Dedicated, single-purpose buttons that work all the time are clearly superior to touch screens. That's why even smartphones have them.
Context-sensitive buttons are less awesome. They might be superior, if you memorize the combination, but they're decidedly inferior to touchscreens for the long tail of infrequently used features.
The study linked here focused on "simple" tasks, and the top performing cars probably have dedicated buttons for everything measured. The story would likely be very different for context sensitive buttons, and subjective reporting would likely be unreliable, if studies on the speed of mousing vs keyboarding are anything to go on [1].
Context-sensitive buttons are less awesome. They might be superior, if you memorize the combination, but they're decidedly inferior to touchscreens for the long tail of infrequently used features.
The study linked here focused on "simple" tasks, and the top performing cars probably have dedicated buttons for everything measured. The story would likely be very different for context sensitive buttons, and subjective reporting would likely be unreliable, if studies on the speed of mousing vs keyboarding are anything to go on [1].
[1]: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/30682/are-there-any-r...