this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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A plastic nob is cheaper than a touchscreen, yes. But if you've already got a touchscreen as part of the design anyway (for things like satnav or car maintenance data), it's cheaper to not include any other buttons or inputs and to bundle them all up into one interface.
See that’s the thing, you don’t need a touch screen for those things, or even a screen. Everyone has a phone for sat nav, (you shouldn’t be looking at your phone while driving but you also shouldn’t be looking at a screen on the console while driving). And for maintenance stuff a light up an LED is enough.
I think in general there’s just been a proliferation of unnecessary features and with it has gone the affordable new car.
The screen is required for the FMVSS standard mandating rear view cameras. The jump in part price from that to touch is less than the amount saved by not having to tool up all the knobs and buttons, paying someone to run wires for all of them, paying someone to assemble all of the fiddly bits, and paying someone to install them in addition to the cost of already installing the screen that would eliminate all the other cost if it were the only input.