It still applies to the new vehicles. When you first fire up the new engines, the PCM ignores some sensors inputs (not all of them) until the engine warms up and it runs the engine in the "open loop" mode. Open loop is basically running the engine rich adjusting the idle by using the electronic throttle (no Idle Air Control valve on drive by wire cars) . When the engine and sensors are warmed up, then the PCM reads their inputs and makes adjustments in a "closed loop" manner.