For most Hemmings readers (and staffers), it’s hard to get worked up about new cars. Perhaps it’s the fact that anything interesting is priced well beyond the means of many, or perhaps it’s the fact that styling is now dictated more by wind resistance and safety regulations than by a designer’s vision or passion. Still, new cars can be a necessary evil, either for our own daily commutes or for those of friends and family.

Technology meant to make cars safer hasn’t always done so. Just about every new vehicle built in the past five years, and certainly every one with luxury leanings, includes the ability to pair a smartphone with the audio system via Bluetooth, thus eliminating the need to hold a phone to one’s ear or manually dial or answer calls. Ironically, since the push for such technology, distracted driving rates are up, not down, perhaps because most consumers won’t spend the one or two minutes required to pair a phone with a car.

Yet automakers seem determined to pack even more technology into modern automobiles, and in many new cars (at a multitude of price points), the touch screen has replaced buttons and knobs for audio and climate controls. Our press fleet Hellcat, for example, used the center stack touchscreen to change audio settings, or turn the heated and cooled seats and the heated steering wheel on or off. Scrolling through a multitude of screens to turn a heater on or off certainly seems more cumbersome than punching a button, at least to us.

You tell us, what don't auto manufacturers understand about their cars and customers?