I welcome to physical buttons. But multiple rectilineal shapes dominate without harmony. Almost feels like a semi truck interior.
This is second hand account but here are my uncle's credentials...
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/tech/mini-circular-in...
It looks terrible especially running Carplay (which is designed for rectangular screens).
Which is to say, do they know that touch interfaces are bad and do it anyway because it saves money? Or do they go through life thinking they're actually making a usable product?
It's likely the former. Industrial designers are trained on ergonomics so they know the benefits of physical switches.
However, at least in the case of BMW / Mini, they're forced use touchscreens by their management primarily because:
1. Not only it saves money
2. It also enables subscription models for certain features like heated seats and steering wheel. No heated seats? Just remove the UI buttons.
Unless consumers push back (like VW customers did), they will continue to cut costs.
Absolutely heated seats are a luxury feature. That doesn't change the fact that if put heated seats in a car and then have touchscreen only controls, you have created a stupid product that's made to be comfortable in cold temperatures but not usable in cold temperatures.
Of course they should be making cars usable in cold temperatures whether or not it has cold weather luxury features, but the addition on heated seats in a car that you can't operate with gloves on just highlights the stupidity of the screen interfaces.
The manufacturer is considering "what would be nice for a car in cold temperatures" and then skipping over "it would be nice if you could turn the heat or defogger on."