It’s so wrong that tech inclined wants cheapest models for the reason that those are objectively better. The entire car industry is going to go iPhone all over again.
Lots of people want a car with more features, and don't wish to control it directly. They would rather have a solid-state device that can't be repaired, but doesn't need to be. They don't want to upgrade it themselves; ideally, they don't want it to need upgrades until they buy another one.
But you've got it exactly right: many consumers want the car industry to go iPhone, for the same reason they want iPhones. That's neither objectively worse nor objectively better. The only objective thing is that a ton of consumers want it, because it suits their needs. And part of that is achieved by avoiding development by the kinds of techies who think that their preferences are objectively better.
I mean, take TVs. Pretty much every TV has "smart TV" features embedded, to the point where it's hard to find one that doesn't. I suspect this is because the manufacturer gets some kind of kickback from streaming services to include their app and to show ads and to gather data about what people are watching and in the end it's actually cheaper to include an embedded processor than it is to leave it out and lose their kickbacks.
Similarly, those "smart car" features can be monetized by collecting valuable data and introducing subtle suggestions on where to go. It's hard to imagine a car company seeing the kind of revenue that Facebook and Google pull in and not wanting to get in on that. And they can even justify it as good for their customers by saying "we need these computers to collect training data so the self-driving features we deploy in the future will be better and safer."
I can imagine a future where "dumb car" features are actually luxury features. Only high-end cars lack the smart car features because it's cheaper to include them than leave them out. Maybe that already describes the present.