This seems like a no-brainer but it bears repeating: buttons are faster than touchscreens. A Swedish car magazine tested a dozen cars and found that it takes a lot longer to perform tasks if the car has touch screens than it does if they have physical controls.
A lot longer in fact. For a series of four tasks, it took 45 seconds to complete them with a touchscreen but only 10 seconds with the analog controls. That is 35 extra seconds with your eyes off the road, which could prove dangerous!
Remember how easy it was to adjust climate control with an actual turning knob? As Car and Driver magazine put it: “Future drivers may look back at the current trend of replacing swaths of simple, physical buttons with touchscreens and wonder why we let this happen.”
