Mercedes-Benz is putting physical switches back into its cabins. Chief executive Ola Källenius said so to Autocar in an interview published July 31, telling the British magazine that “the industry as a whole might have gone a little bit too far” toward digital controls, and promising that “from now on, you will see us reintroduce the most sensible buttons.”
Asked whether carmakers had reached peak screen, he answered: “I don’t know if we’re at peak screen, but we’re at low button.”
The first Mercedes to carry the company’s new hard-key control strip also carries a 39.1-inch display, the largest it has ever fitted to a production car.
Behind the reversal sits a Euro NCAP technical bulletin that took effect January 1. It is not legislation, it awards five points out of thirty, and it lists nine functions rather than the five that have circulated in coverage since 2024.
Key Takeaways
- The source is an interview, not a press release. Källenius spoke to Autocar’s James Attwood, published July 31, 2026. He named no models and cited no timeline.
- Mercedes committed to this in September 2025. Software chief Magnus Östberg said at the Munich show that “the data shows us the physical buttons are better, and that’s why we put them back in.”
- Buttons and bigger screens arrive together. The all-new electric GLC pairs a hard-key control strip with a 39.1-inch continuous MBUX Hyperscreen, described by Mercedes as “the largest display in a Mercedes-Benz to date.”
- The Euro NCAP document names nine functions, not five: turn signals, gear selector, hazard lights, e-Call, horn, front wiper, rear wiper, high beam, and speed-control functions.
- It is worth 5 points of 30 inside the Driver Engagement assessment, where driver monitoring takes the other 25.
- Climate controls and windows are scored too, at 0.5 and 0.25 points, which the safety-functions framing leaves out.
- A steering-wheel turn signal button is shown as unacceptable in the protocol’s own illustration of what fails.
- Euro NCAP does not rate American-market cars. US buyers get the interiors this produces without the ratings that motivated them.
Källenius Named No Models. Mercedes Said This in September.
The interview ran under Autocar’s own headline: big screens stay, but the company went too far removing buttons. Källenius defended the displays at length first, describing the internal test for a new interface as something a five-year-old or a Mercedes board member should manage without instruction.
Then came the concession. “Sometimes you get a bit ahead of yourself and do technology for the sake of technology and maybe forget a little bit about the customer,” he said.
Autocar reported one concrete change: Mercedes has introduced physical controls on its steering wheels. Källenius identified no vehicle by name, gave no date, and quantified nothing. The word he chose was “sensible,” which leaves the boundary to Mercedes.
The position is also older than the interview. Östberg described the reversal as settled at the Munich motor show in September 2025, eleven months earlier, and attributed it to usage data from the CLA rather than to press criticism. The rocker for the speed limiter and adaptive cruise, and the roller for volume, arrived on the new GLC and the CLA before Källenius discussed any of it.
The Same Car Has a 39.1-Inch Screen
Mercedes describes the change in its own words in the release for the all-new electric GLC. The center console, it says, “integrates up to two trays for inductive and rapid smartphone charging, followed by a new hard-key control strip (including hazard warning button).”
The hazard control moves out of the touchscreen and onto the console, past the charging trays, within reach of a hand resting near the cupholders.
Above that strip, per the same release, sits an optional seamless MBUX Hyperscreen stretching pillar to pillar, 39.1 inches of continuous glass with more than 1,000 individual backlight LEDs and zone dimming that Mercedes has filed a patent on. Buttons came back on the car with the biggest screen the company has ever built.
The Rule Behind It Is a Score, Not a Law
The document driving this across the industry is Euro NCAP Technical Bulletin SD 203, “General Vehicle Controls Test Procedure,” version 1.1, dated October 2025 and carrying an implementation date of January 1, 2026. It sits inside the Driver Engagement protocol, which was itself revised to version 1.2 in July.
Euro NCAP is a consumer rating organization based in Leuven, Belgium. It publishes star ratings. It does not issue type approvals, it cannot keep a car off sale, and nothing in SD 203 obliges a manufacturer to do anything.
It assigns points, and points move stars.
A test laboratory runs the assessment on a vehicle in factory settings, at a standstill unless a function requires motion, recording the whole session on video so that each control and its visual feedback can be reviewed afterward. Programmable shortcuts and favorite buttons are excluded, so a manufacturer cannot pass by letting the driver assign a function to a custom key.
Nine Functions, Not Five
Coverage of the 2026 change has settled on a list of five functions: turn signals, hazard lights, horn, wipers, and the emergency call. That list traces to remarks from Euro NCAP’s director of strategic development, Matthew Avery, in March 2024, roughly nineteen months before the protocol was published.
SD 203 names nine, each with an expected physical location described by zone.
| Function | Expected location in the protocol |
|---|---|
| Turn signals | Directly behind the steering wheel on the left, column mounted |
| Gear selector | Behind or beside the wheel on the right, or the center of the vehicle |
| Hazard lights | On or immediately adjacent to the vehicle center line |
| e-Call | Overhead console |
| Horn | Center of the steering wheel |
| Front wiper | Directly behind the steering wheel, column mounted |
| Rear wiper | Directly behind the steering wheel, column mounted |
| High beam | On the wheel or column mounted behind it on the left |
| Speed control functions | On the wheel or column mounted behind it |
The gear selector and the high beam are the two additions with the most ground to make up, since both have migrated into screens and onto capacitive panels over the past decade. The rear wiper joins the list too, which reaches the hatchbacks and crossovers that moved it into a menu.
A function reached through menu-based touch input requiring more than two steps “is never acceptable for any of the defined Functions.”
Appendix B pairs each function with an acceptable and an unacceptable implementation, and the example given for a failed turn signal is a button on the steering wheel itself, the arrangement Tesla adopted when it deleted the column stalk. An overhead hazard switch is also marked unacceptable, which is why the GLC’s new strip sits on the console instead.
One requirement waits until 2029. The protocol states a preference that the hazard light control sit no lower than the bottom edge of the steering wheel, and marks that boundary “to be effective by 2029.” Placement is scored now. That specific geometry is not.
Five Points Out of Thirty
The Driver Engagement assessment carries 30 points. Physical controls account for five of them.
| Assessment area | Points |
|---|---|
| Driver monitoring, transient states | 15 |
| Driver monitoring, non-transient states | 10 |
| General vehicle controls: driving | 2.5 |
| General vehicle controls: comfort and infotainment | 2.5 |
| Total | 30 |
Within that five, the driving half splits into core driving controls at 1 point, then vision, lights, and driver assistance at half a point apiece. The comfort half covers audio, calling, and navigation at half a point each, climate controls at another half, windows at a quarter, and a residual quarter for everything else.
Climate and windows carry no safety argument. They are scored anyway, which puts the assessment closer to a usability audit than a crash-risk measure.
Touchscreens can still pass. They have to meet dimensions. A digital interaction area needs a target of at least 10 by 10 millimeters with at least 4 millimeters of separation from its neighbors, and controls on a steering wheel have to be identifiable by touch alone through ridges or physical boundaries. Voice control can satisfy some functions, provided an alternative control exists and a dedicated button starts the voice session.
Mercedes appears in the protocol on the acceptable side. The illustration of a correctly spaced touch interface is an EQ-series home screen with five well-separated icons.
None of This Rates an American Car
Euro NCAP tests European-market vehicles. A GLC sold in Sacramento is not assessed against SD 203, and no American program measures anything comparable. NHTSA issued voluntary driver-distraction guidelines in 2013 and has not made them binding. IIHS rates crashworthiness, headlights, and front crash prevention, and does not score where a wiper stalk lives.
American buyers still get the result. Interior architecture is designed once for global sale, so a console redesigned to score in Leuven ships to Georgia and Alabama with the same switches in the same places.
Anything a manufacturer trims for a US-only model escapes the scoring entirely.
Screens that outpace their software are a live complaint across this segment, and not only at Mercedes. Our review of the 2026 Range Rover SE landed on the same split, a convincing chassis paired with software that was not finished. The driver-monitoring cameras taking 25 of the 30 points on this same assessment are meanwhile moving toward gaze tracking and windshield projection.
Shop the Console With Your Hands
Buttons are returning to Mercedes interiors, and the company said so eleven months before its chief executive repeated it. The hardware is real and specific: a hard-key strip with a hazard switch on the console of the new electric GLC, a volume roller and a cruise rocker on the wheel, both spreading to the rest of the range.
The displays are growing at the same time. The car introducing those switches carries 39.1 inches of glass, and Källenius drew the line himself between low button and peak screen. The Euro NCAP protocol pushing the industry this way is a five-point scoring item covering nine functions, climate controls and windows included, and it has no authority over a car sold in the United States. Shop the console with your hands rather than the specification sheet, and check where the gear selector and the wiper stalk ended up before the test drive is over.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mercedes removing its big touchscreens?
No. The company is adding physical controls alongside them. The all-new electric GLC introduces the hard-key control strip and simultaneously offers a 39.1-inch MBUX Hyperscreen, which Mercedes calls the largest display it has put in a production car. Källenius told Autocar the industry is at “low button,” not peak screen.
Which Mercedes models get the physical buttons?
Källenius named none in the interview. Mercedes has confirmed the hard-key control strip on the center console of the all-new electric GLC, and the steering wheel with rollers and rockers appeared on the GLC and the CLA. The company has said the wheel design becomes standard going forward across models on sale.
Does Euro NCAP require physical buttons by law?
No. Euro NCAP is a consumer rating organization, not a regulator. It cannot block a sale or withhold type approval. Its 2026 protocol awards points for physical controls, and a car that scores poorly loses stars rather than access to the market.
Which functions does the Euro NCAP protocol cover?
Technical Bulletin SD 203 lists nine: turn signals, gear selector, hazard lights, e-Call, horn, front wiper, rear wiper, high beam, and speed control functions. Each has an expected location described by cabin zone. The five-function list quoted widely in coverage predates the published document.
How many points are physical controls worth?
Five out of the 30 available in the Driver Engagement assessment, split evenly between driving controls and comfort and infotainment. Driver monitoring accounts for the remaining 25.
Can a car still pass with a touchscreen?
For some functions, yes. A digital interaction area has to measure at least 10 by 10 millimeters with a minimum of 4 millimeters between targets, and steering wheel controls have to be identifiable by feel. Any function that takes more than two menu steps to reach fails outright.
When did the rules take effect?
SD 203 version 1.1 is dated October 2025 with an implementation date of January 1, 2026. The parent Driver Engagement protocol was updated to version 1.2 in July 2026. One provision, a preferred lower boundary for the hazard control, is marked as taking effect by 2029.
Do these rules apply to cars sold in the United States?
Not directly. Euro NCAP assesses European-market vehicles. NHTSA’s driver-distraction guidance from 2013 remains voluntary, and IIHS does not rate control layout. American buyers receive the redesigned interiors because manufacturers build one cabin for global markets.
Why is a steering wheel turn signal button a problem?
The protocol expects turn signals directly behind the wheel on the left, column mounted, so the control stays in a fixed place as the wheel turns. A button mounted on the rim moves with the wheel, and the bulletin shows exactly that arrangement as an unacceptable implementation.
Does the assessment score climate controls and windows?
Yes. Climate controls carry half a point and windows a quarter, inside the comfort and infotainment half of the assessment. Neither is a time-critical safety function, which is part of why the assessment reads as a usability audit.
Did Mercedes change course because of press criticism?
Östberg credited data. At the Munich show in September 2025 he said the numbers showed physical buttons performed better and that Mercedes acted on them, pointing to usage information gathered from the CLA. Källenius separately acknowledged that the industry had done technology for its own sake.
Will programmable shortcut buttons satisfy the assessment?
No. The test is run on a vehicle in factory condition, and the protocol excludes individual or programmable settings such as favorite buttons and shortcuts from the evaluation.
Michael Kahn
Michael Kahn is the writer, photographer, and publisher behind The Weekly Driver. He cares about how cars drive and what they're like to own. He covers automobile industry news, car shows and events, and new car reviews. The reviews come from behind the wheel: day trips that favor back routes, treating a good meal as half the reason to go. He directs and produces the visual media, matching each car to a setting and mood that fit it. When he's not reviewing new cars, Michael races paddleboards, camels, and ostriches, along with the occasional exotic car on the racetrack, and has driven in every state and country visited.
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