Lexus’ Shiftable Steering Wheel Controls: I Love the Idea, but Hated Using Them

Lexus has an interesting steering wheel button setup where there are two thumbpads on the spokes, unlabeled, that can be shifted between functions (like the shift key on your computer, not shifting gears). This debuted on the 2022 NX, but I had never encountered it until test-driving the 2025 Lexus NX 350 F Sport earlier this year. On paper, it’s a cool idea that makes sense. But after seven days and many miles of driving with it, the more I used it, the less I liked it.

For those who are unfamiliar, here’s how this tech (which Lexus calls Touch Sensor Controls) works:

The left and right steering wheel spokes have mini touchpads easily reachable by each thumb. They’re smooth, like a laptop touchpad; your thumbprint easily slides across them.

When your thumb rests lightly on one, the HUD, and the gauge cluster (or, I guess, just the gauge cluster if your car doesn’t have the Heads-Up Display option), presents you with a diagram showing what each of the four buttons does. The whole touchpad is actually one big button, so you can just kind of slide across and pick.

The reason for this is that it allows Lexus to give you eight functions where there would normally be four. See, you can hit a toggle, like a shift key, and now a different set of four commands is displayed.

I like this idea because, between the two sides, it packs 16 functions where there would normally only be eight. Plus, it allows for not only custom configuration for the user, but it also opens up possibilities for even more functionality down the road that could be added with software. Lexus has not confirmed any plans to do something like this, but, theoretically, it could easily issue a coding update that would let users add different (or more) functionality to these keys.

Here’s the promo video if you’re still confused:

It’s touted as reducing distraction, but I found it to be quite the opposite. When you’re using these, the HUD suddenly has so much going on that you must focus on it to make sense of it. While it is technically keeping the driver’s eyes up, it also requires more brainpower than blindly touching a button you know the location of.

I was complaining about this to my colleague Joel Feder, who also finds it frustrating because the whole HUD is useless to someone wearing polarized sunglasses. I rarely wear those, but that is a problem since many people do while driving.

The gauge cluster display is kind of the worst of both worlds, forcing you to take your eyes away from what’s coming to focus in on the cluster for multiple seconds first to confirm you’re in the right menu when your thumb falls on that pad and then make your selection.

Finally, I just hated the haptic experience of dealing with trackpads on a steering wheel. They’re always moving, because, you know, it’s a steering wheel, making the control input feel annoyingly inconsistent. On some roads, it’s easy to move your thumb across; other times, it’s bumpy, and of course, it also moves up and down as you steer.

I felt like I was constantly chasing after it and re-learning how to use it almost every time I drove the car. My machines should adapt to me, dang it! So while I actually quite liked driving the NX 350 F Sport, I did not like using these controls at all. And at the risk of sounding like Abe Simpson shaking his fist at a cloud, it’s my job to report such things.

The fact that Lexus has stuck with this setup for a few years now has me think maybe other people like it, but usually a one-week car loan is plenty of time to make a vehicle’s interface feel natural, but it was not enough time for me to gel with this.

If you need to vent and tell me how wrong I am, the comments are open, and my email’s andrew.collins@thedrive.com.

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