That’s an interesting question to discuss! Specifically I would like to know, “what does the automotive industry optimize for”? What is it good at, and how is that decided?
It’s apparently not optimized for vehicle longevity, ease of repair, and low total cost of car ownership. As much was quite clear to me from my research when writing my article “Automotive Nightmares”. (That article has quite some absurd and funny anecdotes about contemporary cars … and later a client told me some more. Enjoy 
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What was not clear to me, and it has been an open question ever since, are the organizational mechanisms that nudged or forced automakers to create these products, rather than cars optimized for reliability, low resource consumption, longevity, ease of repair and so on. I’m not assuming it is anyone’s personal fault – it’s also not just one automaker “at fault”, it’s rather our whole socio-economic system. As much is clear. But what are the forces in our current system that created this situation, how exactly did they have that effect, and what are our options for reversing this damage?
I’ll try to make it to the event’s call and join the Q&A about that. If not possible, I’ll explain my questions here so you can discuss it anyway if you like.