How many independant garages will be able to work on these cars?
This isn't actually a technical problem, more a legal issue. There are plenty of people out there reverse engineering the interfaces for modern cars and selling alternative solutions for servicing the cars. I recently bought one for SWMBO's Fiat and it works very well indeed, certainly saves me the cost of Main Dealer servicing.
The challenge that we face is that increasingly car manufacturers are seeking to establish the idea that we although we might buy the physical car, we aren't buying the software systems, we are only licensing their use. Any use of the car which is not explicitly permitted by the license agreement is a breach of contract.
In this way they are trying to tie us in to using their dealer network. So far they have failed, but it's not stopping them from trying...
