[scscsc]

I am surprised so many talented engineers went the touchscreen route. Volkswagen, Mercedes and more recently BMW are going this way. In my experience it is not only annoying, it is a safety hazard. In my old car, I could feel for the button to turn on the defrosting without ever taking my eyes off the road, it was so well designed!

In a way, it feels that the current trend is very much like the Apple laptops at some point, where they god rid of the physical function keys and replaced them with touch sensitive controls. Thankfully, Apple is reverting this change.

I think at some point car manufacturers will realise that it leads to more accidents and they will also reverse course. Perhaps touchscreens will even be forbidden?

Caveat: I was wrong before on touchscreens. I though phones with touchscreens will not work out, but they have. However, it is because we no longer use phones for phoning, but to watch movies, read text, etc.

[voakbasda]

I don’t believe for a second that engineers are driving the decisions to use touchscreens. Collectively, engineers have ethics that would prevent dumpster fires like this.

No, I blame the managers and executives, looking to add feature while reducing costs. Moreover, adding this level of software integration permits later adding software locks via an OTA update.

Auto execs wouldn't know ethics if they bit them in the ass. Those individuals should be held responsible for the tragedies that their reckless choices have caused.