Honda has been moving in a similar direction as well it seems. Most of the Japanese marques besides Subaru have ditched all-touch layouts in favor of physical buttons due to poor focus group and customer response. The new Ford Maverick and Bronco also both come with extremely tactile interior layouts, which is a pleasant sight for touchscreen-sore eyes.

I really hope this is just another fad/trend in automotive design like 6-disc trunk CD changers or phosphor display gauges.

I hated that knob interface in my Mazda, and it seems less safe since I need to scroll and watch the screen to see when the item I want to click is highlighted. A touch screen seems less distracting. It's been a few years since I had it, but using it with Android Auto was super frustrating.

I grew to love the Mazda "Commander Knob" or the combo-joystick/click rotator. It felt clumsy at first, but once I got used to CarPlay's interfaces muscle memory really started kicking in and I became accustomed to feeling the number of 'clicks' to rotate to get where I needed. I primarily interact with CarPlay using Siri though.

Bought a 2016 mazda this year for exactly the same reason. Perfect combination of nice, big, well positioned LED display but no touch screen. (Maybe you can use touch screen when parked? Never tried.) It's a little slow and the media units can fail, but I'd say all the tradeoffs are very well balanced.

I have a 2019 CX-3 (dealer's loaner bought in 2020). Prior to the 2021 models, you can use Touch Screen when stopped or parked. 2021+ they disabled touchscreen completely on all models stopped or moving. I really agree with this decision.

It’s a touch screen but doesn’t work when the car is in motion unless you input the right code to get it in a developer/maintenance mode. I haven’t bothered as the knob is much more ergonomic. The software can be wonky, I have to reset the infotainment every once in a while to get Bluetooth working but overall I’m very happy with the car.

I'm hoping Mazda can catch up with an electric drive train. They have pushed ICE exceptionally far, but without an electric drive train with an ICE power plant or an entirely electric offering, I don't know if they'll up for my next consideration. I say that as a happy owner of both a Mazda CX-5 and Mazda 3. The MX-30 might be interesting, but the maturity of Toyota, Tesla, Chevy in the EV space is hard to compete with.

The MX-30 was disappointing. If they can make an electric CX-5 equivalent that would probably be my next car. I like my Mazda 3 but my partner wants something bigger/4WD as a toy hauler.

> but analog type dials for spedo

Why is this considered an upside?

When I shopped for a car, I've specifically looked for one with a simple (uncluttered) large digital number-only speedometer. Ended up buying 2013 Civic, which is still bad in other regards but got this one right, with a large digital speedometer conveniently located not behind the steering wheel but right below the windshield (less eye travel; and still in peripheral vision even when looking at the road). https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Honda...

I can read a number in a few milliseconds, ending up with an exact reading. So, I instantly know e.g. if I'm at, below, or above the speed limit (or desired/safe speed).

All those analog gauges take me - personally - at least an order of magnitude longer to mentally process. I can get a rough idea (±5 or ±10 {mph,km/h} depending on the dials) relatively quick - but still much longer than it takes for me to digest a readily spelled out number. Or I can spend an eternity (2+ seconds) to get a more precise reading.

And it's not as if acceleration rate normally matters, so unlike some other instruments, ability to watch the speedometer needle moving doesn't make much sense to me.

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Oh, and I can't say I want a "smart" car, I just have a pet peeve about an awful (IMHO) designs of instrument clusters in most cars. It's either a bunch of round analogue gauges straight from grandpa's dream car (with special love for a huge engine rpm indicator, no matter the type of transmission - I really don't get this) or cyberpunk neon all the way with so much visual clutter and total absence of any sane color coding, and pray to manufacturer they don't decide all that stuff goes onto that giant iPad strapped somewhere next to your knee (thanks, Elon! Although, to be fair, at least it's plain, large and black on white)

> Why is this considered an upside?

I agree with all the reasons given in the article - namely that it's easier to tell with your peripheral vision if a needle has moved a small amount or a big amount than it is for your brain to register the difference between 69 and 71 and then think about whether that's significant, compare it to the limit, etc.

Digital readouts are the best choice when you need to know an exact value. Like the radio frequency display, since 89.7 is a different station from 89.9.

The downside of digital readouts is that they take mental processing to actively look, read and interpret. You can't notice in peripheral vision if 89.9 suddenly changed to 89.7 (ok bad example since you'd hear the radio progam change, but assuming we're talking about visual display only here).

Rate of change and peripheral vision of approximate values is where analog gauges shine. I don't care to know if speed is 36 or 37, it's more valuable to know the approximate spot where the needle is without ever having to look at it directly. Same for tachometer, there I care about rate of change and will definitely never look at it directly since as I approach redline my eyes are far ahead on the road.

It makes it easy to glance at your speed. Straight up is 60mph on my car. 9 o clock is 35mph or so. Split the difference and I'm at 45 without having to actually look out from my peripheral vision and take my eyes off the road.

If you are thinking of buying the Porsche Tycan get the Audi e-Tron GT instead. It's the same platform but has way more physical buttons and switches unlike the Porsche which want mostly touch screen.

My 2018 CX5 has a touchscreen, but it's entirely disabled while the car is moving. So I've never used it. I just wish they saved the time and money not developing it, but I guess it's one of those marketing bullet points.