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All the electronic gadgets they put in cars today are great, until they don't work. What happens in the service bay seven years from now, when some poor schmuck has to diagnose and repair that "lane-change-drift-detection" system? Or when the second owner has to shell out $3K to replace a toasted remote sensor board just to get his car operational again? Increasing system complexity virtually guarantees that consumers will be captives of the manufacturer's dealer network, since independent repair shops will never be able to service those vehicles satisfactorily.
As a former reliability engineer and software quality manager with a Fortune 50 manufacturing company, I can assure you that lifetime operating costs (borne by the consumer) are NOT a priority during new product development; the only after-sale costs that get factored into the equation are those incurred by the manufacturer e.g. warranty repairs, recall campaigns, mandated recycling programs, etc. Meanwhile, planned obsolescence is generally treated as a future sales opportunity, either for high-margin replacement parts or to "Up-Sell" the consumer to a current-generation product.
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