[CamperBob2]

I've never bought into that reasoning on the automotive side. Selling "one million of this device," as you say, will bring in $20 billion. So yes, they can afford $20K to do the job right.

Also, SMT resistors at that quantity level are more like 1/10 of a cent, not 2 cents, and the PnP machine is running anyway. In fact you often end up using more resistors than strictly necessary, just because the machine holds a limited number of reels and it's cheaper to use more of the same part to arrive at a desired value than to add a new line item.

Things should be as cheap as possible, but no cheaper. Optimizing the cost of individual resistors is almost always a classic example of measuring the wrong thing. We should strive to avoid making excuses for doing that.