[randomdata]

> Perhaps they believe the product would be cheaper with abdicating the feature?

Or, perhaps, believe it would get updates? Software in cars tends to grow stale quickly, which is an annoyance if you plan to keep for more than a few years. My eight year old car, for example, has features (had features) that don't work properly anymore because the software didn't anticipate how the rest of the world would change around it and there isn't an update provided to restore it to the original working condition, let alone adding new features that would be nice to have.

[t0mas88]

Exactly, and cars aren't that hacker friendly. Underneath the design isn't that bad, can-bus makes sense, most modern cars have a good sort of internal network. But there is zero documentation to allow anything aftermarket to plug in later or software to be upgraded past what the manufacturer provides.

And car manufacturers are still very much in a mindset that you make a certain model-year, release it, and then forget about it while you work on the next ones. No upgrade path on software whatsoever.