Nope. Single production line, where some parts are put on certain vehicles and some aren't. The only 'extra' effort here is that you do or don't put that equipment on the vehicle.
As my edit pointed out, two production lines for the chairs. This costs far more money than just the parts.
Do you really think they AREN'T going to have a general price increase when they do this to offset the cost of putting all this equipment on every vehicle, and THEN charge the subscription fee to enable the features?
No, I'm pretty sure that standardizing the chair saves some money (certainly not enough to cover the entire cost, but definitely some), and the rest is made up in the subscription service. There's also the chance that they were going to offer it on every car anyway, in which case this is more of a cheaper option for people who
don't want heated seats while charging people who do slightly more.
However, underneath it is a definite push against private property and ownership as we know it, particularly when it comes to basic necessities, as part of a authoritarian Marxist push. The lolberts and ancaps don't seem to grock this though.
First, don't use 'grock' when you don't even know how to spell grok. Second, that you think this radical enviromentalists are in charge here, and not just people who want your money is just dumb. Seriously, the subscription based model is something being pushed in a lot of places because it is profitable and it works.
The consumer doesn't get hit by sticker shock, and the company gets a consistent stream of revenue. It's done with
tons of stuff where it makes more sense (spotify, software licensing in general, streaming services, etc) and so people look at that, see it's profitable, and want to try it out on other stuff to see if it's profitable there too.
There's no great conspiracy, just people wanting money.
No you don't. Do you not know anything about production? Any line is not going to be making exactly the same thing 100% of the time. Things are produced in batches which vary in size based on orders.
Fair, and no, I'm not read up on how production lines work. I'm pretty sure not having to switch would save some money though. Obviously not a huge amount, but it would allow for easier/greater automation if they don't have to alter how part of the supply line works. Alternatively, maybe it's just not turning on a specific machine? In which case they are still effectively losing money by not making the higher value products when it costs a semi-similar amount.
And yet it actually increases cost to have them installed on the off chance whoever buys a car will buy into this service vs. just offering a more baseline trim model which doesn't have them and having other higher trim versions which have them.
Yes, it's more expensive than the baseline. Never disputed that. But it would be cheaper than the
Yet. You should've seen what's going on with "right to repair" by now, though, to know better what this is a sign of. Also, you are most certainly paying for those subscription items whether you pay to actually use them or not.
No, I'm not? No money's leaving my pocket, so I'm not getting your point here. As for right to repair, it is definitely important, but it exists largely because of government interference with the DMCA. If it wasn't for that, people would just reverse engineer stuff, and the free market could handle it. Right to Repair is a bandaid on top of a wound that's still being inflicted.
Yet. They're not doing it yet. As Captain X points out, that will quickly change; and choosing to not buy the product isn't an option in an oligopoly. Which is the system we have; not a free market.
We aren't in a oligopoly with cars. Seriously, there's at least a dozen companies with a fairly split market share, along with the huge used car marketshare that nets them nothing. None of them have real control over prices. Seriously, we have non-free markets, but cars? That ain't where it is. Oh, it's not perfect, it's not even great. We have a complete lack of the dead cheap Indian cars for example (which are cheap in part because of having no features, including safety features) because of dumb regulations, but honestly, the used car market really keeps it in check.
One can cheat the customer while still coming across as honest to them. Just look at Captain X schooling you on the actual cost of these heated seat subscriptions, if you want an example of how. They're taking advantage of people's ignorance (and their stubborn refusal to admit when they're wrong) to make it seem like what they're doing isn't a scam; which it is.
... No, it isn't a scam or fraud, and certainly doesn't merit government action. Seriously, where are they lying? You either don't know what you are talking about, or are just conflating definitions of things to arrive at the point you want. Again, a company is offering a service at a price point. They aren't lying about the service, the pricepoint, or colluding.
That's not fraud. What you describe?
Not fraud.
