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Mercedes-Benz scales back electric ambitions as EV pessimism grows (arstechnica.com)

submitted 9 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world -5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No. The add ons are already installed. The car would not cost the manufacturer any more money. Turning on your pre-installed heated seat does not cost them any money. In fact it would have been cheaper to not install a blocking mechanism.

Except those add ons wouldn't be in the car if the OP got their way. If "its installed already turn it on for free" was the action, then manufacturers wouldn't put those addons in. They'd have to create separate versions of the cars with, say, seat heaters and not instead. That doesn't save you, the consumer, money. It makes it *more expensive for you because they now have to have separate production line options, inventory management, logistics, etc.

So now we have to pay for all this equipment on the car that we don’t want or need.

Except you're NOT paying for it. Its in there, but the manufacturer REDUCED THE CAR COST TO YOU by disabling it.

We have to pay for their subscription mechanism that’s already in the car as well. And then if we did want to use a feature, we’d have to pay that subscription to turn it on.

I've seen third party workaround options for paid seat heaters. So no, you wouldn't have to pay a subscription if you used those.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry has the cost of a car gone down at any point? No? Then it's not cheaper is it? It might be cheaper to make, but then if that's true we're paying for installed items plus an extra monopoly premium.

Which is called rent seeking behavior.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’m sorry has the cost of a car gone down at any point?

This is a bad faith statement. You're not an idiot and you're well aware that thousands of different inputs raise or lower the overall price of a car including basic things like inflationary actions which have nothing to do with the components of the car, but result in prices increases of the car.

I could probably find an equally bad faith statement indeed showing the car being cheaper because of the prior increases in 2020 during the pandemic shortage, but I'm not going to find a misleading statement to back that up just to score "points". Its not honest, and I"m not willing to do that.

If this is the level of conversation that we're now at, I think we've reach the end of it being productive.

Have a nice day.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Oh no, I'll give you inflation. But the "real" cost of an average new car hasn't ever gone down. So if they're making them for lower costs and charging DLC for them...