To judge by what I've seen lately cars have started becoming full of tablets and tablet-like screens, those things will be expensive if not impossible to repair in 10-years' time.

The future is now.

Sourcing a CANBUS module for a 10+yo car is already a roll of the dice. Take all the modules that are required for the vehicle to operate, are matched to the VIN, can't be re-flashed, aren't available aftermarket and aren't made by the OEM anymore and anything that breaks where those sets intersect turns the vehicle into a brick. The list gets a little longer every day and won't get shorter until we get right to repair legislation with teeth.

You can drive a car without all the fancy electronic doodads. Everyone who drives a 20+yo car does it every day. You can't drive a vehicle that won't start because it doesn't see some quasi-essential (e.g. ABS) module talking on the bus.

>Take all the modules that are required for the vehicle to operate, are matched to the VIN, can't be re-flashed, aren't available aftermarket and aren't made by the OEM anymore and anything that breaks where those sets intersect turns the vehicle into a brick.

I'm starting to doubt this more and more. Dumping the ROM from a read-only chip and flashing a new one isn't rocket science. After watching stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqWhId-tQXs&t=9m31s and guys like Dave Jones and Louis Rossman, it looks like the entire repair industry is long due for disruption. Sure, finding old or obsolete parts will still be a problem, but not impossible.

It's already expensive. The Entune head unit in my Corolla would cost me $1000 for an OEM replacement (they have a known touchscreen issue), but an aftermarket head unit with way more features may run me ~$400 including a mounting kit, and that's if I splurge on a nice one. I may give up a few features by switching, but certainly not $600 worth of features.