It would be interesting to see the experience that new drivers may have with these designs and then ask them to compare it to the older version.
Physical knobs—where appropriate, like volume—are amazing because one can adjust the setting almost instantly, without having to keep an eye on the touch screen, and without having to develop muscle memory.
A touch screen still pales in comparison to a mouse and keyboard, for example, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I can see the console designer being like, "Oh cool, steering wheel designer is out of room, so I get to design cruise control buttons" rather than pushing back with, "This is a really bad idea"
It was a lot better when you could just ignore the bad software and use your phone for navigation/music. Now you need to use the bad software to operate more and more essential things in the car. What's next? A big screen in front of your face with a 10FPS animation of a steering wheel that you have to drag around with your finger to steer?