Can confirm that these buttons on the steering wheel of the id4 are really, really dangerous bullshit. I regularly drive those cars as rentals, and I’ve never (not “rarely” - it’s really never) faced a worse decision on buttons in any device I ever handled. Those touchpads are solely the reason I despise all VW-cars - they are complete crap. (I use these cars only for short trips and never activate any system by these buttons after encountering numerous dangerous situations as described in the article.)
Im of the opinion controls for cars should be designed more like controls for airplanes. Every gage and button in that cockpit is where it is and points where it points to be able to convey a lot of information with a quick glance and allow you to interact as quickly and easily as you can read them. Marketing gimicks that remove layers of tactile response to esential controls don’t belong in heavy machinery.
Touch controls are becoming increasingly common in airplanes and then backed up by mouse cursors. Flight critical controls still need to be backed by physical hardware but stuff like route planning etc is now almost entirely touch based. For light sports aircraft’s even flight critical stuff can be approved as touch controls. Look at the G3X or Dynon SkyView. They both have some form of dial-based backup controls, but it’s clearly designed for touch first.