Carlos -
You actually bring up a good point... some of those high-end automotive entertainment systems are often equivalent to a full-fledged PC, sometimes even based on an IA processor with a graphics accelerator (or two), and so require a complete OS (well, embedded, which is stripped down to work with the specific hardware but still has full OS functionality) (such as Linux, Windows CE, Embedded XP, or some others) ... I'm not sure if they count the lines of code from the COTS OS, but wouldn't be surprised if they do.
Tele man -
Too complicated to be useful? Not really sure what that means. Are you trying to say the Volt is not useful? Because it has a lot of software? It turns out that the 10 million lines of code for the Volt is not that much in comparison to modern "premium" automobiles... at that level it is more like 100 million lines of code. See
This Car Runs on Code - IEEE Spectrum.
Too complicated for their originally intended purpose? Not sure which originally intended purpose you mean. Granted, if you define the originally intended purpose of an automobile was to get from point A to point B, then a pair of seats on a frame with carbureted engine and without windshield or body would do it. Something like this:
But I think a few other purposes crept in since then... safety, ability to sustain higher speeds, comfort, and more recently, environmental friendliness from both emission and consumption standpoints. And as our society evolves, so do our ideas about the purpose of the automobile. We want to be entertained, we want to stay connected, and we want to take advantage of technology to make our automobile even safer an even more efficient.
(Note that when I say "We" I mean society as a whole, not necessarily the members of this forum...
)
Personally, I am thoroughly enjoying learning about some of the new drivetrain technologies that have been (and are being) developed... The Volt is a very cool idea, Mazda's SkyActiv is just awesome, and incorporating "EOC" ("Glide" mode) into production cars is sweet. The fact that significant advances are still being made on ICEs (from both performance and efficiency points of view) is pretty amazing. I have absolutely no desire to "harken back to the olden days" of carbureted engines, vinyl seats, and lap belts.
I should add a disclaimer that my newest car is ~7 years old which has plenty enough technology for me, and I have no desire for a vehicle with a "Bang & Olufsen (or whatever big brand name sticker you want) home theater system" in it or with "lane departure warning" or "parking assist" or "back seat driver assist" or whatever. Probably the only new vehicle I'd be interested in is the VW XL1, and that would be for the technology "under the hood", not in the cockpit. But I'm sure I wouldn't be able to afford one of those anyway ...