Time to make a billion dollars on something else, then start up a car company designed to fail. No investors, design a car for a 60-70k buying price, few bells and whistles, but built to last indefinitely with basic maintenance. Start the company planning to practically close it down just after the last preorder customer has their car delivered and become a maintenance company with a few employees to make replacement parts and install them. If demand rises, redesign for the new times, ramp up and do it all again.
Who wants an infinite lifespan car anyway? Everything else would be getting safer and more fuel efficient. Might as well get around on horse and buggy.
For one most engines are pretty much at their peak efficiency, for two practical safety features reached peak between the mid 90s to the early 00s. Most modern safety features are ironically enough not all that safe, for example lane assist makes people pay less attention or it tries to assist in the lane and overcorrects. I see the latter rather frequently in my area since windy roads, usually the damned things are trying to avoid the white lines of the shoulder and overcorrect over the yellow.
I think modern safety standards alone would cost a few hundred million in research, or make it necessary to start from an existing donar car to make the type of thing I’m dreaming of.
I doubt a modern manufacturer would want to partner with a company designed to make basic but everlasting vehicles, so the imaginary billionaire would probably need to buy up whatever car the engineers want to start from in bulk.
