Volkswagen to rectify infotainment functionality after feedback from the public and press

Volkswagen’s CEO Thomas Schafer has been very open about the problems with the brand’s infotainment touchscreen, along with haptic buttons

First, it was haptic steering wheel controls. Now, Volkswagen has admitted its infotainment touchscreen system isn’t to the level of functionality it was expecting.

Speaking to Car Magazine, Volkswagen’s chief executive officer Thomas Schafer said that the infotainment systems across the board had not been up to scratch.

“We’ve got feedback from customers, feedback from clinics and journalists. They said, ‘You know this is not good. You’ve got to improve this’,” he said.

The current touchscreen in the Volkswagen Golf R

Car also reported that Volkswagen will aim to fix the issue in the next 18 months, with the new 3.0 system beginning to roll out as early as the European winter of 2022.

The latest generation MIB3 software made its local debut on the Skoda Octavia sedan/wagon but is also seen on the Mk 8 Golf and Caddy van.

What needed to change with Volkswagen’s infotainment?

One of the biggest changes to the touchscreen area will be to the accompanying climate control sliders that are currently not illuminated and, therefore, hard to see at night time or when driving through tunnels.

Volkswagen ID4 2023 touchscreen — The current climate slider cannot be illuminated, but this will change

Schafer said that going forwards , the climate and volume sliders will be illuminated for better low-light performance.

Also on the development to-do list is an improvement to general functionality, with Schafer adding that a new layout with more functions is coming.

“What are the top 10 functions that customers always need? We put them on the first level with hard buttons. Then on the next 20 functions, we put some logic into it, and then keep it the same”.

Volkswagen Golf R hatch 2022 touchscreen — Journalists and customers have provided feedback to VW about their infotainment

It’s likely that the first models to score this update could be the facelifted Volkswagen Golf and new Passat, however these have not yet been confirmed.

Haptic controls also on the list to fix

The news about infotainment changes comes after Schafer recently announced that Volkswagen would be fixing its haptic steering wheel controls for its model lineup.

Haptic controls will be replaced with physical buttons in the near future

Due to strong customer feedback, Volkswagen will replace the haptic touch buttons on steering wheels found on an array of models, including performance products such as the new Mk8 Volkswagen Golf R hatch/wagon, Tiguan R midsize SUV and T-Roc R small SUV.

The brand found that many people did not like operating capacitive sliders, similar to how Apple has recently removed its touch bar from Macbook Pro models.