Yes, preach it! But … I think in fact it does make a huge difference economically. I don’t know what the bill of materials is, but imagine the difference between wiring into place (a) a touch screen, or (b) 40 physical controls.
I believe another motivation for manufacturers is that they can turn the car’s UI into a software problem, which from a human-centered design perspective means that they can throw it in the trash and never spend a dime on it.
We're talking about a 400k dollars car, maybe they could find a way to add this expense into the design.