Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder whether OTA updates being possible encourages manufacturers to be sloppy with software quality. They know they can fix problems cheaply. If they had to physically update vehicles they would have a lot more incentive to make updates unnecessary.
Of course it does. Think about how, even in software, knowing that a physical shipping of a product (CD / Blu-ray) can be updated from "day 1" has led to poor quality releases with last minute patches. The cost of having to physically recall / resend CDs back in the day meant that what went out had to work. The cost of sloppy software has now been externalised.
Back in the day it was a major milestone for video game projects to "go gold". It meant that the rigorous QA process was passed, and that retail copies were ready to be manufactured. Since that involved significant costs and physical logistics, companies certainly didn't want major bugs shipped at this stage. There were some exceptions, but ultimately this led to much higher customer satisfaction. Removing this "inconvenience" for companies and allowing them to ship updates and fixes at any point is a major reason why most modern game releases are a clusterfuck at day one. They treat it as public betas, and day one customers (or, worse, preorder suckers) are testers and a replacement for a QA process they don't have. It's essentially crowdsourced development. This also allows them to hype the game up to boost initial sales, and then go "oops, sorry" while they finish implementing it. This scam has been pulled numerous times over the past decade+, yet these companies keep doing it because it's profitable and there's no legal accountability for it.
The fact these practices are now seeping into software on which human lives depend is criminal, and should be prosecuted and strictly regulated.