It's not all that helpful to compare version control tools with cars, I don't think. Users of a version control tool do need to know about branches, tags, commi

It's not all that helpful to compare version control tools with cars, I don't think. Users of a version control tool do need to know about branches, tags, commits and such because they are the heart of what version control is. If you've ever seen an environment where version control tooling has been introduced without the support of the developers you'll have seen what happens when you treat it like a car: empty check in messages, commits getting clobbered by "I'll jut check in my version" merges, and contention over file locks in tools where locking was part of the model.