phred

This is from a panel of technical experts at the MB Club of America Startech 2001 conference.

Q: Since today's cars have become so complicated, what can we expect 20 years from now when it comes time for owners to restore them, diagnose them, or just find expensive and rare electronic modules?

A: Peter Spieth, MBUSA: The factory has had an expert team of about 35 people working on that for three years.

A: Alex Kaufbusch, mechanic: I hate to think of us 15 or 20 years from now with today's electronic cars. Used cars as we know them could be a thing of the past because no used car dealer will be able to afford the diagnostic equipment or parts to make a car work well enough to resell.

A MB salesman said that when older cars are traded to dealers, they don't change airbags as required by the manufacturer because there's no way they can sell the car after putting that much money into it. Instead, they give the customer a release to sign!

DWC_2.7T

Based on what I've seen since the 80's, most modern cars will go 200K miles or more without significant failures...even US makes are getting better. Other than airbags and catalytic converters, what else is subject to a fixed service life? It may simply mean that today's cars will won't be economical as cheap "beaters" 20 years from now...at least in the developed countries.

phred

Sunroof
Automatic climate control

Here are two more:

Power seats
Power windows

April

I can see only the most simple cars of this time, being able to survive in the far future.

Seattle Scott

electric starters, air conditioning, etc., etc.

I'd guess the biggest problem facing cars right now is going to be compatibility with future systems and standards, e.g. GPS/Nav, wireless data links, etc.

I'd like to see some demographics of car ages but I'd guess the population of a certain model and year that survives past 120,000 miles is pretty small due to wrecks, being stolen, stripped, whatever so the demand for spare parts is probably fairly small and junk yards can keep up with demand usually.

Commercial airliners are using black boxes with 30 year design lives now. There are planes with black boxes containing microprocessors (think Pentiums, 486s, etc.) that haven't been in production for years and they don't buy spares and hoard them. A group of replacements is made and held during the original production runs. The spares supply should be statistically large enough to take care of needed replacements. If the spare supply is way to small you design a plugin replacement that looks like the original from a systems viewpoint but has newer internals.

Don't forget innovation too, people may just rip the motor out of their sunroof and run it by hand and put a padlock on it. That new A6 4.2 is going to be a 20 year old beater in 2021 with sheets draped over some smelly leather seat with the stuffing coming out. Will the seat heater work? Will the owner care? Will the power seat work? Probably but there may be a bastard motor in it and a toggle switch mounted on the dash via a hole someone drilled in it. Air bags? Usually people driving 20 year old cars don't car, maybe a new air bag replacement industry will appear. Maybe cars will fill with foam 20 years from now and that will be a simple aftermarket add on.

I think you need to think about whether or not the car will be serviceable, not whether or not it will be in show room condition as defined 20 years ago.

That said there is some old curmudgeon where I work that drives a 1962? Ford sedan and pickup truck. Both vehicles have flathead V8s. He made his choice 30 years ago and stuck with it. Both vehicles look fine and original. I'd be worried about the seals, bearings, brakes, etc. and finding parts for those but he is doing it somehow. (He isn't very friendly, probably thinks I want to find the coffee cans full of money in his back yard.)