[M2M3M3]

Originally Posted by aerobod

There are companies that will repair ECUs and other electronic modules and reload relevant software, at the moment these sort of services are available for cars back into the 1990s. The UK has a bit of a cottage industry for this, with companies that will rebuild pretty well any automotive electronic component produced. If the car is worth saving, electronics shouldn’t be a problem in the future. This company is one of the more general purpose rebuilders: https://www.autotronics.co.uk/

With CANbus and other bus based systems with a router/bus interface substituting other ECUs and other electronic modules is easier than with a lot of hardwired system, too. Many enthusiasts have reverse engineered communication protocols and software components used in some cars.

With the Caterham community, we are quite adept at complete ECU swaps and upgrades, I’ve gone to a 10 year newer model of ECU in my car to gain enhanced features and software functions. Our vehicles don’t have many peripheral computer components, but lots of people have done CANbus attached Motorsport devices and logging systems and have done their own programming and/or configuration.

Ecu swapping isn't even in the same league as current cars, neither are cars from the 90's. Modern BMWs are literally a series of computers with an engine and wheels. Computer hardware, displays and software have extremely short lifecycles.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by M2M3M3

Ecu swapping isn't even in the same league as current cars, neither are cars from the 90's. Modern BMWs are literally a series of computers with an engine and wheels. Computer hardware, displays and software have extremely short lifecycles.

The current BMW modules are actually more accessible and easier to program than the proprietary systems from the past couple of decades, with the exception of not being able to modify encrypted modules, but they can still be loaded and used.

The 1990s ECUs are used as an example that hardware can be obtained / repaired from cars that the manufacturers have long since stopped supporting. There are just lots of lines of code in the current ECUs and bus based systems, but they are more accessible than for example the Caterham MBE ECU, where you have to understand the memory mapping and change the config files at a machine-code level, when stepping outside the confines of the available GUIs.

BMW uses a lot of open source and common 3rd party software components where GUI or app-based tools are available to access the software components. If you haven’t looked at the E-sys or ISTA software at a binary and config file level, it may seem a lot more complicated than it is.

From the general public perspective the technology may seem dated in 30 years time, from a technical perspective I don’t see any problem in supporting the current systems and finding hardware repairers if you know where to look. Likely by then finding the right fuel may be more of a problem.

[SeanJP]

Any word on whether the new M2 CS will drop weight?

[BroDoze]

They’ll find little ways to drop weight. LiPo battery, lighter wheels etc

Nothing major.