What happens to a car when the company behind its software goes under?

Imagine turning the key or pressing the start button of your car—and 
nothing happens. Not because the battery is dead or the engine is broken 
but because a server no longer answers. For a growing number of cars, that 
scenario isn’t hypothetical.

As vehicles become platforms for software and subscriptions, their 
longevity is increasingly tied to the survival of the companies behind 
their code. When those companies fail, the consequences ripple far beyond 
a bad app update and into the basic question of whether a car still 
functions as a car.

Over the years, automotive software has expanded from performing 
rudimentary engine management and onboard diagnostics to powering today’s 
interconnected, software-defined vehicles. Smartphone apps can now handle 
tasks like unlocking doors, flashing headlights, and preconditioning 
cabins—and some models won’t unlock at all unless a phone running the 
manufacturer’s app is within range.

However, for all the promised convenience of modern vehicle software, 
there’s a growing nostalgia for an era when a phone call to a mechanic 
could resolve most problems. Mechanical failures were often diagnosable 
and fixable, and cars typically returned to the road quickly. Software-
defined vehicles complicate that model: When something goes wrong, a car 
can be rendered inoperable in a driveway—or stranded at the side of the 
road—waiting not for parts but a software technician.

It’s already happening
Take the example of Fisker. In May 2023, the California auto brand arrived 
in Britain with its Ocean Sport before filing for bankruptcy just one year 
later. Priced from £35,000 ($44,000)—although top-spec trims pushed the 
price to £60,000 ($75,000)—the all-electric Tesla Model Y rival featured 
tech including a partially retracting roof and a rotating BYD-like 
touchscreen. All cars also carried a six-year/62,000-mile (99,779 km) 
warranty, with the battery and powertrain covered for 10 years or 100,000 
miles (160,934 km).

Before Fisker’s 2024 bankruptcy, just 419 Fisker Oceans made it into 
British driveways. One unfortunate buyer, a marketing manager from 
Southampton, experienced the worst of the brand’s teething troubles. After 
taking delivery, her Ocean was plagued by persistent software glitches. 
Following a call to Fisker, engineers were dispatched to collect the 
vehicle for repairs, but when the car was due to be collected, it refused 
to start. Mere days later, Fisker declared insolvency, leaving the Ocean 
stranded as a 5,500 lb (2,500 kg) driveway ornament for the next ten 
months with no solution in sight.

Preceding Fisker, there was Better Place. Founded in 2007, Better Place 
wasn’t a car manufacturer but an EV infrastructure and software company 
that promised to solve range anxiety through battery-swap stations. Its 
entire model relied on centralized servers, subscriptions, and proprietary 
software to authenticate vehicles and manage battery exchanges. The 
flagship car for this system was the Renault Fluence Z.E., an electric 
sedan sold primarily in Israel and Denmark.

Better Place filed for bankruptcy in May 2013 after burning through $850 
million, leading to Renault closing the Fluence Z.E’s Turkish assembly 
line. Servers were shut down, battery-swap stations stopped operating, and 
backend software used for authentication, charging, and fleet management 
disappeared, leaving many cars bricked.

These cases highlight a broader shift in the auto industry, where long-
term ownership is increasingly dependent not just on mechanical durability 
but on continued access to proprietary software and manufacturer support.

“When a modern car’s software misbehaves, you don’t fix it yourself—you 
call the manufacturer,” said Stuart Masson, founder and editor of The Car 
Expert. “They control the code. At that point, you’re not dealing with a 
traditional service department so much as an IT help desk.”

That dependence, Masson warned, becomes a critical failure mode when the 
manufacturer disappears. “Sooner or later, every owner risks a Fisker-
style scenario, where the company is gone and there’s nothing you can do 
about it.”

While informal owner communities have begun attempting to reverse-engineer 
and distribute unofficial software updates, Masson is blunt about the 
risks. “You’re trusting that someone on the Internet actually knows what 
they’re doing,” he said. “If they don’t, the consequences might not be 
that Android Auto simply stops working but instead an airbag deploying at 
70 mph.”

While buying a second-hand Fisker in the UK is a high-risk move, more 
established manufacturers generally have contingency plans if a critical 
software partner goes under. In practice, that usually means issuing 
recalls or pushing over-the-air fixes to affected vehicles. Warranty 
coverage should handle most issues for newer cars, but the story gets 
murkier on the used market.

Out of warranty
Take a decade-old Tesla Model S, for example: You might snag one at a 
bargain price, but there’s no guarantee Tesla will continue supporting it 
indefinitely. When a manufacturer drops software support, the car isn’t 
just at risk of breaking down—it becomes a potential cybersecurity 
liability. In a world where vehicles are increasingly defined by their 
code, running unsupported software is akin to leaving your router exposed 
to the Internet. You may have a functioning car today, but there’s no 
telling when—or how—it could stop running.

“Many teams, such as McLaren, who have F1 cars from the 1990s, require a 
1990s-era laptop running an old Windows operating system, along with 
specialized interface hardware, for maintenance and to start the car,” 
Masson said. “We are up against time here, but it could be that brands 
like Tesla release its code, allowing people to use it. Who knows?”

The problem isn’t solely on the consumer; manufacturers shoulder a 
significant portion of the risk as well. One potential mitigation is 
standardization. Enter Catena-X, a collaborative data network connecting 
OEMs, suppliers, and IT vendors. By creating traceable digital records for 
parts and software—and standardizing data models and APIs for 
interoperability—Catena-X aims to make supply chains more resilient and 
software dependencies less catastrophic when a critical partner 
disappears.

When asked how OEMs can map software dependencies and mitigate vendor 
insolvency, Catena-X Managing Director Hanno Focken told Ars that “Catena-
X supports software bills of materials and standardizes certain components 
to make software replaceable, plus a marketplace and open-source reference 
implementation helps OEMs find alternative vendors.”

The industry also shares responsibility in defining minimum operational 
lifespans for vehicle software. “As an association, Catena-X can 
facilitate shared industry commitments and consensus (e.g., data retention 
policies like a 10-year battery passport requirement), but it does not act 
as a regulator setting mandatory lifespans,” added Focken.

The lesson is clear: In today’s cars, the engine or electric motor isn’t 
always what keeps you moving—the software does. When that software 
vanishes with a bankrupt company, your car can go from daily driver to 
expensive paperweight overnight. And in the age of software-defined 
vehicles, owning a car increasingly means betting on the survival of its 
code. When that code dies, the driveway or highway—not the repair 
shop—becomes the final stop.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/02/what-happens-to-a-car-when-the-
company-behind-its-software-goes-under/