Just because an LED circuit has a lot of components and an incandescent one has just a couple doesn't mean the incandescent bulb will last longer. That's just plain stupid which leads me to believe that article was written by an idiot and not what he claimed to be. Your phone has millions of circuits in it and I'll bet every single phone of everyone you know will last longer than a regular light bulb that's turned on and off a few times a day. Of course if you never turn an incandescent bulb off it will last many many years. But that doesn't happen in the real world, especially in a vehicle. GM obviously has a problem with either the design or quality of these tail light circuits. Usually it's either a solder problem or one of the components has a QC issue. I'm not sure if GM builds their electronics in-house or outsources them but it's not the number of parts in the circuit that's the problem. If electronics are built correctly with good qc and reliable components they will last nearly forever. An incandescent bulb...not. The very design of how it emits light will guarantee that- heating up an element until it glows red-hot and then asking it to go through that heating/ cooling cycle tens or hundreds of thousands of times guarantees it's life is limited. The element will eventually break due to fatigue.
