Except they are 2020s appliances with bells and whistles and reinventing the wheel for no reason with electronic wizzbangs and dohickeys and layers and layers of complexity. Your car in the 90s was the appliance. Simple electronic system. Reliable simple ICE engine. Simple gearbox. Easy to work on which means even if you don't work on your own car it helps you, because labor takes less time and therefore repair shop bills are lower. Parts back then were widely shared across a manufacturers lineup so readily available and relatively cheap. 4 cylinder economy car was practically a commodity back then.