The technology is installed and fabricated, it’s just artificially locked to fake some loss in value.
Very few things in life are priced as “cost plus” pricing where the item is sold at the fabrication cost plus some fixed margin.
Just look at software. Microsoft arbitrarily removes features for non-enterprise versions of its OS.
People just get upset for some reason when the same principle is applied to a physical good.
How about computer processors? If there isn’t enough demand for higher end procs, manufacturers will sometimes reduce/lock their clock speeds and sell them at a lower price. If nobody wants to pay for the higher end performance, should they be forced to give it away for the same price as a lower end processor? Should they be forced to just throw them away or keep them in inventory until they’re obsolete?
How about wine? If there isn’t demand for a good vintage, a winery will often sell the extra wholesale to Charles Shaw to be mixed with other wines and sold at Trader Joe’s for cheap. That way they can maintain the high price (and image) of the wine they do sell to consumers. Artificial scarcity.
I would say anyone for some reason upset that they got a reduced capability vehicle for a reduced price should remember three things in this specific case:
(1) You can “upgrade” the vehicle later. You may never personally do this, but the capability will be reflected in the resale value.
(2) Because you’re only using a portion of the battery, using 100% of the range you have available will not wear the battery as much as it would if you used 100% of an equivalent battery.
(3) Similarly, you can supercharge at higher speed for a larger portion of the available battery.
Probably the only arguments I’d have against it are a) it’s a bit of a waste of resources to make batteries that largely stay dormant (less relevant if the vehicle lives long enough to wear out the battery and 2) the vehicle is slightly heavier, so it takes more energy to move.
Besides, any vehicle purchased at a traditional dealership will cost as much as the sales agent can get you to pay regardless of what it cost to make.
It seems we agree on the fact that there’s a lot of “artificial value” added in many different fields. Aren’t you concerned about that? Don’t you take that into consideration as a consumer? That’s what I’m talking about here.
Anyway yes, if a product cannot sell at full price, they should lower the price not the product like what’s happening here. And yes wineries are full of shit anyway.
Also, people won’t be “able to upgrade” they will only be able to unlock what they already bought.
Modern pricing structures allow companies to maximize their profit, but they also allow consumers to maximize the reach of their dollar.
It just so happens that it can be cheaper to manufacture one version of a product and change the features in software than it is to try to exactly predict consumer demand and minimize waste.
Would you feel better if Tesla charged the customer $1k in engineering time to pay a guy to rip out the extra batteries and button the car back up for them? What is the point of that? The end result is the same. Less range for fewer dollars. Isn’t it cheaper to just switch the batteries off in software?
The misconception is that not adding the larger battery etc. would save costs for Tesla which they would pass on to the consumer. Unfortunately, capitalism dictates they would not, thus from a consumer’s perspective there is no price disadvantage. For sure, you overpay - but in the end, you are still buying.
