Actually I slightly disagree with your "You don't hear people boasting about how they have a quad-core car computer and how the touchscreens from their motor co

Actually I slightly disagree with your "You don't hear people boasting about how they have a quad-core car computer and how the touchscreens from their motor control are perfect for Facebook interactions." statement. Of course you're right if we're talking engine management/internal stuff, but complaining about the laggy/slow/annoying performance in all things entertainment is quite a well-known first world problem in my circles. In fact, I'm annoyed by each car I drove over the last 10 years due to their inability to provide sensible hardware (and charge a huge markup for all these 'official' components on top: Think navigation: You get a 3rd party system for a fraction of the cost of the supplier provided one, often providing better features, decent updates, extensibility - while you're stuck with whatever your manufacturer grabbed for pennies). So in context ("Increase RAM so that the stack doesn't grow into the area where my acceleration value is stored") you're right, this isn't an issue. In general though I haven't seen a car manufacturer that gets consumer electronics/entertainment etc. right.