This seems like a clickbait title because I’ve never hear of a hardware upgrade being called a “patch”.
But yeah, the term patch just seems weird in this article. Why not just "upgrade" or "fix"?
The term patch-cable seems to be way younger.
patchboard
: a switchboard in which circuits are interconnected by patch cords
First Known Use
1934, in the meaning defined above
You do a hardware upgrade on the car to patch the vulnerability.
> "piece of cloth used to mend another material," late 14th century.
> Electronics sense of "to connect temporarily" is attested from 1923 on the notion of tying together various pieces of apparatus to form a circuit.