It’s the distraction of having to pay attention to where you are in the UI navigation that sucks… tactile buttons on the wheel wouldn’t fix this if you only get to use them as a proxy for the same UI navigation.

Physical buttons for common car features should be non-modal and not context dependent, and in a consistent location you can memorize without looking. You should be able to pause the music without having to navigate to some UI submenu first. Same with climate control, volume, etc.