Pushing your buttons (car content)

Buttons are easier than trying to look where a 'button' is on a screen. You just 'feel' where it is.

My old car has two command buttons that switch modes, a joystick and 6 other multi function buttons, be they radio stations, heating controls, CD (remember them) controls. They just change function depending upon which 'screen' the display is in. It's much harder navigation the Sat Nav on my wife's car with the touch screen.

Not even slightly surprised. Having to operate a screen with no tactile feedback (therefore having to take your eyes off the road) at arms length is one of the dumbest things car companies have done (to save a few ££)

I really don't how most people cope with all the new tech in cars when they can't even operate the indicator switch.

^ 😆

My car is an absolute button-fest.... I love it!

Not really related but it occured to me the other day that I'd you took all the unnecessary crap out of a modern electrical vehicle could you get improved range?

Electric windows all-round, motor driven seats etc

None of that is necessary.

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I had no idea new cars were getting like this. Man, thats horrendous! Isn't it obvious that screens should just be for radio/sat nav and anything else should be kept simple. God, I hope my Passat lasts til I die! I ****ing hate cars.

Blows my mind that there’s zero control of touchscreens in cars. They’re cheaper to make. That’s it. Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

Yeah I wonder how some of this stuff can be legal.

I'm struggling to think of an OEM in-car "infotainment" system in a car I've had in the last, oh, 10 or 15 years, that wasn't gash. I'm all for tech but it's a truly stupid idea badly implemented.

Current car is a Seat, there's a soft button to take you to Android Auto (or I suppose its fruity equivalent for deviants) but no easy way to get back to the native system. You either have to go into the satnav and then cancel it, or start wading through several levels of menus. This is one of several annoyances. When you put it in reverse the rear-view camera kicks in with a screen overlay showing all the car's proximity sensors; great and all, but it's on the left of the screen which I'm sure is great for a left-hand drive car but on a RHD it just covers up where the kerb is rendering the entire system pointless, you can't see shit. You can close it if you can manage to hit an on-screen toggle about 2mm wide (miss and it fills the screen entirely) but if you come out of reverse and go back in it pops right back up again. I could go on, it's one of the most user-hostile interfaces I've ever known.

Prior to that was a Honda. That had a top menu which had touchscreen options for other features but there was no consistency. So you could go, say, from radio to phone, but not from phone to radio.

Before that was Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half (so BB1 or whatever). If instead you hit the button to type in an address rather than search then there was an innocuous button in the bottom corner of the on-screen keyboard, not present on the near-identical keyboard offered when searching, labelled "p.code". This understood full postcodes perfectly.

I swear, the people who design these things never have use them.

This is so frustrating because around 2015-2018 we reached peak car UI IMO. We had a touch screen for stuff that required it, e.g. setting up navigation before you start your journey and physical buttons for stuff like heater controls, skipping tracks/changing radio station etc that you use while actually driving.

Then some bean counters came along and realised they could save £1.50 per car or whatever by eradicating the buttons, never mind that it made it a metric shit-tonne harder to use the controls safely.

Before that was Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half (so BB1 or whatever). If instead you hit the button to type in an address rather than search then there was an innocuous button in the bottom corner of the on-screen keyboard, not present on the near-identical keyboard offered when searching, labelled “p.code”. This understood full postcodes perfectly.

Oh - god - yes! Soooo frustrating that system!

...until you realise you can just plug a phone in and use google maps! It never got used again.

Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

The dead will probably someone small, sharing the road on the left side of the car, because the driver is trying to focus on something low down on the right...(hmm, I've been looking at a pic of a left hand drive car, but it still stands that the screen isn't anywhere near in eyeline with the road!) But it won't matter cos it'll just be another one of those off the road and it won't be the driver's fault cos they'll just be legally fiddling with a screen in the car...

I used to ride with someone who worked for a very high end car company in the Woking area, who was an 'engineering psychologist' or something of that ilk. With a role to not only design user interfaces like buttons, knobs, handles, etc. that worked, but also that felt like they belonged in six figure price tag cars. Of course, form over function won every time.

Conversely in my first car when a switch failed we got a cheap toggle from RS and just soldered it in instead (or was that the aftermarket rally fog lights we fitted in a vain attempt to make my beige Escort Popular look more like an XR3i). Jeez, I was a prick back then.....

Yeah I wonder how some of this stuff can be legal.

Me too. Cars have been getting steadily safer places to be for decades, but this screen fetish can only be setting that back.

Also, aside from being crap to use, they will no doubt cause the scrapping of many otherwise good vehicles.

Everything is tied into this central bit of tech, imagine that one pictured above conking out.
'How much for a new screen thingy to get my car going please?'
Eleventy million pounds please....

I'd like a blank screen to mirror apple carplay/android auto and buttons for the rest.

steering wheel controls can do radio volume and cruise speed.

touchscreen is ok if it's well designed but buttons are clearly better.

Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half

We had a Pug 5008- going to Cardigan (from Kent) it came up with nothing on the Sat Nav. On a hunch I tried my Dad's old post code in the Rhondda- again nothing. Playing with the menus we then found there was a country option so we had to set that to Wales first. Never been an issue with other cars before or since- even travelling to Brittany one year, put the code in at home & it recognised it.

I have to say, I find that Google Auto with voice is replacing the need for me to touch the screen for many things.

I dislike the touch screen in the Leon. Far too many functions, and too distracting to use. And that is a small one, and I still have physical buttons for heating, car controls, volume etc.

Our old V70, despite looking a button fest due to the dialling pad(!) was in fact lovely and intuitive to use apart from two things - who put the handbrake button *there* and the stalk mounted info on dash controls were not obvious at first (although rarely used).

That screen above is outlandish- but I hate the screens that permanently stick out over the top of the dash like an aftermarket add-on. Why can't it be incorporated into the dash as part of the design? I guess it may be fore safety so when you're trying to adjust the temperature by 0.5 degrees you've got some view of the road.

God, I hope my Passat lasts til I die!

My Passat has a 'media disc' player in the glove box. It's part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen...it does. What's more ******* stupid is, it does not turn off when you select drive, or start driving. Absolutely chuffing ridiculous.

buttons are clearly better

Agreed, with a well laid out dash & controls in easy reach I find you can alter most button controls without looking.

I hired a new Golf last year as my car was in for a service. It had the worst heater controls I have ever seen in a car. They are touch sensitive and sit directly below the touchscreen, as a result if you're trying to change the radio or whatever it's really easy to accidentally turn the fan up to full. Also, they aren't backlit so you can't see them at night.

The Dacia I have now is a good mix of knobs and buttons for heater controls, heated seats etc, and a touchscreen for things like the radio.

it's an intermediate step. We'll be glad of the screens when the cars are driving themselves

Current car is a Seat, there’s a soft button to take you to Android Auto (or I suppose its fruity equivalent for deviants) but no easy way to get back to the native system.

Same issue with the Ford Sync3 system. It starts up Android Auto automatically and selects Spotify as the audio source when the phone is plugged in. If you want to listen to the radio you have to press the speaker settings button and then navigate out of that into the audio source screen and then into the radio screen...

In principle Sync3 is a decent enough system but it's like phone integration was completely forgotten about and they just shoehorned it in at the last minute.

My Passat has a ‘media disc’ player in the glove box. It’s part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen…it does

Thanks, I really do hope my 2011 Passat lasts til I die then!

In your Seat & Ford when you go to the Android Auto/Car Play menu screen is there not an app icon that is a Seat logo? When I use either in the Dacia there is one with a Dacia logo which takes me back to the native radio function.

it occured to me the other day that I’d you took all the unnecessary crap out of a modern electrical vehicle could you get improved range?

No, because you don't use it all the time.

Similar story to Cougar with my old car, a Renault Kadjar. It integrated perfectly with Android Auto but used to irritate the life of me when I'd been listening to BBC Sounds or Amazon Music and wanted to listen to the radio again, used to have to press home, menu, media, radio, all as 'soft' buttons on the screen. It would have been lovely to have a proper radio/media pressy button.

My new replacement (leccy new Megane) is awesome though. It is native Android, has real buttons (and soft buttons on the screen) but you can just press the mic button (or say Hey Google) and ask it to play the radio. Or turn the heated seats on. Or adjust the climate - although there are proper buttons too for that.

And worryingly for johnx2 it does drive itself with adaptive cruise and auto lane centering etc....

you can just press the mic button (or say Hey Google) and ask it to play the radio. Or turn the heated seats on.

Assuming you have mobile signal...?

My Passat has a ‘media disc’ player in the glove box. It’s part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen…it does. What’s more ******* stupid is, it does not turn off when you select drive, or start driving. Absolutely chuffing ridiculous.

I had a 1-series (briefly and not by choice, don't judge me). The head unit had a web browser.

The signal thing doesn't seem to have been an issue so far. It has an Orange/EE data SIM in it from the factory but there seem to be folk on the forums that haven't enabled it. Took it from Darlington to Edinburgh and back on Weds this week and didn't have any issues even in places that typically I've struggled to make phone calls in the past. Elves/magic maybe??

don’t judge me

they can’t even operate the indicator switch.

Just leaving this here 😜

I think lots of electric cars have web browsers, mine does anyway. I'm assuming it's so you can watch Amazon Prime while you're waiting for it to fill up with juice.

In your Seat & Ford when you go to the Android Auto/Car Play menu screen is there not an app icon that is a Seat logo? When I use either in the Dacia there is one with a Dacia logo which takes me back to the native radio function.

Yeah. If I want the radio then it's the Google menu button, the Seat 'app' button, the radio button, swiping through to find the station I want, then trying to work out where in the menus I can call the emergency services.

There's alternatives of course. Alexa-style voice control isn't too bad other than having to learn yet another set on not-all-that-intuitive commands. In this car, is it "call" or "dial"...?

Given the premium you pay for this crap, I really shouldn't be thinking "I'll just use it to mirror my phone screen, it's far better."

No, because you don’t use it all the time.

That's true, but even when you're not using it it adds weight to the car which will have some effect on the range.
Isn't the weight reduction part of the reason that lots of cars stopped speccing a spare wheel and went for a tin of gunk and a mini compressor?

The Google-built-in approach in Renault/Volvo/Polestar etc. does seem better than the manufacturer's using their own software alongside Android Auto and Car Play.

Does it need a data connection, or can it work without if controlling car functions?

That’s true, but even when you’re not using it it adds weight to the car which will have some effect on the range.

Minimal, I'd say. The actuator for a manual window still has mass. And I wouldn't be surprised if adding touch functionality to a display is far lighter than a bag of buttons and their associated wiring, as well as cheaper. Less money spent on developing and manufacturing knobs and switches means more money for batteries at a given price point, which is a good thing from that perspective. Heated seats are heavy, but using them is much more efficient than heating the air in the cabin, in an EV. So I don't think it's a simple argument in that respect.

The Google-built-in approach in Renault/Volvo/Polestar etc. does seem better than the manufacturer’s using their own software alongside Android Auto and Car Play.

That's another potential win/win. The manufacturer can save money not developing their own software (that must be a big cost) and the customer gets a consistent interface developed by a specialist and with regular free updates. I mean when your car gets to be 15 years old you could still have the latest ICE tech, that's significant. Also less liability for the manufacturer. They don't have loads of angry customers complaining (to them) about shit design and they don't have to worry that they'll lose customers if they don't get it right.

The 'no buttons' approach also enables the subscription models that BMW was proposing. Fewer specs of car come off the production line, you pay upfront or monthly to enable features such as heated seats, steering wheel, sports modes etc.

The other contemporary issue to touchscreens is the choice available for in car entertainment.

A decade ago you had 6 radio stations and a CD for when you got to Wales and lost reception

These days if I'm setting off on a long drive it's 10 minutes to curate a playlist of podcasts and albums, set the sat-nav etc.

And you just know people are trying to do that as they drive as you watch cars weaving all over the white lines on the motorways.

I'm a petrolhead but I like simple cars, the less tech the better! Seeing the latest ones with essentially a home PC on the dash is exactly what I don't want. Party because it's uneccesary but mainly because a lot of idiots on the road can't be trusted to use it sensibly. From up in my truck cab I can see down into cars and the amount of them with a video playing, Facebook, Twitter, texting, video calling, watching grumble or playing a game while driving is unbelievable. Some on phones but others have hacked the infotainment screen so it doesn't disable stuff when moving.

Blows my mind that there’s zero control of touchscreens in cars. They’re cheaper to make. That’s it. Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

Whenever I see a review of a new car, usually when Johnny Smith does it on his YouTube channel, it always shocks me at how long he's looking away from the road while doing something simple like changing drive mode or putting the heated seats on. I counted one for the new Golf at nearly 3 seconds on a fast bit of road!

When I was buying my SEAT last year, I test drove a lot of cars. I discounted most of them for the fact that everything was driven by the screen.
I even purchased an older car (a 2019 as opposed to 2020) due to the fact that I preferred the controls on the older car. I'm just glad I test drove it in the summer when I needed to turn the air con on while driving. On my SEAT its a simple button labelled AC, no menu's needed to go in etc.

@cougar - with my 2019 SEAT, I'm pretty sure its only ever one "real" button press to take you back to the main menu screen, even if you are using Android Drive, or whatever it is you non apple weirdo's use! 😉

But is it not just a case that we are generally all middle aged men who have been driving used to the old school push buttons for 30 years or so?

What about screen glare? or people who need reading glasses for screens and not for distance?

A decade ago you had 6 radio stations and a CD for when you got to Wales and lost reception

I think your maths are off. A decade ago I was shocked to find that the CD player was obsolete. Two decades, maybe.

@cougar – with my 2019 SEAT, I’m pretty sure its only ever one “real” button press to take you back to the main menu screen, even if you are using Android Drive, or whatever it is you non apple weirdo’s use! 😉

On ours there's a strip of touch buttons down the side of the screen. One takes you to whatever device link you've got, the next takes you back to the Seat system but it's the satnav button. I can count the number of times I'd want to leave Google Maps in favour of the internal navigation system on the fingers of one foot.

It is illegal to operate a phone whilst driving, but legal to operate an iPad-like device to change the heating. This makes no sense at all. We'll see a reversion to buttons for climate control and volume, with screen for things that do not need editing on the move. And Car Play. I won't buy a car without it next time.

I think your maths are off. A decade ago I was shocked to find that the CD player was obsolete. Two decades, maybe.

There's still a CD player in our 2017 Ford Kuga.

A major factor in my last car purchase (2019) was having physical buttons and controls for important stuff.

I ended up with a skoda octavia estate. Peak STW without realising it seems. Anyway, got proper buttons for the climate control, can navigate dashboard stuff with the roller/clicky things. Basically ideal when paired with apple carplay for navigation & music.

Well, until carplay rolled out an absolutely idiotic change. One used to be able to tap an area which covered about a quarter of the screen to switch between voice gudance, alerts or STFU mode. Not any more, you have to tap a tiny icon on the left side of the screen and then tap another tiny icon which looks like the other two tiny icons to select what audio prompts you want.

Who the fk thought that was a sensible change? Idiots.

Yeah, it's likely more and more manufacturers are going to switch to subscription services and you can't really do that outside of a touchscreen interface. I agree though certain controls should be physical buttons/switches, they also need to improve voice recognition for controls

There is no CD player in my 2021 Hyundai and I didn't realise until you lot mentioned it just now.

CDs in cars were an absolute faff.

Best car for usability I've had was my 2006 Prius. It had loads of steering wheel buttons that you could do most stuff with - radio, climate etc. Intimidating at first, but then I realised each one (or pair) was a different 3D shape and you soon learned where they were and you could feel them with your thumb and operate them purely by touch. A brilliant idea.

But is it not just a case that we are generally all middle aged men who have been driving used to the old school push buttons for 30 years or so?

No. I'm very much a technophile, but I'm also in favour of good design. Hyundai replaced the knobs that stuck out of the dash for the temperature with flush touch buttons in the later model of the car, along with a large battery upgrade. With the knob, you grabbed it and twisted it. The touch buttons for up and down temperature are small, and you have to press repeatedly, so you have to look at your fingers and take your eyes off the road.

I’ve had touch screens in every car I’ve had for the last 14 years. Three Jaguars, two Mercedes and now Tesla.

I can’t say I’ve ever found the tasks listed in that article any more difficult than in the non-touchscreen cars I had prior to these (mostly Fords) and I suspect if you stick me in that old Volvo that won the test now, I’d struggle to do those tasks easily without looking at the millions of buttons to figure out what they do.

Which leads me to my point, people seem to expect to jump into a new unfamiliar car and be able to do all this stuff whilst on the move. Whereas if you take time to learn the interfaces, they’re all pretty straight-forward.

I also think a lot of people base their experiences of car touchscreens on the ones in cheaper cars. Which are uniformly shit. The ones in more expensive cars are extremely responsive and very easy to use.

CDs in cars were an absolute faff.

Not compared to tapes that constantly jammed! 🙂

You don't see hundreds of yards of cassette tape fluttering from a hedgerow anymore. Gone the same way as hedge grumble.

Which leads me to my point, people seem to expect to jump into a new unfamiliar car and be able to do all this stuff whilst on the move. Whereas if you take time to learn the interfaces, they’re all pretty straight-forward.

You quoted some high end cars there. Mercedes have obviously put a lot of thought into their UI in my car, I wouldn't expect it to be otherwise in a more recent model. Are you talking about the touchpad by your left hand, or an actual touch screen?

The major issue isn't that they are touch it's that you have to look where your fingers go. A well designed large touch screen with big icons, not so bad. But small touch buttons low down on a dash, or tiny icons with tiny text on a touch screen, these are really bad ideas it's nothing to do with not being used to it. I know the 'stop guidance' button is second from left on the bottom of my satnav screen but I cannot reliably hit it without having to look at and focus on it first. With physical buttons, once you've learned where they are you can operate without looking.

Its an interesting debate - coming at it from a different angle - at work we design and build complex refrigeration and cooling systems from Naval Ships and submarines. We can control the whole plant from a single touch screen, with a couple of knobs/switches for safety related stuff (like E-stops)
The PLC/Comms cards and HMI are endlessly configurable, modifiable, etc.
Want to add a new function? a tweak to the software and another input to the comms card and you're away...
Need a software upgrade - we can just send a file via email or on a USB stick.

Car designers can use 1 HMI screen and associated controllers to run the whole car, and the same base HMI can easily accommodate different specs/upgrades..
This has massively reduced part-count and made manufacturing and assembly simpler.

I totally agree with the point of this thread though - it appears they've gone a bit far burying the heating controls behind multiple screens/menus and i think we'll see some changes in the medium term when everyone realises this is a bit dumb.

I made the effort to learn how to use the infotainment system when I got the car three years ago. Now I ignore it, if I want sat nav I use the phone.

As for the buttons, there are still some I have to pull over, stop, find my glasses, find a torch before I can use them at night. I think I've opened the charge socket hatch 1/3 times I've adjusted the headlight level.

it occured to me the other day that I’d you took all the unnecessary crap out of a modern electrical vehicle could you get improved range?

Adding full electric control to seats generally adds about 35 kilos over the hand operated ones, if you add heating/cooling and massage it's around 45. Give or take.

TBH if you took out all the "luxury/lazy" features in something like a mid/high spec Audi, you'd save about 200 kilos. Take out the slightly useful stuff that we used to manage without, like heated seats and steering wheels, Automatic boot openers, electric tow bar release, cameras, forward looking radar, parking sensors, etc etc, you could save another 80-100 easily. Though, electric cars have a _lot_ less mass of acoustic matting in them. It's only road/tyre/wind noise, rather than engine, transmission and exhaust as well. The actual system power needs are almost the same. But the weight save is massive.

Removing buttons and adding a screen is under a kilo change for a fully CAN controlled car, sometimes the screen is heavier. It only changes the interface.

i think we’ll see some changes in the medium term when everyone realises this is a bit dumb.

Already seeing it on some cars. Reserved spaces for certain controls and fixed brightness, adding buttons back onto steering wheels and screen surrounds.
Deleting stuff that isn't actually needed, context and scenario based menus as well, so less/no scrolling/searching needed.

That's essentially one of the main tracks of my current job.

CDs in cars were an absolute faff

Nah, my Renault Mégane from bitd had a 6! cd changer in the boot. Luxury stuff indeed and if a journey was longer than 6 cds worth of music, then it was too long. Peak tech 🙂

Now I have to pull in somewhere, rummage through my cd wallet and manually change it.

Anyway, I'm in camp luddite and can do without screens in cars if possible.

I'm praying that self driving cars are legal, safe and the norm before my kids reach driving age. Reading this I hope it's much sooner!

Adding full electric control to seats generally adds about 35 kilos over the hand operated ones, if you add heating/cooling and massage it’s around 45. Give or take.

That feels high, given that conventional seats seem to weigh very little?

Having said that the removable seats from my previous C-max weighed an absolute ton, whereas I've taken the front seat out of a couple of other cars and they seemed to weigh an awful lot less. So maybe it varies depending on how structural the seats need to be (rear seats with seatbelt mounts built in, Vs front ones with the mounts on the B-pillar and floor).

@mert how much cost does it save not designing and manufacturing physical knobs and switches?

or people who need reading glasses for screens and not for distance?

Well, since you need to be able to read the speedometer on any car I don't think that's a valid excuse. But if you can't see the instrument cluster without glasses then maybe that accounts for the number of people driving around with fog lights on / sidelights / bulbs out / flat tyres / faulty engines etc.

It is possible to get horribly sucked into the menus on a Tesla. Things are scattered all over the place and often duplicated. I'm also astonished that it's possible to open and use the web browser while in motion (although it does disable video streaming in a small nod to not killing other people around you).

Ultimately it's not a car thing, it's a driver thing. Late evening on the motorways it's jaw-dropping the number of people driving vans with videos playing on their phones. Probably cars too, but vans are easier to spot. This is an easy fix, though - not difficult at all to detect if phone is in a holder from unchanging angle, and inhibit everything but car mode.

Even where there are physical buttons, they aren't always logical. In my Focus, if you're using radio, the >> button jumps to the next preset, which is fine. In my VW Up, it retunes to the next DAB station, which is useless.

Having said that the removable seats from my previous C-max weighed an absolute ton,

I thinks that's because removable seats have to weigh more for the same structural integrity as a rigidly mounted one.

Oh god yes, one of the reasons I got a BMW was that it still has tactile buttons for heating, radio and then a round controller/button thing for most other functions.  Got to say that the interface to all of the gizmo's is pretty good.

Given the notes above I might need to hang onto this one for a while...

I love the fact our 12 y/o Volvo and 15 y/o van have sod all in the way of screens. Had some new Citroen as a courtesy car a while back and couldnt figure out how the change anything once you were on the move.

It is illegal to operate a phone whilst driving,

Isn't it just illegal to use a handheld phone? So you can put it in a mount on the dashboard and use it like a touchscreen and it's not explicitly illegal (driving without due care and attention may still apply).

Nah, my Renault Mégane from bitd had a 6! cd changer in the boot. Luxury stuff indeed and if a journey was longer than 6 cds worth of music, then it was too long. Peak tech 🙂

Mine had it under the passenger seat in the front, so that you could change it on the move. Or at least I think that was the idea.

We have two cars with loads of buttons / touch screen but MrsG complains about the 2019 Lotus which has precisely 4 buttons stop/start, sport, light, fogs, and 2 climate dials. They buttons are undoubtedly distracting. I find it lovely not to have any buttons / touchscreens to use.

But is it not just a case that we are generally all middle aged men who have been driving used to the old school push buttons for 30 years or so?

My 17, 19 and 21 year old sons agree with me - buttons in many cases are just better.

one of the reasons I got a BMW was that it still has tactile buttons

And the MINI that i bought to replace my old Beamer still has the same. I can control the radio/spotify/podcasts from either the screen or buttons of the steering wheel, and the heating controls are still separate buttons. Pefect

That feels high, given that conventional seats seem to weigh very little?

I guess it depends how much electrics your seat has.
The ones i last looked at had 7 controllable features (they're actually the ones in my current car).
Each control is strong enough to deal with someone of around 130-140 kilos, so all the gears and actuators aren't exactly light, and they need to be much more firmly anchored. (People tend to unload seats when they manually adjust, not so with electrics)
So, yeah, not light. (I'm not a seat designer).

I thinks that’s because removable seats have to weigh more for the same structural integrity as a rigidly mounted one.

Yes, the floor forms part of the seat structure in a "fixed" seat, with a removable seat, the structure has to be self supporting, as the latch locations are only there for location and to hold in place. I remember that from my last job. We had to either make the third row seats permanently fixed and reinforce the floor, much much heavier so they were structurally sound, which then required reinforcing the floor (but not so much) or get rid of them altogether. The joys of trying to bring an ancient platform into the 21st century.

how much cost does it save not designing and manufacturing physical knobs and switches?

Depends, 99% of them are off the shelf so the actual switchgear costs naff all to design or install, big touchscreens that meet automotive standards aren't cheap either.
Designing the switch covers is also fairly well understood, only gets difficult when you have complex shapes with curves etc.

TBH, i very much doubt there is a huge difference between the "as installed" hardware on either front.
What costs the money is the development, creating code and testing it etc But you have to do that for both. Just in different places.

The biggest benefit, as someone up there mentioned, is if we want to add feature, it's easy with a screen.

And it's not going to be long before there is legislation telling us to add safety features to existing models rolling down the production line, rather than waiting for a new model launch/facelift.
(Or even adding legally mandated feature to existing customer cars, which is a whole new kettle of festering shit)

at work we design and build complex refrigeration and cooling systems from Naval Ships and submarines.

For your application, it sounds perfect. The difference is though, you're unlikely to hit a tree in the middle of the Atlantic if you're not looking forward for ten seconds.

The biggest benefit, as someone up there mentioned, is if we want to add feature, it’s easy with a screen.

I'd say the biggest benefit is that it makes prospective new customers go "ooh!" when they switch it on.

Are feature updates actually a thing in cars? I've downloaded plenty of updates over the years but they've either been this year's map or a firmware upgrade which does nothing tangible (likely bugfixes I assume).

The difference is though, you’re unlikely to hit a tree in the middle of the Atlantic if you’re not looking forward for ten seconds.

When in more busy waterways you can hit another ship though. Touchscreen controls were partly due for a collision between U.S.S. John S. McCain and a tanker.
Something the car manufacturers should consider is the review boards response ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’.
They decided to replace the key controls with old fashioned versions.

Are feature updates actually a thing in cars?

Yes. It's going to get more common with all the subscription services and android/apple integration.

So I moved from a V70 to a V90 a while back. The V90 is the better car but it would be improved with buttons. Touch screens are not as good as buttons, I concur with the OP. Also, the voice control isn't good enough to change my opinion. The car is less safe because of the touch screen! They're Volvos FFS!

Are feature updates actually a thing in cars?

I updated ours, it improved it a bit.

Also, the voice control isn’t good enough to change my opinion.

Our Hyundai reckons it can understand what you want, but it obviously doesn't so stuff like navigation is fraught. The one in the Merc tells you on screen the things it is expecting you to say, which is a brilliant thing because you say the right thing. You can also train it with your voice, which helps and implies the processing is done locally not sent to a server like Alexa/Google etc

I utterly detest touch screens in vehicles. I've not used many, but those I have haven't worked properly.
The Ford sync3? In a couple of the work vans, troublesome things. No physical off button, so as a passenger I was unable to 'turn it off and on again' when it refused to play any music whatsoever.

I had a Caddy for a bit with an allegedly expensive touch screen navigation/stereo thing. It had a habit of playing the last track you listened to full volume each time you started it. Unless you remembered to switch it off.
I cut the knuckles on my left fist trying to punch it through the dash at 5am one morning.

I dread to think what it's like to have more important controls on a touch screen.

If we’re talking terrible man-machine interfaces, let me give you the Boeing 787.

Imagine clicking those tiny buttons with a trackpad fresh from the 1990s. Bump the trackpad in turbulence and your mouse pointer can escape to any of 4 screens and you then have to hunt it down and rescue it.

Even worse, this interface was apparently designed for touch but never certified, so you can’t even jab at it with your finger.

Well, my wife bitterly complains about the Hyundai every time we get in (which is a shame because it's a good drive and extremely economical) but the infotainment has never crapped out or gone wrong in any way, and it's perfectly responsive.

You can turn off the radio in the Merc with a nice big easy to access off button right in the middle of the dash. But stupidly, it turns off the entire infotainment system, so the screen and satnav go off and even the bluetooth phone system. I'd happily drive about without it but when someone rings you it's a bit awkward. So if you don't want radio you just have to mute it (unless you know no-one's going to call you).