Failsafe operation of vehicle electronic control unit

A vehicle control device that executes a function to control a motor vehicle, comprising:

• a failure detection unit that receives operational state information indicating operational states of a plurality of hardware components in the motor vehicle and determines whether one or more of the plurality of hardware components includes a failure based on the received operational state information, the plurality of hardware components being in communication with and separate from the vehicle control device;
• a functional failure determination unit that receives failure information indicating the determined failure of the one or more hardware components and determines, based on the received failure information, a functional failure level from a plurality of functional failure levels, each indicating a degree of an impact on a behavior of a system comprising the plurality of hardware components;
• and
• a failsafe control unit that performs a failsafe operation corresponding to the determined functional failure level;
• wherein the functional failure determination unit determines, without depending on a hardware component type and a number of the plurality of hardware components, the functional failure level according to a combination of any number of hardware components determined to include a failure and any number of hardware components determined to not include a failure, and
• wherein the failsafe control unit specifies the failsafe operation corresponding to the functional failure level determined by the functional failure determination unit, and performs the specified failsafe operation.