And so you can have physical buttons (left, right, up, down, enter) and a screen with a menu for all those options.
Every UI using "simple" menu button navigation has been horrific in my experience. Remote controls, handsets, TV configuration menus, yadda yadda.
Last time I had something useful was in my Volvo 740. After that it has been getting worse and worse. Even physical nobs can be bad, just round and smooth, without any physical notch that snows what direction it points.
But there are so many settings on a contemporary car that it would be impractical to have a switch for all of them, and even if they were, if it's something you'd like to change once in a blue-moon being able to search for that setting is really useful.
I don't know if this makes great sense as an example, but, say you're travelling from the UK to France (or USA to Mexico?) and want to have your speedometer show km/h rather than miles/hour. That's not a setting which should have a switch, but may be something useful.
Three presses in a Mercedes on its speedometer screen.
> speedometer screen
> screen
So a setting behind a screen instead of a dedicated hardware button/switch/toggle for it.
I don't see why in God's name would you ever need that as a hardware switch.
My rule of thumb is if it's on the center console I shouldn't be messing with it when the car is in motion. If I'm supposed to mess with it while moving it's on the wheel or immediately around it.
And tbh between my car with a zillion buttons I shouldn't be pressing while driving and a small screen and the car where most of those functions I shouldn't mess with while driving are on the screen I prefer the screen. Far bigger screen to quickly glance at the maps when driving instead of a smaller one that's harder to see. Less space to actually see the media collection when I'm stopped and can safely navigate it.
That's on the steering wheel on practically every car I've had for over 20 years of model years.
You probably shouldn't be flipping between audio sources while driving. But even then, I've had change audio source as an option on steering wheels before. Generally, you shouldn't be fiddling with the radio when the vehicle is moving, you should be driving. Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road, not on the stereo in the center console.
FWIW, in pretty much every car I've had since a 2012 model year I've been able to press a button on the wheel and say "tune to am 1510" and it'll tune that without having to take my hands or eyes off the wheel. Far preferrable than trying to look over at the radio to find the AM button again and figure out which knob is the tuning dial and then look to see I'm tuning to the right station.
Every time I try to talk to the voice assistant its the most horrible driving experience. It hijacks everything, and definitely sets me to where I have to pull over, or just stop trying to talk to it to get anything done. It does not understand me whatsoever.