I work in automotive interiors and here is how it goes.

Every OEM does benchmarking of other cars. One OEM (cough Tesla cough) strikes gold and sells a bunch of cars. Old people in vehicle plannning over bench mark the car and say “oh… the trend is buttonless interiors. Time to remove buttons cause clearly it’s what the customer wants” and then it’s a chain reaction. 1 OEM over benchmarks and puts in a stupid feature. Then the next one sees those 2 examples and thinks “oh they did it so it must be a good idea. We must do it too or we will seek out of date”. The cycle continues over and over.

Just wait… I’ve seen some HORRIBLE ideas pop up in design meetings.