Indeed. I'd go as far as to say that a three year apprenticeship is often better than many college educations. The people who come out of the dual system have been on the job, know how to file a tax return and have absorbed sufficient theoretical knowledge to advance far past their initial education. There still is some value for some people to digest the knowledge in a more thorough and theoretical way, though.

Automakers, though large and well-established, haven't put much effort into building the platform on which their cars run.

That's just plain wrong. The movement to create standards that allow for easier interchange of software components (even though mostly at a system integration level) is becoming larger and larger. While it's pretty Linux centric from a software POV, many of the standards and interface worked on can be ported to other important automotive operating systems such as QNX. Of course, GENIVI concerns itself mostlywith infotainment related matters, but necessarily with the more strictly car related plumbing. See http://www.genivi.org/

I hope they won't do CTRL-C, they'll just SIGINT it D: