The reason why cars get thrown away in Europe is not because some mechanical problems, but because problems related to old age of whole device such as

* Rust. It will eat your car. Especially if you are salting roads. At some point you won't pass mandatory technical inspection and it is over for the car. Sell it scrap yard.

* PVC degradation. Insulation on cables is slowly degrading (if on source of UV light, then the process is very fast) and eventually naked cores of cables will show up, which will cause intermittent short circuits which can manifest in weird behavior of the car in specific conditions to outright fire.

So no, it can't last forever unless you want to invest in it huge amount of money every now and then.