The Infineon high-side switches have both current limiting and thermal shutdown. In their marketing literature (am I a fool for believing them?) they say that their switches can replace both a relay and a fuse. The switch will thermally cycle if the wiring is short circuited. While this is certainly unacceptable for long term use, I think it would be acceptable for my uses.

Hallo Lee,

I was thinking about the routing from battery to each solid state switch, not the routing behind. In a normal car, battery cable (+12V) is routed very carefully to relais/fuse box. Also, the contacts of relais/fuse box are designed in such a way, that an accidantly short circuit is very unprobable. If your design is similar in that point, then you might be right in your doing.

I'm a bit paranoid in terms of fuses, after having seen a cockpit burning, when someone installed car radio and wanted to save time by omitting a fuse. He didn't want to search for the right battery link and just connected radio to thick red wire at relais/fuse box. Although car radio had some fuse at terminal, unfortunately, cable to relais/fuse box wasn't protected by a fuse and by fumbling with fingers in cockpit suddenly smoke came out and after some seconds whole cockpit was burning. Happily, a friend of this man (me!) could rapidly unplug ground terminal of car battery, and with the help of a towel fire could be extinguished in last moment...

Bye,
Kai