Maybe this is a dumb question, but does anyone still produce cars without chips? It's possible, and in the current environment it seems like it would be a major competitive advantage-- and might be more reliable in general.
Cars in, say, the 1960s were not "more reliable in general." It's not all semiconductor-related of course--they also rusted out quickly in areas that got snow--but 5 years/50K miles is about what you were looking at for vehicle lifetime. Also much lower fuel efficiency, to say nothing of lack of what we'd consider routine safety features today.
On that, Availability is the result of all the rest. With the important part of planned Availability, because that excludes stuff like planned maintenance. Arguably modern cars beat old ones in that category.
What's probably true is that older cars that aren't rusted out can probably be kept running by people with the appropriate mechanical skills even in the absence of proper factory/3rd party parts for longer than modern vehicles can. Given intact supply chains, modern vehicles are more available overall. But, to the point of the article, modern vehicles are more susceptible to lack of parts.
That being said, if I'd go on a 2k + mile trip I would put in some work to get the car fit for this. Looking at my dads VW camper, I'll just fill up drinking water, maybe gas and fuel. Without a serious amount of preventive maintenance those cars do have a tendency to break down so. I guess we are just not used to this kind cars or machinery anymore.
I think that is the largest appeal to me of older cars. There are only so many parts that can fail, and they are all repairable with some time and hand tools(and maybe a Haynes manual!).
(for people unfamiliar, a Haynes manual is a 3rd party manual customized for most makes/models of automobiles. It describes with pictures how to perform [almost] any repair.)
The chip-ification of cars has been going on for a really, really long time.
I don't remember how far my 1965 Austin Mini van had done by the time I scrapped it in 1978 but I'm quite sure it was much more than 50 k miles.
I merely added a small counter argument to the idea that cars of the period were necessarily short lived.
Is that true though? Average length of car ownership is at an all-time high of over 8 years. It was under 5 years just 20 years ago. Maybe length of ownership doesn't correlate to length of car life, but seems like a strong signal that car quality and lifespan is going up.
And you can also add laser eye and cosmetic surgery: have advanced by leaps and bounds in terms of safety and quality, while actually becoming less costly for the consumer.
There must be hundreds of chips in a modern car: Engine, ABS, wireless key, cruise control, radio, audio, electric windows, gps, battery management, airbags, seat-belt check, sensors, climate control, ...
possibly climate control (not needed for short rides, a fan will do), maybe even radio (can always add later) and electric windows
I'd buy that car if it was cheaper... I'd need AWD though, trailer hitch...
Wouldn’t even power steering use it? Headlights?
Engines would have engine control units running some kind of real-time OS, anti lock brakes, anti traction systems, airbags, power locks with wireless keys. Climate control vs just “AC fan on”
Even some ignition systems have chips that do some kind of key exchange to start the car. (Yes you can bypass it but now you’re making a car that’s easier to steal)
And a related question: modern cars are full of tech because that's what market demands. Can we expect the trend to reverse at some point?
For compact/subcompact sedans/hatches and midsize sedans the OEMs typically make a super stripped down variant so they can advertise an insanely low "starting at" MSRP. Dealers don't typically buy a lot of them so they're very hard to find and you'll likely have little room to haggle on price.
Nowadays there's a pretty long list of mandatory electronics and everything has at least one bus network in it but if you want to minimize the number of extraneous modules on that network then a stripped down economy car is your best bet.
No, they are nice to haves. anyone who is looking to save money on a car will buy a used car with those features because they get the cheaper price and the features.
Go for the Access version and you don't even get a radio.
Rear view cameras are mandatory since ~2014 so I don't think this is possible.
That would be hard to pull off without chips. Although I guess you could keep it completely isolated from the rest of the car.
And they were actually much more reliable and efficient. Fuel injection was light years ahead of carburetors.
And I’d argue it would be impossible to meet emissions without computer control of the engine.
(Including by people who've been disqualified...)