Both lane assist and backup cameras are mandatory safety systems for new cars in the EU. Same goes for things like tired driver detection and other stuff that was considered opulent luxury ten years ago.

With the land tanks we call SUVs today, I can imagine it wasn't hard for politicians to decide that mirrors are no longer enough to navigate a car backwards.

Still, you don't need touch screens. Lane assist can be a little indicator on a dashboard with a toggle somewhere if you want to turn it off, it doesn't need a menu. A backup camera can be a screen tucked away in the dash that's off unless you've put your car in reverse. We may need processing to happen somewhere, but it doesn't need to happen in a media console with a touch screen.

In some countries it's a legal requirement to have a backup camera, which means you need a screen to display it, and hardware to render it.

> I would gladly gladly keep my AC, heat, hazards, blinkers, wipers, maybe a few other buttons and that's it. I don't need back cameras, lane assist, etc.

I would pay more for decent physical switches and knobs, but I would give up AC before the backup camera. Getting this was life changing. I also wish all cars had some kind of blind spot monitoring.

You're not thinking about the manufacturing part. Buttons and knobs have to get assembled and physically put into every car. Software just needs to be written once.

> I find it hard to believe it's cheaper to have all the cameras, chips, and other digital affordances rather than a small number of analog buttons and functions.

You should check how SW and HW are tested in the car.

A typical SW test is: Requirement: SW must drive a motor if voltage reaches 5 V. A typical SW test is: Increase the voltage to 5 V, see that the motor moves.

Now what happenes at 20 V is left as an exercise for the user.

Knobs (plus mechanical circuitry) that can survive 100k miles of use are expensive.