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Comment by sliken | Hacker News Reader

I can't talk percentages. But it's pretty common for most of the parts needed for an optional feature to be included. Things like wiring harneses for optional subwoofers, foglights, etc.

Heating pads start around $15.00 on amazon, seems easy to believe it's cheaper to make only seats with heating integrated instead of making two part numbers, doubling the overhead for seat inventory, make the assembly line more complex, making the order system more complex, documentation, testing, doubling the overhead for car inventory, handling additional order complexity etc.

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>But it's pretty common for most of the parts needed for an optional feature to be included.

No, this isn't "pretty common". I've worked on a variety of automotive assembly lines and have never seen it. Why would you waste the money? It's trivial to not include parts you don't need, because the lines are designed that way.

Thinking about it some more, there must be a break even point. Having many configurations means a higher initial development, testing and tooling effort. This breaks even only if the savings per unit accumulate to offset that overhead. So Tesla might be big enough for serious automation, but not yet big enough for actual prodyct customization on the factory floor. Pure speculation, though.

I just looked up how to add fog lights to the Subaru forester without fog lights. Turns out you need the lights and the switch, and no wiring.

for all we know Tesla want to make on demand style manufacturing of vehicles possible.

Car micropayments? "Don't freeze your butt off! Get an hour of warm seats for just $1.99"

This is really intriguing to think about, black mirror season 6? (Haven't watched 5 yet, no spoilers)

Spoiler alert: compared to the other seasons, these ones are pretty crap and unengaging.

$2 the two times a year I need them versus $1000 for having them all the time?

Sold!

They're only $2 in summer. In winter they're $100 a pop.

They can do surge pricing during winter. Imagine you get in your car its freezing and maybe you would pay 10 dollars for the seat warmer. Or maybe you are almost out of range and then you get a pop up for 100 dollars we will unlock that last 20 miles. You already have airlines and Free to play games nickel and diming you to death.

Somebody had foreseen this:

"The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."

Philip K. Dick, Ubik

Why use tesla then? Nissan is generous about this and allows anyone to turn the heat in your car over the internet

https://youtube-nocookie.com/embed/PP9DgLUBMUM?t=2832

>for all we know Tesla want to make on demand style manufacturing of vehicles possible.

How do you think modern JIT auto manufacturing works? And what if I told you that Tesla is, in fact, doing the opposite most of the time, by building in batches of cars and holding inventory? Why do we continue to attribute to Elon "inventions" that already exist?

What do you mean by on demand style? German automotive factories build to order. Wvery car in the factory floor has its specific configuration and the companies have invested decades of effort into production processes that allow them to have the properly customized parts and subassemblies arrive on time and in the proper order at the production lane.

What could be better than this?

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