Did Ferrari Just Fuel the Car World’s Next Product War?

While the car industry has been trying to make endless screens and finicky touch inputs the standard for years now, buyers haven’t exactly welcomed these kinds of changes.

Quite the opposite. If anything, there’s been a growing call for a return to good, old-fashioned analog controls, because the real, tactile feedback makes operation safer and more intuitive.

As such, though some automakers have doubled down on their minimalist tech, many others have changed course and begun adding true buttons back to their car interiors.

Ferrari

All the same, it’s Ferrari’s latest move that has the potential to be a true catalyst in this ongoing debate.

Bringing buttons back

That’s because the Prancing Horse is now providing physical button retrofits for steering wheels on the Purosangue and the 12Cilindri, as announced via a post on Instagram.

The logistics are simple enough. The dealer merely swaps out the section containing menu, phone and cruise control inputs for one with buttons instead of touch inputs. Even the airbag cover goes unchanged as part of the process.

Nevertheless, the fact that Ferrari is even willing to offer this kind of fix for a past error demonstrates the overwhelming consensus among customers in their preference for tactile driving controls.

Especially when you consider that it echoes a previous and similar about-face for the brand. After Ferrari dove headfirst into interior tech with the hybrid SF90, negative owner responses forced designers to take a beat and revert to traditional inputs.

Ferrari

Accordingly, more recent models like the Amalfi and the Testarossa have not only re-adopted mechanical controls (along with the signature red starter) but also made such a change a headline feature — Ferrari actually highlights the return of buttons in each model’s press release.

The next dealer add-on?

In any event, much as the Prancing Horse may be a brand for the one percent, this hot-button topic (sorry) has implications for the rest of the industry, especially with the existence of the retrofit.

Namely, because it’s a solution created in response to a problem resulting from cost-cutting measures.

Ferrari

After all, in a recent interview with Autocar, CEO Benedetto Vigna stated that touch-based controls cost some 50 percent less than their physical counterparts, adding that “touch is something made by, for, the supplier advantage.”

As such, if even Ferrari is integrating these kinds of interfaces to save a buck here and there, other carmakers operating with much lower margins are doing so for the same reason. But with everyone from Hyundai to Volkswagen now folding to customer demand by reintroducing physical controls, will we see other, similar retrofits?

It’s hard to say. Ferrari has notably hired Jonny Ive to engineer the touch-based interior on the upcoming Luce EV. Even compared to a notable product designer’s expense, then, the tooling required for physical controls must be a monumental resource sink.

Ferrari

It’s also important to keep in mind that there’s no word on just how much this retrofit will cost Purosangue and 12Cilindri owners.

If this selling model demonstrates enough profit potential, though, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine physical controls becoming the next optional add-on or pricey upgrade at the dealer, and that seems like a much more unfortunate prospect than dealing with no buttons at all.

Want to stay up to date on the latest product news and releases? Add Gear Patrol as a preferred source to ensure our independent journalism makes it to the top of your Google search results.

Related Topics