I read the thread title and was thinking "let it be a hybrid, let it be a hybrid"! It's a hybrid!
I'm approaching 24k with 14 months of ownership, hoping to hit 200 plus before all is said and so done.
It's not AI that's the problem there, it's the people using AI to create these misleading headlines. AI is just the tool, no different than Photoshop was before it.
If all else fails you can do a factory reset which brings it back to the setup when you first purchased it. You'd need to reset up your account and download your apps again. It'd be a pain, but it may ultimately be easier than your current path
It's also possible that in trying to improve battery life you changed a permission Android Auto needs in order to run in the background. Which one I have no idea.