Wouldn't matter. It's not from a lack of practical experience or knowledge, its constraints of a system. That's what an engineer does. Build shit within extreme constraints. Techs aren't valuable engineers, they'd make choices that wouldn't be optimize for constrains and forced out. They'd be of no value.

I think every engineer strives to be perfect, it's the constraints that take that away. If engineers had their way the vehicle cost would be 10x the price it is. Vehicle prices are already heavily subsidised by the other components of the company. Most manufacturing arms (GM and Ford) lose money, the most profitable arm is the financial division right now. GM financial is really the only thing keeping GM alive. They GM Financial division made 31% revenue from interest on consumer auto loans.