Oh you will still get a car with plenty of software, and the car will depend on it just as much as a Tesla. It's just that it's going to be badly made, buggy and not well integrated.

Perhaps then older German cars.

Those are going to suffer from electronics that flake out after a few years (flickering LED displays etc.) Long-term reliability is simply not a concern for German car manufacturers. You're supposed to buy a new car after a few years.

If you don’t want a computer on wheels, you don’t want a German car, you want a second hand Toyota Corolla.

We had an Audi Q5 first and a Tesla second. My wife and I fight over who gets to drive the Tesla.

With a modern German car, you still get some the fancy features, but they don’t work very well (lane control comes to mind), and the electronic UI is much worse than Tesla. CarPlay is the only way out.

And let’s not even talk about the difference in driving fun.

They're unreliable and some of them are quite offensive as well (BMW X6 types). If you don't want too much software, buy an Italian car. It's unreliable as well but it still limps with a shot sensor. And some of them are quite beautiful too. Otherwise I'd go for Japanese cars.

On the other hand, "German overengineering" (the mechanical side) is also a thing. Not as in built with huge margins and robustness, but intricate and overly complex.

Fun fact: There is no direct German translation for over-engineering.

EDIT: And now imagine what happens when the German drive to over engineer stuff, we do it with everything, not just hardware, meets software development for a complex system like a car... Then you get, well, VW.

German overengineering since WW2 (Comic dub) https://youtu.be/CVDDtbiGDxA?t=147

The insane rigmarole involved in replacing the battery in any BMW springs to mind… I agree! ‘Overly complex’ indeed.

I want to buy a Mercedes EQS but I’m going to wait until it’s been on the market for a few years.