I couldn't disagree more strongly.
> Our design processes are far in advance of the automotive industry. Continuous design is normal practice. It's only the most careful (or most backward) shops that'll take months to update a design.
I'd say the latest trends in software engineering processes are actually adaptations of what has been practiced in the automotive sector (and other manufacturing sectors) for a long time, but outside of regulated industries, practiced with far less rigor. I don't think the claim that development processes in software are "more advanced" holds water (what does that even mean?).
It's impractical to practice continuous design on a physical product like a car so I think that's a poor point, but kaizen (which I will argue serves an analogous role) is certainly used throughout manufacturing and has origins in the TPS.
> The automotive industry, by comparison, regularly takes years to update a design even by a minor version. The best shops at this i.e. the F1 race teams can fix bugs in days, minor releases in months and, if this season is anything to go by, struggle horribly with major version upgrades.
Ignoring regulatory and documentation concerns, part of the reason it takes years to update a design is that the costs associated with producing a physical product are completely different from a pure software product. It's more cost effective to do good design work and heavy V&V of your design before you order tooling, rather than trying to modify your tooling (if it's even possible) after an error is discovered.