Personal anecdote: I have mazda and tesla and drive both regularly. I’ve got many more times distracted with mazda knob trying to turn on album than doing the same in tesla. I used to think knob is safer until I started to see difference every day.

Also, IIRC the latest version of their best selling car - the CX-5, abandons the knob for pure touchscreen.

Supposedly the story is that outside of a small but vocal contingent on the Internet, most buyers did not like the knob.

In the MY2026 CX-5 (announced in July), the control knob went the same way as BMW's iDrive jog control: it's gone.

Unfortunately you can’t use the ‘big knob’ without looking at the screen, which is entirely self defeating.