Start your engines (or motors)—physical buttons are finally back!
In this episode of VW ID Talk, Jan and Wes dive deep into the newly revealed interior of the VW ID. Polo (formerly ID.2). Volkswagen has listened to feedback, and the capacitive touch days might be numbered.
We break down the new “retro” design language and ask the big question: Can we retrofit these new physical controls into our existing ID.4s?
Topics Covered:
The Door Panel: 4 proper window switches and a dedicated lock button!
Steering Wheel: The return of the square, physical button cluster.
Climate Controls: A look at the new backlit physical bar (no more sliders!).
Retrofit Potential: Could the new volume knob and steering wheel work in an ID.4?
Digital Cluster: The cool “Retro” GTI/Mk1 Golf gauge theme.
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A transcript, cleaned up by AI and edited by a staffer, is below.
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Transcript:
Welcome back to the VW ID Talk Podcast. We’re your hosts, Jan and Wes, and today we want to talk about some of the interesting things Volkswagen is doing with the new Polo—and hopefully with future models as well. It looks like VW has finally listened to customer feedback and addressed some of the most frustrating issues.
Jan, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix these problems ourselves. Where should we start?
Yeah, let’s start with what we’re looking at here. This is an early sneak peek at the new ID Polo design—the electric Polo, formerly known as the ID.2. We’re expecting some of these design principles to carry over to the next ID.4, which is rumored to become the ID Tiguan. That’s why we wanted to do a deep dive: what’s changed, what excites us, and where we still have reservations. Most importantly, we’re always thinking about what we could retrofit into our existing ID.4s.
So let’s go through this piece by piece.
This is our current ID.4. These are the standard door controls: capacitive-touch mirror controls, two window switches, and a combined cluster for lights and climate functions, including front and rear defrost. Everything is bundled together.
On the steering wheel, we have the much-maligned capacitive-touch buttons. There are some advantages—being able to slide your finger up and down is useful—but we’ve documented plenty of issues. Behind the wheel is the driver display, or binnacle, showing navigation and speed, and then the infotainment screen. This is Jan’s 2021 model, so it has the smaller 12-inch display, capacitive menu controls, and capacitive climate sliders. There are no physical controls on the center console at all.
Now let’s look at what’s coming.
First, the door controls. This is a big improvement. We finally get four proper window switches—one for each window. What I’m personally most excited about is the separate lock and unlock buttons. Right now, if you unlock the car from the driver’s door and want to open a rear door, you often have to press unlock twice because the rear door doesn’t have a KESSY reader. Having a dedicated unlock button fixes that.
Another interesting detail isn’t obvious from photos: the silver trim along the top is actually one large lever. You grab it and pull upward to open the door. It’s a nice, intuitive design. We also looked up the part numbers, and the mirror and window switches are actually older VW components from before the ID.4 era. VW clearly went back to what worked.
If I had one wish, it would be better placement for memory seat and massage controls. Right now, those buttons are awkward to find unless you already know where they are. It would be much better if they were exposed more clearly, Audi-style.
Moving on to the light switch: this is now a dedicated light control cluster. The climate and defrost functions have been removed, which is a big step forward. It looks like a capacitive switch, possibly with haptic feedback—we can see a rim that might support vibration—but we don’t know for sure yet. Even if it doesn’t, separating lighting from climate is a huge improvement.
Next, the steering wheel. Finally—real physical buttons. The layout is very familiar, especially on the left side for cruise control. This particular setup doesn’t include Travel Assist, but it’s similar to what we have now. The volume control is more clearly separated, which should help with usability. Hopefully there are enough tactile cues so you can feel which button you’re pressing without looking, similar to the small notches on keyboard keys like F and J.
The square, retro styling may not be for everyone, but what matters most is that it works—and it looks like it will.
On the right side, the controls are almost identical to the current ID.4, except the heated steering wheel button has been moved slightly. Older ID.4s didn’t even have that button, so this is still progress. The stalks appear to be carried over from newer ID.4s or the ID Buzz.
The driver display is completely digital and much larger. It looks like it has analog needles, but it’s actually a digital emulation inspired by the Mk1 GTI. There’s a power gauge on the right that works like a tachometer—blue for power usage, green for regenerative braking. It looks cool, though we’ll see how useful it really is. Hopefully there will be additional layouts, like full navigation maps.
This car likely doesn’t have a head-up display, but the current ID.4 HUD implementation is already quite good, especially with turn-by-turn navigation. If you have a strong HUD, you may not need such a complex instrument cluster, but that’s a design choice.
Now to the infotainment screen. The screen is larger, but the biggest change is what’s missing: no capacitive sliders underneath. Climate controls are now handled differently, similar to newer software versions in the ID lineup.
Below the screen, we see a familiar setup—very similar to what Jan retrofitted from Skoda into his ID.4. This new control panel is dedicated entirely to climate functions, with physical buttons for temperature and fan speed. That means no more diving into menus just to adjust airflow, which was one of the biggest complaints.
One thing to note is that the passenger door appears to lack a lock button. That means a passenger wouldn’t be able to lock the car without leaning over to the driver’s side. Hopefully there’s an alternative solution.
Overall, while some people still prefer old-school rotary dials for climate control, this is a major improvement. Most of the time, Climatronic works well enough that you don’t need to adjust it constantly anyway.
There’s also a new control on the center console that appears to combine volume, track skipping, and mute functionality. It’s nice to have, but placing it in the center console does take up space that could otherwise be used for storage or cupholders.
Overall, we’re very excited about these changes. Many of these components—especially the buttons—should be retrofittable into older ID.4s. The steering wheel would be more challenging, and the new display likely isn’t feasible due to system compatibility. But there’s a lot here that could realistically be adapted.
So thank you, VW, for finally listening. And please subscribe so you can follow along as we start retrofitting these parts into our ID.4s. Thanks for watching.