The improvements were for things governments (fuel/pollution efficiency) and insurers (safety) wanted, not necessarily you. A new 2010 Toyota likely wouldn't e

The improvements were for things governments (fuel/pollution efficiency) and insurers (safety) wanted, not necessarily you. A new 2010 Toyota likely wouldn't even be legal to sell today in many jurisdictions, and this is in fact one part of the problem. Another part of the problem is that all the big automakers need to design a new car roughly every 5 years in order to keep from losing the ability to design one at all, as people age and retire. What's really been settled on is that "minor updates every year and a major update every 5-6 years" actually does work in terms of keeping know-how to design these things, as well as handle supply chain problems. For example, if a chip you need goes EOL and you have to redesign around that, it's much better to have that happen in the last 1-2 years of your manufacturing, you do a last time buy to get through that last year, and move on. Much harder to do on a longer lifecycle: that 2010 design, sold new in 2026, and operated until 2040+. How many suppliers go out of business over 30 years, or stop making a critical component?