In a recent conversation with GoAuto Australia, Audi CTO Rouven Mohr let it slip that the aggressive digitalization of modern Audi car interiors was met with largely negative feedback from customers across all of the company’s key markets, excluding China. Moving forward, the Ingolstadt automaker will try to bring back the “tactile bliss” of traditional, physical controls.
The touchscreens won’t completely disappear, but they will be considerably downsized and – more importantly – will cease to act as the only way of accessing most in-car functions. Conventional buttons, knobs and sliders will assume control of these functions again, proving drivers with clear tactile feedback and eliminating the need for them to take their eyes off the road.
Furthermore, Mohr admitted that the average interior of a present-day Audi relied too much on imitated (read: fake) materials, such as wood and metal. He said that any metal-looking parts that drivers were expected to interact with in their car would be better off made from actual metal, and not just cheap plastic with a shiny finish.
He estimated the design processes involved to need two more years or so. Audi’s next interior design language, Radical Next, will first spread to its electric models like the A4 e-tron and Q7 e-tron and sports cars like the limited-run Nuvolari coupe.
In the meantime, the company released the third generation of its Q7 SUV in June (see video). The model arrived packing three large displays and fewer buttons than most owners wanted to see, according to this interview. Here’s hoping the whole touchscreen trend can be reversed sooner rather than later.