Apple replaces the whole motherboard. That’s not repair, that’s at least $1500 worth of electronics thrown away for pro max models.

That's the expedient field repair, but what happens to the motherboard afterword?

They're under no obligation to replace your motherboard with a "new" one, so it's possible that it goes back to the repair depot for actual diagnostics and repair by better trained and equipped technicians.

I have no idea, maybe they do just shred it and melt it down, but it sure doesn't seem efficient for Apple to simply toss the motherboard rather than try to repair it themselves, otherwise the repair would be vastly more expensive -- AppleCare or not.

They charge you the full price of the motherboard when it’s out of warranty. Third party services can replaces SSDs on non-m1 models for 20-30% of what’s Apple charges.

I bet if the ECU in your car dies a technician is unable to open it and replace anything. Everything has to have a limit. How many Xboxes were thrown away because of one bad component? It sucks, but if the company has at least some program in place to try to recover as much as possible from damaged/used parts, then that's a bonus. And Apple seems to have a decent program for their iPhones at least with robots to tear them into component pieces for recycling.

At least they don't replace the whole engine when the ECU fails. That would be more like what Apple is doing.

They don't throw the motherboard away. It is recycled/upcycled.

If they didn't, their own warranty and repair program would be a money black hole.

Everything is soldiers to the mainboard, so there's no parts to swap. They swap the whole board.