This is what GPLv3 was designed to protect us from

While I can see why car manufacturers don't like the GPLv3, I am not at all declined to sympathize with them. I can entirely see why Google or Apple would /love/ a linux kernel under a two-clause BSD license. Of course the vendors love non-copyleft licenses. But copyleft is designed to protect users from vendors. And where simple copyleft can only go so far when source code is conveyed but the device actively hinders using the four freedoms, the GPLv3 adresses this issue, reinforcing user's four freedoms, disallowing technical countermeasures against the spirit of copyleft.

And this is a real problem, not a philosophical. Yes, the vendor might want to try limiting the life-span of the car via software to drain the market of used cars, encouraging to buy new cars. It might sound like this couldn't be possibly legal, but beware. This is what smartphone vendors routinely do. Like, have a car with android in it, ship security updates for three years. There you go. This is what GPLv3 was designed to protect us from. While it is not nice to hear car vendors actually want to keep control over the very device they sold us, it is good to hear car vendors are trying to work around GPLv3 licensed software because the GPLv3 does not allow them to do, as this means the GPLv3 is actually considered effective by their lawyers.