My suspicion is less cost cutting and more designers not being allowed to do good work. A lot of the interior decisions feel like the results of edicts from the top by someone who has no design sense.
I suspect the rest of the industry won't follow because we have many decades worth of research into why tactile buttons and knobs are a good thing while piloting vehicles. This just reeks of Musk overriding his designers in service of a pure vision, and frankly it's reckless and I plan to give Teslas I see on the road a wide berth so they don't murder me while trying to change the airflow via touchscreens with zero feedback.