I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years.
My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user, when these inevitably fail (as in this case) - what can the owner do when the parts are no longer available, or if the manufacturer is out of business? Mechanically the car may be sound - but if the system responsible for the interaction between the vehicle and the owner is borked and impossible to replace does that mean the car is a complete write off?
I think back to some of the beaters my friends owned when they started driving, with broken HVAC switch gear, burned out audio head unit wiring harness, etc... while mechanically sound (enough to be road legal...), issues like this didn't hinder or prevent driving the car, and they continued in service for years in this state.
My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user, when these inevitably fail (as in this case) - what can the owner do when the parts are no longer available, or if the manufacturer is out of business? Mechanically the car may be sound - but if the system responsible for the interaction between the vehicle and the owner is borked and impossible to replace does that mean the car is a complete write off?
I think back to some of the beaters my friends owned when they started driving, with broken HVAC switch gear, burned out audio head unit wiring harness, etc... while mechanically sound (enough to be road legal...), issues like this didn't hinder or prevent driving the car, and they continued in service for years in this state.