As someone working in the industry I dislike it as well. Many of the features have some really good usecases but the problem is just that they’re enabled/available for every user even if most people only use a small subset of features so the settings/interface gets so cluttered.

In my opinion though, the move away from physical interfaces towards touchscreens is way worse than the clutter.

Touch screens in cars are stupid: you need to take your eyes off the road to use them. Buttons and knobs, once you have learned them, can be operated by touch and maybe a quick flick of your eyes.

The car as a device to transport one from A to B has been developed to completion. Any car is capable of fulfilling that task. The next stange of developement is that the comfort features in cars are being replaced with a universal control unit: a touchscreen (-computer).

All physical buttons (air condition, radio, etc.) are being phased out and are accessible over the central touchscreen, hidden in menus. This way it is easier to get customers into subscribed services (e.g. for the ability to lock your car remotely or to use the heated seat feature you have to subsribe to this particular service in order to use it).

Also, when features are controlled over a software interface like those touchscreens instead of physical buttons, it it easier to give access to users - or restrict them from it:

IIRC at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Tesla remotely enabled their cars by allowing free supercharging as a helpful measure to help people to escape from Ukraine. Pretty nice of Tesla, isn’t it? Well yes, in this particular case, but this kind of remote software interference from the manufactor can also work in the other direction. They can easily restrict the functionality of your car. Functions your car still would have if they weren’t controlled remotely.

Cars become a Software-As-A-Service product.

Edit: spelling