Edmunds: The pros and cons of vehicle touchscreens

By RONALD MONTOYA
Edmunds

Look into just about any new car and you’ll either find a touchscreen or “virtual buttons” that seek to approximate the function of a mechanical button. The appeal of touchscreens and virtual buttons on new cars is to make the vehicle appear sleeker and pack more features into limited dashboard real estate, but numerous studies have shown that these interfaces prove to be more of a hindrance than a help, as it makes ordinary tasks harder to accomplish.