[marapuru]

I agree on the flexibility part. Interesting thought. Although that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a touch screen. There are many non-functional buttons in my car right now, which might be wired but just don't perform an action. The car manufacturer could make it more easy to reprogram these.

You can see it a bit as a Playstation controller (or whatever platform you like), it has multiple programmable buttons. A car could basically have the same. A touch screen is not required.

[quakenul]

It gets tricky as soon as you need labels and/or more complicated visual feedback attached to "dumb" buttons.

The touchscreen is "lazy" in that it can defer thinking hard about your problem space and I can see why that alone would feel scary in a car.

On the other hand, there is only so much foresight you can have when you are innovating. Developing a Tesla might simply not be feasible without the flexibility a touchscreen gives you.