> My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user
Centralization of controls into a single touchscreen is most certainly not convenient to the user, because touchscreens suck [1]. What is convenient is the thoughtful deployment of physical controls in ergonomic locations.
[1] Touchscreens are really only a good choice in situations where there's extreme space constraints, or as an enhancement to existing controls for very specific interactions where they make sense.
In my experience touchscreens are great for passengers and very dangerous for the driver, unless the car is stationary.
All commands must be around the wheel. An alternative that could work is voice commands, if the car can really understand the driver. Good luck to foreign drivers, tourists with rental cars or people living abroad, unless they can configure their own language.
Years ago, I was in Germany with a Serbian, Japanese, and someone from Turkey. We each took turns trying to get the German navigation system of our rental to understand us, and then we finally pulled over to operate the very painful non-touchscreen navigation system.
I don't think the parent was talking about complicated systems like GPS, that you should probably set up before driving, and yes, they are often a pain, touchscreen or not.
A touchscreen is a dangerous interface for the myriad of simple mundane systems like heat up/down, AC on/off, fan more/less, sound more/less/next.., heated seats, windows... things that you may need very much want to do while driving.
Centralization of controls into a single touchscreen is most certainly not convenient to the user, because touchscreens suck [1]. What is convenient is the thoughtful deployment of physical controls in ergonomic locations.
[1] Touchscreens are really only a good choice in situations where there's extreme space constraints, or as an enhancement to existing controls for very specific interactions where they make sense.