I love this image of the Space Shuttle's cockpit. So many controls and screens.
It reminds of newer cars though, and not in a good way. On the shuttle, the plethora of controls makes sense.
My first car didn’t have a digital radio – I installed one afterwards. The A/C had those slider switches. Now, A/C controls have many variations, multiplied by the number of passengers – since they all have their own environment controls.
Cars are getting closer and closer to the complexity of a space craft. Instead of making them simpler and smarter, we're making them more reliant on our feedback. The logical progression isn't more options of high techy-ness, but towards autonomy.