I totally share your concerns about the safety of using a touchscreen. Muscle memory and tactile feedback are really important from a safety perspective.

I do disagree from a position perspective, but I’d like to sit in one before I make my final call. I personally keep my cellphone mounted in this exact position for navigation, and it’s very much in peripheral vision and reach. I’m tall though, so others may not have that same perspective.

The X-factor with all of this is those dials on the steering wheel and the voice commands. I’m not sure what all is possible with both of those, and it is really awkward to issue a command to do something like “turn my seat heater on”.

One other idea that comes to mind, is that the touchscreen is there to incentive drivers to use and pay for the autonomous features. “I hate using this touchscreen while I’m driving, so I’m going to set adaptive cruise”. That thought seems a little scheme-y, but it could be one of the ways they want to nudge their drivers into that driverless mindset and away from the desire and habit of driving.