Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1546933
16 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2026 than focusing primarily on batteries, range, and vehicle performance, like many publications do. I want to acknowl- edge the invaluable help I received from Tracy Riggan at the Global Electronics Association, who kept this train on the rails, so to speak. We started this series with an overview of the EV landscape and then moved through power electronics, vehicle controls, high-voltage auxiliary systems, ADAS and connectivity, charging infrastructure, and the materials and manufacturing technologies behind them. The final article brought those topics together through field failures, monitoring, qualification, and standards. You can certainly choose an individual article that interests you, but when you read the series as a whole, I think you begin to see how interconnected EV reliability really is. That was a major takeaway for me: the holistic ap- proach you applied to the entire system, looking at the car not as a bunch of subsystems but as a whole, and discussing how that interaction made a huge difference in identifying the design and power management challenges that we face in an electric vehicle. Thank you for saying that. I saw a gap between the tremendous attention being given to EV innovation and the little attention paid to the long-term reli- ability of the electronics that make that innovation possible. We hear a great deal about battery range, charging speed, high voltage architectures, autono- mous features, and software-defined vehicles. But every one of those advances places additional demands on electronic components, materials, interconnects, PCB assemblies, and manufacturing processes; all things that SMT007 readers are inter- ested in. My background has been in automotive elec- tronics materials, manufacturing, and reliability, so I wanted to look at electrification from that perspec- tive. I also thought this series was particularly rele- vant to the SMT007 audience because many of the answers ultimately come back to what this industry knows very well: material selection, PCB design, soldering, cleanliness, coatings, intercon- nects, process control, testing, and failure analysis. EVs may be changing operating conditions, but electronics manu- facturers already possess much of the knowledge needed to address the reliability challenge they face. The key drivers of our development in the industry are AI/data centers and ve- hicles of all types, especially when you consid- er infotainment systems, safety sensors, and the like. So, overcoming environmental extremes and long-term usage is a huge challenge. How does a design team respond to that, and do you see those responses trickling down into other sectors, not just automotive? I don't think EV reliability will be isolated at all. In fact, some of that technology transfer is already going in both directions. The automotive industry has historically learned from aerospace, indus- trial, telecommunications, and other high-reliability sectors. EVs are now creating their own demanding reliability proving ground because they combine high voltage, high power, harsh environments, advanced electronics, connectivity, software, and very high production volumes, all under immense cost and safety pressures. The lessons learned in wide-bandgap power electronics, high-voltage insulation, thermal management, contamination control, predictive maintenance, advanced interconnects, and accel- erated testing can translate to renewable energy storage, industrial power electronics, aerospace, data centers, robotics, and other high-power elec- tronic systems. So, rather than EV reliability existing as a special- ized branch of automotive engineering, it can become an important technology driver for high reliability electronics more broadly. This is truly a paradigm shift in the automotive industry. Traditionally, electronics and automotive followed the other sectors I mentioned, with years of work devoted to understanding the reliability of new components in other industries before auto- motive had an opportunity to work with them. Stan Rak