Yup - I don't think they know much about what car purchasers actually pay attention to.
People will continue to buy "smart" cars until both of the following happen: (1) they pull themselves out of purchase apathy and start caring about the quality of their purchases and (2) the information asymmetry favoring automakers is substantially reduced.
Incidentally, if both of these things happen, the consumer market in general will massively improve.
That's all that you need to know that the author is a tech blogger and not a car salesman.