Both buttons and touchscreens have a place in a car... especially ergonomic buttons in just the right place and a well made touchscreen gui.
All the things that the driver might ever do during driving (blinkers, lights, radio, ac,...) should always be controlled by a physical button, that is easy to find by touch only, even in the dark.
On the other hand, reseting TPMS (air pressure system) sensors, looking at service history, internal error display, setting "welcome home" interval (delay with turning the lights off when parking), etc, are much easier done on a touchscreen with a nice menu with all the settings.
Somehow car manufacturers like the extremes... either you use a touchscreen to turn on the ac, with a few popups first, maybe even an autoplaying ad before you can change the temperature... or you have to press six random buttons at the same time and count the number of blinks of a random led on the dashboard to navigate the "menu" to change a not-everyday setting on the car.
IMHO, it has everything to do with old-school executives absolutely beside themselves that the expert labor they should be hiring (for UI/UX) requires wages several times higher than their line workers.
I expect executives to be absolutely beside themselves that they can spend a fraction of money on a few UX designers and coders and eliminate an entire class of parts and steps in a production line.
It’ll be an absolute steal. Executive level usually doesn’t think much about individual salaries and instead thinks about budgets, complexity, and risk.
Imagine everything you hate about modern tech -- touchscreens, bluetooth, loading bars, slow & buggy web-based interfaces, ads, unbelievably stupid "smart" features -- but now you have to use them while traveling 70 MPH in a 6,000 lb steel battle tank next to hundreds of other humans doing the same.
Car reviewers can't get enough of this shit for some reason. I don't think I'll ever buy a car made after ~2012.
to me the generation of cars roughly 5-10y old fits exactly that bill. They usually have touchscreen, often even Android/iOS integration and they have all physical controls still (except for Teslas). And with the right drivetrain you can find ones that are at or above 43mpg on the highway. For daily commuters I guess it's better to have an electric, but for my needs (weekend driving/shopping runs) it's perfect.
BMW had a rotary control button in every car. Now the idiots have removed it from at least two models (X1 and Active Tourer). My bet is that they will put it back eventually, but the person who made this decision should be shot.
All the things that the driver might ever do during driving (blinkers, lights, radio, ac,...) should always be controlled by a physical button, that is easy to find by touch only, even in the dark.
On the other hand, reseting TPMS (air pressure system) sensors, looking at service history, internal error display, setting "welcome home" interval (delay with turning the lights off when parking), etc, are much easier done on a touchscreen with a nice menu with all the settings.
Somehow car manufacturers like the extremes... either you use a touchscreen to turn on the ac, with a few popups first, maybe even an autoplaying ad before you can change the temperature... or you have to press six random buttons at the same time and count the number of blinks of a random led on the dashboard to navigate the "menu" to change a not-everyday setting on the car.