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This is a big problem for automotive. The average age of cars in the US is over 12 years now. Which is a technical achievement. It was around 6 in the 1970s. Longer for trucks.

Automotive electronics design lives used to be much longer. I happen to know that the design life for the Ford EEC IV engine control unit from the 1980s was 30 years. That's been exceeded in the field; many 1980s Ford trucks with that unit are still running.

There are now cars running electronics that's way overkill in performance, probably at the cost of lifetime. Unreal Engine in the dashboard is a thing.

Realistically, you need 20 years of life in automotive electronics.




It would be fantastic, market changing, to know what cars or other consumer goods were actually designed for, but I don't have hope for that.

Honestly, I wouldn't buy a car if I knew its electronics were only designed to last 20 years. I wouldn't expect it to be reliable as it approaches that age. Mind you, I drive a 1994 Toyota Corolla, which has needed about $50 of repairs in the last decade, so I have high standards.




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