I am right now wondering why my commodity car doesn't have this feature - have the engineers even thought of it? It's ridiculous how the latest 2013 models have

I am right now wondering why my commodity car doesn't have this feature - have the engineers even thought of it? It's ridiculous how the latest 2013 models have made incremental improvements compared to 1970s models. Sure they have better HP/torque curves and mileage/safety ratings, but automatic transmissions were invented LONG ago. Is there been ANY significantly new feature in the latest models?