Still wondering why make physical ignition switches that actually mechanically cut the flow of electricity.
For years, cars have been equipped with all kinds of 'convenience' electric components such as Bluetooth, touch panels, and on top of that all critical elements in the engine have been controlled by an ECU for decades -- yet still only some cars have electrically, not mechanically, controlled ignition.
The car key doesn't even have to be wireless: you could still have the lock and ignition key as now if you really wanted but turning the key would only give a signal to the car's computer to wake up from sleep, authenticate the key, close the main circuits electrically to let the components start drawing the big current from the battery, and start booting sequence, self-tests etc. and eventually drive current to the starter motor to crank the engine up.
That's a huge number of things to do, and it had best be left for the computer to handle. Pulling the key from the physical ignition switch is aking to starting and stopping your PC by pulling and inserting the plug from/to the wall socket. You'd better push the suspend button and let your laptop put itself to sleep and let it wake up by itself.
It's also much easier to design a system that will handle startup and shutdown by itself, rather than a system that must survive opening and closing the main circuits at any time.
I think there's a change happening, some new cars can be started by button-press when the transponder (replacement for the key) is somewhere in the car (e.g. in your trousers' pocket).
And then, of course there's the other aspect that in some cases you absolutely want to be able to cut power to your engine. Wasn't that exactly the case with Toyotas drive-by-wire throttles that apparently made people unable to stop their cars?
Still: When you look at the electrical system for, e.g. a commercial airplane, you'll see a dozen different independent power-supply busses that can be fed from each other, different engines, or batteries. So that in case of power-loss in one or a few of them, not all safety critical systems black-out.
I don't claim that such complexity is helpful or desirable in a car, but with the majority of drivers relying on computerized systems it probably makes sense to make power supplies more redundant.
{probably that's already happening, and I'm just unaware of it?}
Because its cheaper to put a $1-5 mechanical switch in than to put a smart key system. Yet again, cost is the driving factor. How many lawsuits would you need due to ignition switch failures before smart keys for all cars was cheaper? A lot.
For years, cars have been equipped with all kinds of 'convenience' electric components such as Bluetooth, touch panels, and on top of that all critical elements in the engine have been controlled by an ECU for decades -- yet still only some cars have electrically, not mechanically, controlled ignition.
The car key doesn't even have to be wireless: you could still have the lock and ignition key as now if you really wanted but turning the key would only give a signal to the car's computer to wake up from sleep, authenticate the key, close the main circuits electrically to let the components start drawing the big current from the battery, and start booting sequence, self-tests etc. and eventually drive current to the starter motor to crank the engine up.
That's a huge number of things to do, and it had best be left for the computer to handle. Pulling the key from the physical ignition switch is aking to starting and stopping your PC by pulling and inserting the plug from/to the wall socket. You'd better push the suspend button and let your laptop put itself to sleep and let it wake up by itself.
It's also much easier to design a system that will handle startup and shutdown by itself, rather than a system that must survive opening and closing the main circuits at any time.