Dismantling 20,000 cars a year: what it means for electronics obsolescence

The answer

Did you know there is a facility being created to dismantle 20,000 cars a year by the manufacturer?

This topic came up in our recent Tech Talk with Karen Salmon, CEO of Force Technologies, and John Barrett.

The figures are staggering. Basic calculations lead John to think that if every car has 100 PCB assemblies, this means there will be 2,000,000 circuits.

Some can be repaired but may need parts from other end-of-life boards.

There will be valuable parts to put into storage, as we do here at Force Technologies, and other parts may be obsolete, so they will need to do some BOM management and think about manufacture and replacement.

This is a step in the right direction for sustainability efforts by car manufacturers, but will others follow suit?