Apple has actually combined the two with their touchpads. When you press on them you get the "click" feedback. But its not actually a physical travel that activates, it's what they call "the haptic engine" that vibrates in a way that makes it feel like you've clicked a physical button. It works really well.
However, I think that such buttons are far more expensive than a physically activated button, even if the latter is engineered to last a lifetime of heavy use.
> But its not actually a physical travel that activates
This was the little (to no) feedback of a press I was mentioning. Simulating the absolute bare minimum of travel. With the pressure sensors and the piezoelectric actuators it becomes a super-expensive, overengineered button simulator that works almost as well as the real thing.
Even Apple dropped the fancier 3D touch completely, and the less fancy Force touch is just for trackpads. Everything else is the cheaper Haptic touch doing away with pressure sensors entirely. It was fine for my iPhone 8 home button and old watch.
But a car is different. A hazard light button has ~5mm of travel. Blinker or wiper stalks have centimeters of travel. Same for rotary knobs. They're also well spaced from each other with hard to confuse actuation methods. In noisy and vibration prone environments, with time sensitive requirements, you want to have very clear and distinct ways to act and receive feedback that actions were performed, especially if critical for safety.
I do not disagree with you. I was pointing our that there is a certain class of physical buttons we can replace with an "emulation" that works just as well. That is not to say we should.
However, I think that such buttons are far more expensive than a physically activated button, even if the latter is engineered to last a lifetime of heavy use.