Hyundai made a big bet on touch screens in cars. Here's why it's going back to buttons.

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Hyundai made a big bet on touch screens in cars. Here's why it's going back to buttons.

Published: 07 Nov. 2024, 17:45 Updated: 07 Nov. 2024, 19:11

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

A model of Hyundai Motor's Santa Cruz pickup truck, left, and a model of Tucson XRT at the Hyundai Design and Technical Center in Irvine, California. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

IRVINE, California — Reporters signed nondisclosure agreements as they filed into Hyundai Motor's design center on a sunny day in Southern California. Phones were taken away; no photos, the group was informed, could be taken in the top-secret studio where Hyundai's most famous North American models, from the Sonata to the Genesis coupe, are brought to life.

Reporters were greeted by life-size models of Hyundai Design North America's (HDNA) Tucson XRT and Santa Cruz displayed in the lobby while employees scrambled to throw black sheets over mock-ups that were scattered throughout the rest of the center, including what appeared to be a scaled-down version of the yet-to-be-released Ioniq 9. The morning of Nov. 5 marked a rare time the 90,000-square-foot facility has granted entry to the Korean press. But while the company's employees kept future designs tightly under wraps for the duration of the visit, they were more than happy to discuss those of the past.

Hyundai Design North America headquarters in Irvine, California [CHO YONG-JUN]

HDNA, and its predecessor, Hyundai California Studio, have been at the center of Hyundai’s concept car designs since the early 1990s. Its first and second concept cars, the HCD-1 and HCD-2, became the base of the sport-looking Tiburon, while the HCD-14 and HCD-16 inspired the Genesis sedan; it's responsible for the first-generation Santa Fe and sixth-generation Sonata, code-named YF, as well.

Since the early 2010s, however, Hyundai Motor's home turf Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, has been growing its global presence. The hyper-restricted design center is now more focused on customizing the brand's models for North America. One of the biggest considerations, recently, has been buttons.

Hyundai Motor was one of many automakers who, following Tesla's lead, have rolled out touch screen infotainment across their models over the past decade, often replacing the knobs that had historically controlled features like air conditioning and radio — going so far as to show off a touch screen concept steering wheel in 2019. It appeared to publicly reverse course early last year, however, stating at the launch of the Hyundai Kona that it was committed to keeping physical buttons and dials in its vehicles in the near future. Its current lineup, including the refreshed Ioniq 5, features more analog controls across the board.

That course reversal, HDNA said, wasn't purely motivated by safety or profitability concerns. Largely, American customers just found it annoying.

“As we were adding integrated [infotainment] screens in our vehicles, we also tried out putting touchscreen-based controls, and people didn’t prefer that,” said HDNA Vice President Ha Hak-soo.

Hyundai Design North America Vice President Ha Hak-soo [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Ha admitted that the company, like much of the auto industry, had initially been taken in by the “wow” factor of the massive multimedia systems that Tesla pioneered — but that it was not, ultimately, what Hyundai wanted to go for.

The vice president pointed to the additional friction that touch screens interfaces can add to previously simple control functions. Critics have highlighted for years, for example, the fact that changing the temperature on an infotainment screen often requires more taps and more time than turning a physical knob does.

“When we tested with our focus group, we realized that people get stressed, annoyed and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so,” Ha said.

That may change as driver assistance and self-driving technology progress, however. The company's adaptive cruise control system “completely changes the way you drive on the highway; you can relax more,” said Kevin Kang, senior design manager and head of HDNA's interior design team. In the future, “the sense of relaxation will be bigger and bigger, and the interior design will have to provide creature comfort.”

Kang explained that as drivers are required to focus on the road ahead less and have their feet off the pedals, interiors will again be redesigned to accommodate those changes.

Buttons aren't the only things being tweaked to American preferences; they play into exterior design as well.

“The United States is a big country and people often get to see the car from a distance. This makes consumers focus more and judge based on the general silhouette of a vehicle,” HDNA Senior Researcher Ryu Seung-wook said. “In Europe, Korea and even in big cities on the east coast, a car also has to act as an object in the city, as it shows its reflection against the building. So, people naturally focus on the closer detail of the car.”

Hyundai Design North America's Senior Design Manager of Exteriors Brad Arnold speaks about the company's Santa Cruz pickup truck. [HYUNDAI MOTOR]

Hyundai’s first pickup truck, Santa Cruz, reflects such design language. While the car is based on the Tucson five-seater SUV and features a rather similar-looking front fascia, the grille, daytime running light (DRL) and bumper all use completely different parts.

“It looks similar [to] the DRLs, the grille and the hidden headlights because we wanted to show some sibling connection with the Tucson,” HDNA Senior Design Manager of Exteriors Brad Arnold told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Arnold explained that the Santa Cruz, because it specifically targets the American market, needs a “more robust and strong” design, in comparison to the “almost flowery” look of the Tucson.

Hyundai also said that its sixth-generation Sonata, also featuring an “American-tailored design,” helped improve the brand's image in its target market but was polarizing in Korea and Europe.

“The thin headlights and the aggressive character lines can feel a bit too much when you look at them from a close distance,” said HDNA Senior Research Engineer Cho Beom-soo. “But it worked in the U.S. because that strong look is there even when you look at it from a 200-meter [656-foot] to 300-meter distance. If it looked restrained and handsome, like a European car, you wouldn’t be able to recognize it from a distance.”

That sort of bold aesthetic, the company hopes, is what will differentiate the company from American competitors going forward.

“Hyundai started by basically reskinning an existing Mitsubishi vehicle to create the Pony, and we’ve been designing in the '80s and '90s without consistency. We also followed BMW and Audi to make a family look. But now with the electrification of vehicles, we wanted to show our originality,” Ha said.

“Hyundai, with the Ioniq 5, managed to find our identity, while other brands are losing theirs.”

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]