Sometimes. Other times they layoff the QAs and anyone else whose job is about quality.

It’s a common practice for car manufacturers. It lets a company gain more market penetration without diluting the expensive brand with cheap models. Companies can start in either camp and create sub brands in either direction. Hyundai for example had their affordable brands Hyundai and Kia, but also have Genesis as their upscale brand. It can also allow each sub company “friendly” competition as with Kia and Hyundai. They share some features and frameworks but they can each have their own teams focusing on different design languages and packages that let them go after the same market and some different edge cases . Ultimately, yeah illusion of choice but there are still some differences.