Electronic Component With Ground Coding for a Motor Vehicle

An electronic component includes external ground connections for connecting to a cable harness and internal ground connections electrically coupled to paired external ground connections so that the potential at each internal ground connection corresponds to the potential at the paired external ground connection. An analysis circuit determines on which internal ground connections first and second signal information is applied to infer a coding of the component from the pattern of the internal ground connections being supplied with the first and second potential. A combination circuit connects the internal ground connections to the external ground connections such that when a ground line of a cable harness is connected to precisely one of the external ground connections, the first signal information is applied to a respective different sub-quantity of internal ground connections depending on which of the external ground connections the ground line is connected to.