It's a progression. Up till - early 80s cars in general not reliable and require costly repairs frequently, then the Japanese brands introduce reliable cars and the competition forces other brands to improve reliability, service contracts and warranties become a profit center of car dealership. Eventually most cars are reliable until 80-90k and not requiring major repairs, most people won't buy extended warranty as they know that's a big margin for the dealer and warranty companies, also lease becoming common, making it moot to buy it. I still remembered a finance manager begging me to buy it to make the quotas and told me to cancel it the week after for a full refund.
Now we are in the EVs era. Proprietary parts, cannot be fixed in anywhere else other than the dealer or manufacturer, expensive disposable parts. Early MS handle is 1k a piece, MCU is 4K, even today headlights are 3500 OTD and the DRL always burn quickly and unevenly.
The DRU, battery are astronomical priced to replace after the factory warranty. Slowly we see few other shops can fix EV, sometimes using salvaged parts, some parts becoming serviceable and more reliable after multiple revisions. I switched to EV 10 years ago and all said battery price will come down, EV has less parts to break down. I think there are some truth to it in manufacturing but replacing the whole battery pack is still very expensive to the consumer, for other parts they will break down and I can see the same reliability progress as the ICE car.
