I’m not sure it was the designers but the executives. Touchscreens are insanely cheap compared to buttons and all the wiring involved. Like the main reason that Tesla does everything on a touch screen is that software is soooo much cheaper than hardware.
It’s like everyone collectively forgot about precisely how much effort has been put into physical human interface design over the years. In models from less than a decade ago, Mercedes was calibrating dashboard push buttons to require precisely one Newton of force to actuate… and now we have this “slap the screen in the vicinity of what is maybe a button a few times to maybe get the thing you want to happen”. I know, it’s cheaper, but… come on.