Yes, automotive manufacturing is a tiered system with the OEMs (Tesla, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen etc) at Tier 0. Tier 1 suppliers deliver high level, ready to ins

Yes, automotive manufacturing is a tiered system with the OEMs (Tesla, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen etc) at Tier 0. Tier 1 suppliers deliver high level, ready to install components like radios, seats, electronic control modules, etc Tier 2 suppliers deliver subcomponents like boards Tier 3 deliver chips etc OEMs generally come up with a list of component requirements like temp ranges and wearability/durability. The supplier community then bids based on that spec. Of course once one OEM asks for something, it becomes to other OEMs after a period of time; so there are a LOT of common components and subcomponents. Engineering for those specs and testing and proving that you conform to those specs both costs a lot of money and is worth a lot to OEMs who have to provide warranties to their customers. Edit: The supplier contract also makes the supplier responsible for warrantee on that component; the OEM bears final responsibility, but they will try to make the supplier pay for component failures when they can. (This is not precisely correct, I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer) Disclaimer/source: I work for GM, not on vehicle engineering. Everything in this comment is solely my own opinion