I think there are a couple of reasons vehicle infotainment systems are somewhat bad across the board. For starters, cars only get redesigned about every 5 year

I think there are a couple of reasons vehicle infotainment systems are somewhat bad across the board. For starters, cars only get redesigned about every 5 years. That means that most major models that are on the market right now, have only had a full screen interface for 2, maybe 3 generations. So manufacturers can't iterate on what works and what doesn't in terms of their design/development process as quickly as other electronic products. Figuring out how good, is good enough, and what kinds of personnel, suppliers, and processes you need to design an excellent infotainment system is something that naturally took the auto industry a lot longer than say, smartphones or TV's. Because of that, it took a long time for them to even figure out how a car infotainment should fit in with smartphones. And it took a lot of them a long time to figure out that making an interface touchscreen-only for a car is actually an anti-pattern.