[Still Thinking]

When you buy a car, you are buying - and titling - the car itself. The physical property (not intellectual property) that is the car, is what is legally titled in the owner's name. The software license allows the licensee access to the intellectual property.

Yes, that's how they do it now. There's nothing to stop them from deciding they want to go the license route, and if you think the result is absurd, then it follows that this decision is incorrect.

[OldDeckHand]

"There's nothing to stop them from deciding they want to go the license route,..."

Sure there is - hassle - as in the automobile manufacturers wouldn't want the hassle of keeping track of software licenses. Why? Because they aren't in the software business, they're in the car business. Whatever the value of the software is in that car, it's but a TINY fraction of the value of the car.