I don't think he's assuming that Tesla (etc.) cars are more secure, just that they're different, and so would need different tools.

Because the kind of vulnerability being exploited here is basic "software engineering 101" that even a non-technical person should be able to figure out. It's the equivalent of putting something in a safe and then duct-taping the key to the safe itself.

i don't know anything about how cars work but the article says "At the moment, impacted vehicles are generally wide open to these sorts of attacks. The only proper fix would be to introduce cryptographic protections to CAN messages, Tindell told Motherboard in an email. This could be done via a software update, he added"

and i'm kinda expecting software first companies to already have this stuff in place? also stolen car media seems to focus on legacy autos being stolen not so much the newer ones, hence the question but maybe the theives target better build quality, who knows.

Yup. Physical access is access

iOS is pretty resilient these days, unless you happen to have a zeroday ready.