Indeed.
Though Dashcams don't see the same sales numbers as phones, i am sure if the turn over was much larger the companies could also put more money into R&D.
You can also now get new phones that are pretty crappy at least for most western phone users taste, and you can get phones that cost a lot more than some phone users would ever pay.
I have just set a personal record paying a little over 400 USD for a phone that truth be told have 80 % more performance than i need,,,,, so once again i over killed on hardware.
So right now saying i really hate smartphones,,,,, is a little more hard to do if people knew what i have just done, i am also pretty confused myself,,, maybe i am a closet phone lover.
Yes you can use some cheap or old Mediatek or Qualcom SOC and build a camera on that, but i am not sure it would be able to do all the Uber stuff some people would like in a dashcam.
At one time i was also saying, well camera sensors speak some well defined language, so why don't people use more exotic sensors that could make for better dashcams.
But i was told its not as simple as that, and i think its the same for sensor support in phone cameras, at least when you look at the market it seem like phones tend to often use the same few sensors.