In the late 1970s, General Motors started putting microprocessor-based controls in its cars. In the forty years since then, the ECU – or electronic control unit – has been the biggest source of vehicular innovation. With the use of electronic control units expected to do nothing but grow, you should understand what exactly they do and just how secure they may or may not be.
Resource for this article: The basics of electronic controls with your car By Car Deal Expert
How an ECU works
An electronic control unit, usually called ECU, is a microprocessor implanted in a car. Each ECU is usually intended for a single purpose. One ECU usually controls radio volume, when one more controls airbags. Electronic control units within a vehicle are networked with each other and with sensors that provide them with raw data. Each processor is coded (sometimes with up to 50,000 lines of code) to know how to proceed with the raw data it is being fed from the network of sensors.
The good things about an ECU
An ECU can make a system in a car more efficient, a lot more consistent, or easier to use. An electronic control sensor is used to help your fuel injectors make better use of the fuel your engine burns. An ECU also makes certain that the right airbags go off at the right time. ECU sensors are put into hybrid vehicles at about twice the density of usual, because hybrids rely so heavily on computer calculations for efficiency.
Costs of an Electronic Control Unit
About 70 percent of the development of a new car, anymore, is spent on the ECU units. Given this, it is not surprising that about 40 percent of the cost of a new car is because of the electronics. Just the software development costs for a premium car can run over one billion dollars. There is also a danger with electronic control units; recent studies have found that they’re very susceptible to hacking. A car without electronic controls could be difficult to find and keep running, however – you would have to discover a car built before the 1970s.
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