Not if they’d listen to mine. I don’t need a knob, i just need to see where the sliders are. Which is what people complained about, in regards to the heating – the sliders were easy to touch accidentally when you’re doing something in the infotainment, and they were basically invisible at night. The accidental touch is resolved through software already (sliders deactivate if your finger goes near the screen), and the sliders will become backlit.
There is a problem with touch buttons in the recent VAG releases, but they’re not referring to the sliders (other than the missing backlight), they’re referring to the steering wheel. Admittedly i don’t know about the ID3 in this case, but it is being fixed in the Golf facelift coming soon, where it gets physical buttons on the wheel again.
In general, the big issue with “electronic climate controls” isn’t the (missing) physical buttons, it’s the fact that usually you can’t adjust stuff without going into the infotainment (i think the C5 Aircross has that problem for example, if i recall correctly). Not the case in ID3, you just have a slider instead of a knob. Works just fine from experience, when you can see it.
The big issue is that the interior in current ID3 is just awful, frankly. Both in terms of design and material. It feels cheap, and it’s like sitting in a dentists waiting room. Ultimately the reason as to why we didn’t order one and opted for a PHEV instead – we did like the drive itself (albeit not quite sporty enough to our liking), we did like the infotainment and loved the augmented reality toys – we didn’t mind the sliders, hated the steering wheel (same story in our next car – hate the soft touch buttons, took only 2 minutes for me to turn the heated steering wheel on by accident in our test drive), disliked the interior/ambient. Could’ve dealt with everything if it was a nice place to be, but to us it just isn’t (maybe “wasn’t” if they actually fix that).
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.