Automotive has much higher reliability requirements than consumer devices, and since solder failures are probably the leading cause of failures using *FN parts,

Automotive has much higher reliability requirements than consumer devices, and since solder failures are probably the leading cause of failures using *FN parts, they want to have effective inspection methods to ensure devices are assembled properly. When you use parts with leads, you can easily perform all of your QA checks using machine vision (all all the components in the right place, are they correctly aligned, are the connections properly soldered, etc), but if you use parts with no leads and the solder connections are hidden, you need a separate X-ray check which takes additional time, assembly-line space, and money. Depending on the components in question, it may also be tricky to get enough contrast in the X-ray image to identify defects.