Facelift Volkswagen ID.3 earlier because customers hate touchpads on the steering wheel

Respect Volkswagen! You made a mistake and now you are doing something about it. The Volkswagen ID.3 facelift is brought forward as buyers complain about the touchpads on the steering wheel and the quality of the interior materials.

What is the problem? It’s better to ask what the problems are, because there are several. First, the Volkswagen ID.3 has a lot of trouble with its software. According to Autocar, this huge fiasco is said to be the reason why Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess left the company.

Customers complain about touch buttons in the Volkswagen ID.3

Secondly, the quality of the interior materials is not top (the quality has also deteriorated in other VWs) and thirdly, customers and the press complain about the touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel and the center console.

Volkswagen brings the facelift of the ID.3 forward

“We have listened to the ID.3 community,” said Volkswagen boss Thomas Schäfer, “and are pushing the facelift of our first MEB model to 2023. The new Volkswagen ID.3 will see major advances in quality, materials and software stability make. It’s a car that lives up to what we stand for at Volkswagen.”

Touchpads on the steering wheel will disappear, even in the Golf

Earlier this week we wrote about the facelifted Volkswagen Golf, which will get physical buttons on the steering wheel instead of touchpads. The new ID.3 gets that too. Touchpads on the handlebars are tricky. They are not blind to find and you have to take your eyes off the road longer to see if what you want is actually happening. It is not known whether Volkswagen will also tackle the hated sliders for the air conditioning.

New working group for quick input of customer requests

According to Schäfer, Volkswagen recently set up the Customer Orientation Board Committee. This is there to discuss special customer requests and implement them quickly. Schäfer doesn’t say that touchpads are jerky, but circles around it diplomatically. “It’s about an intuitive user experience,” he says of the new physical buttons. So not sooner?

Schäfer describes the customer focus board as a quick win. “Our goal is to set new standards in design, quality and driving characteristics. Not sometime in the future, but as soon as possible.”