. This is exactly what we wanted to bring back in the car, but combining it with the touch-less [gesture control] interaction with the car. We believe… this is like an expensive watch, which you can really use often, and even show off to your friends. For sure we will have [physical controls in the future], yeah.”