Regarding the car driving, here's a recent Q&A with one of the Lead Game Designers (AI & Buddy System), Prasert "Sun" Prasertvithyakarn.
Fan question:
"Why is it so easy to control the car (unrealistic) and why is there no freedom to drive?" (referring to the playable demo at the AFATH 2016 event)
Sun:
"We made it easy so everyone can play our game, including the casual fans who never played this kind of game before. In other open-world games, the car controls are realistic and the driving scenes are nightmare to some players who can't drive in real life so they keep crashing the car all the time and it's frustrating. We think that driving is not a key feature in this game so we should focus on the story and something more important. That's why the car will be easy to control. But we also have other features for the players to enjoy it, for the example; you can let the AI drives the car while you play with your camera and looking around the landscapes, this is not possible in other games because we're unique!"
Source: http://www.mognetcentral.com/threads/about-the-car-final-fantasy-xv.5901/page-2#post-37641
Baffling reason for automated car control.

