We need to stop thinking about touchscreens as futuristic. They're a one-size-fits-all, budget option.
The true "luxury experience" would be a custom, tactile control panel, designed not just around how it appears in design renderings, but also around how it feels to actually use.
So many glorious buttons with unique raised labels. But just about everything you actually need to manipulate is controlled by the four large knobs. If you need to change the clock or mess with the equalizer, that is modal, but I have to pull out and read the manual to remember how that works anyway...
My friend has a newer Edge and it's all touchscreen. You need a copilot to adjust the AC.
Whats even more fun is that they then went and realized that touchscreens while driving is dangerous, so now you can't change settings even with a copilot, unless you're at a complete stop.
It seems like clever combinations would be useful. Hands, feet, even arms and legs. Everything appropriately seems like what could design could look like.
The worry in my mind is whether good interfaces are the future. Perhaps the future is "good enough" interfaces. Once basic usability is achieved, the software developers simply have other agendas and no particular reason to further empower their users. Instead fluff, branding, corporate egos or whatever will prevail - look at the evolution of PC interfaces as an example.
So as long as the horrible Prius touch screens don't cause actually large numbers of crashes, they'll stay around in all their annoying "glory".
It seems like the lesson of Steve Jones career and the old Henry Ford saying ("If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse") is that UI advancement needs a lot of leadership.
Hold your steering Wheel with your legs so that you can change your radio station?