My old car has a cheap phone clip screwed into the dashboard, and the phone connects to the speakers for music. I can't imagine anything improving upon that.
* Traditional Automakers: Mostly as you describe, though honestly I am fond of the UI in my VW. Most others score B-D in responsiveness and anywhere from B-F in my "is this UI closer to ideal, or to a caricature of a baffling UI that no one will ever like to use?" scale.
* Apple: "No one needs physical controls for anything, and people HATE seeing any details, so let's try to get as minimal as possible because that's just elegant. Maybe just a dashboard with a your speed, as a single number, unlabeled because labels are ugly, and three dots (touch target 0.6cm) that you have to touch to access a menu to access all other features."
* Recent Automakers: "People love screens. Let's delete lots of switches to save a few dozen dollars, and stick functionality in deeply-nested menus that require you to take your eyes off the road."
I really want the $20 worth of physical buttons, knobs, stalks and switches of a traditional car, and the extensibility of the CarPlay world.
It’s a Land Rover, so obviously those screen crash/bug out then he gets no HVAC.
He hates that car. It’s beautiful, luxurious and a pleasure to drive. But it’s been in the shop >50% of his lease.
* Software is simple, consistent, and functional. Some goofy choices, but they're mostly visual preference than meaningful usage degradation.
* Hardware buttons support all of the core UX.
* Lane centering and adaptive cruise control as rock solid. I've legitimately had the car follow lane lines that I was struggling to see (rainy with reflections).
As a result, I'm firmly on team "make every infotainment system a dumb terminal for your phone" and refuse to buy any car that doesn't support both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.