But Ford is responsible for bad designs like EcoBoost and trucks with plastic oil pans. Peek under a Bronco, many of the steel parts aren't even painted and body seams are not sealed. Peak 1970s manufacturing.

Your point doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Different companies have different approaches to engineering and quality control, and it absolutely makes a massive difference for how long their products last. This is very obvious in the car market.

ML will likely play a massive role for engineering going forward, but again, it's up to each company or organization to decide how to use it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some companies try to have LLMs weigh in on engineering matters, where they shouldn't. AI will amplify bad engineering.

But responsible companies will make proper use of ML and their cars will be better for it.