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.
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.