It's worse than that. I think this mostly started out as a defense mechanism for Product Liability lawsuits and morphed into what it is now. In other words they wanted to be able to know exactly what was happening at the moment of impact so to speak. Then realized their "little black boxes" sometimes didn't survive the crash. I personally believe the data is uploaded constantly to their servers and have a fair amount of proof. I'm also am sort of convinced that there is a 'self drive' ability on any vehicle with self steer and auto braking. They can drive these new POS's from an armchair if they want to.
Yeah. With the exception of the Wife's car all of mine are pre Airbag. And I can work on almost anything but won't. I bailed on the industry after 20 years precisely because of all the computer crap. It's ridiculous.
When the electronics went full circle and I had to find an Analog Multi-meter that could do up to 1000 Mili-amps to be able to read pulsed signals after 15 years with a digital meter I was done. Also when I figured out that it's all the same shit between manufacturers but just a different wiring on the OBDII outlet. Fuck Computerized cars.