ÆCIII
Well-known member
I agree it shouldn't be exactly an 'Elon' or 'Tesla' thing, and I agree also that focus should be on product and efficiency. But in order to have that efficiency while delivering products to the people, it needs to be done without excess skimmers and middlemen (media and dealers) between the manufactured product and the buyer. Even if at times their parasitic cut is small, giving dealers and media normalized roots in the process, is a fundamental detriment.
Recently Ford has shown enlightenment of this glaring reality, by addressing the problems of dealerships. The fact that many state dealer associations are trying to fight Ford for wanting a more efficient approach, only underscores how corrupt and greedy many dealers are. I hope Ford continues on this more efficient path successfully. Regardless I think many buyers are becoming wiser to how dealers are.
Legacy car brands have become quite expert at 'dressing up' their (product) presentation to project they have an advanced, lean, and efficient manufacturing system, whilst hiding all the actual money cuts and distributions that happen from gross revenue to the various players in the dealer model.
But, if one looks closer, they can see some glaring signs over the past twenty years or more, of lacking agility for innovation and burdensome approaches to change. One is their constant over-emphasis and advertising promotion of 'model-years'. If they are really trying to over-promote a new fascia or bumper trim, slight body effect, or minor features introduced that were actually feasible years earlier, then that's a red flag where major innovation is not progressing very fast behind the scenes. A large visible point of overhead (literally) are the dealership buildings and properties themselves, often with expensive leased or bought prime commercial real estate, with overly grandiose buildings with lots of glass and huge signage decor, extensive lot spaces, landscaping, etc. These grandiose dealerships cost a lot of money, which customers pay for whenever they purchase a car from them. Tesla stores and service centers are usually simpler, but are budgeted for carefully out of wider margins instead of compressed margins that are pressuring the dealer to inflate someone's cost. Another sign is legacy auto slicing of features, accessories, and parts to glean money in order to compensate for compressed margins. Dealers and manufacturers have often tried to charge many separate fees for features and services that really could've been included with the car, or bundled into larger option packages. One example is navigation map updates, which many dealer networks charge hundreds of dollars for, while Tesla simply includes those in free OTA updates. Legacy dealer markups on parts is also widely known. Dealer margins are inherently compressed because they are an additional (and unnecessary) sales participant to the manufacturer whose margins also got compressed by outside dealer participation. Over the past few decades, most dealerships have also integrated the buyer financing process, because it is not only a convenience to help nudge buyers into a purchase, but it is also an additional margin generator and adds murky ambiguity to a purchase contract with everything is being done at one place. This has been relied on so much by dealers, that one of their first staple questions to the buyer is, "...are you going to be financing or paying cash?", because they need to know what approach they should use for gleaning more money out of the customer, and many dealers have shown disappointment when customers say they're paying cash. Dealers often give 'special prices', or buying incentives only if the buyer finances with them.
Fundamentally, Tesla has been smart, more efficient, and more ethical by staying out of the dealer games and establishment nonsense. This has allowed Tesla to remain financially more healthy and wisely use their resources for serious and real innovation.
So to me, 'the greater good' is focusing on the product and the customer, without skimmers and middlemen in between. Parasitic siphoning of gross revenue by dealers and media, does actually rob from the product substance, because the manufacturer must compromise that product substance in order to sell it cheaper to the dealers, so that dealers can still have overhead room for their own markups while marketing the car as still 'reasonably' priced to buyers. What often attempts to compensate for this reduced substance, is a lot of advertising fluff, glitter, and sales talk. In the end, the car gets sold, but the manufacturer has a lot less capital to innovate with as a result of this stagnant model, and the buyer ends up getting less too.
Even if a legacy company made a so called 'good' EV, I won't be there to evaluate it seriously unless they've also dumped media and dealers from their process. Because regardless of how 'good' a model is reviewed or hyped to be - if media and dealers were part of that process then it could've been a way way better product without them.
So to me for true efficiency and substance, it's not just a 'product' thing, but rather a 'product' and 'business model' thing. That's why Tesla is such a 'breath of fresh (and clean) air'.
- ÆCIII
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