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Comment by zizee | Hacker News Reader

> No it's about money and who gets it.

> Owners are pushing for the first, labor wants anything except the first.

There are two important actors left out of this analysis: consumers and parts suppliers.

It doesn't fit the evil owner narrative, but often these efficiency gains translate largely to reduced prices for consumers. Consumers vote with their wallets, so it is often the case that unless the evil owners conspire against consumers by fixing prices, businesses are often forced to pass on efficiency gains as cheaper prices.

As for suppliers, a very large portion of an electric car price is in the battery. If the size of the pie is remaining the same, then this new player is taking a lot $$ off the table, offsetting efficiency gains.

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>There are two important actors left out of this analysis: consumers and parts suppliers.

This is indeed plausible and has happened for other commodities but note: 1) since the model-T, inflation adjusted consumer prices for automobiles have never dropped and 2) car manufacturers have historically replicated or bought any serious profit centers in their supply chain.

>Evil

Shareholders act in their interest, employees act in theirs. Often everyone ends up fairly satisfied. Is that not how the system is supposed to work and is describing it plainly without effusive praise now automatically suspect?

Would it still be legal to produce a model-T? I imagine it would run afoul of all sorts of quality and safety regulations.

That might be linked to the lack of price reductions. I selling a model-T were still legal it would be likely be laughably cheap.

A lot of technology improvements that would have reduced prices are eaten by increased government regulation. The consensus position is that that is a good outcome.

No, it would be unsalable. Emissions, safety, etc. Even if you made it by hand at an art-museum level of fabrication quality...no first-world government would allow its sale as a passenger vehicle.

> This is indeed plausible and has happened for other commodities but note: 1) since the model-T, inflation adjusted consumer prices for automobiles have never dropped and 2) car manufacturers have historically replicated or bought any serious profit centers in their supply chain.

While that may be true, the word 'car' is hiding all of the consumer surplus. Cars are not simply repackaged model Ts. Todays cars are orders of magnitude better in myriad ways than a model T. The fact that the price merely hasn't dropped in inflation adjusted terms really means nothing here. What consumers are getting for their money has increased dramatically.

Yes of course cars now are vastly superior. I was responding to the claim that the shift to electric will reduce gross revenue which reduce the sticker price and so explain any workforce reduction.

So we clearly agree, sticker price has not gone down since the assembly line. So to say it is happening now is not really justified. Especially since, far from say the Yugo approach, electric currently is very much billed as an improvement over petroleum (correctly imo). But while cost of ownership maybe less, nowhere is the sticker price pitched as a cheap alternative to petroleum. And this is what affects manufacturers and the point I was addressing.

>>Evil

> Shareholders act in their interest, employees act in theirs. Often everyone ends up fairly satisfied. Is that not how the system is supposed to work and is describing it plainly without effusive praise now automatically suspect?

Apologies, I think I mistakenly inserted an implied value judgement when reading your original post. Rereading your post I see that your words can be read with a neutral tone.

Nonsense. Did you ever see an i-device get cheaper? Or a cheap car get even cheaper? There is a reason why wealth inequality has grown in recent decades, while manufacturing efficiencies increased.

Strange you chose something that is essentially a luxury item instead of commodity electronics that are cheaper than ever.

It’s also interesting you chose a segment that is already at the slower end of reaping benefits of improved productivity. Reminded me of a NPR segment this week contrasting items that have room to become cheaper vs those that don’t. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767095401/the-baumol-effect-a...

By analogy, you might as well be asking if I've ever seen Rolexes get cheaper. Why are you talking about Rolexes and not watches?

Apple actually has made new iPhone 11 $50 cheaper than the phone it replaced.

Furthermore smartphones in general _have_ been getting cheaper. It's only top of the line flagships that are getting more expensive while also being much more powerful and with better (AKA more expensive) tech inside them.

The cheap car isn't the same cheap car though. Try finding a 2-door sedan with manual controls and an AM/FM radio. Even the cheapest new car has bluetooth entertainment controls and backup cameras. It also has airbags in every zone and a decent crash rating.

Nobody produces the cheap base-model car of yore, if they did they could easily do so for well under 10k. But that doesn't support the bottom line especially when you have to cut in the dealership.

The Nissan Versa is about as close as you can get and it comes in at about $10-11k.

The NHTSA has mandated backup cameras in all vehicles sold in the US as of 2018, I believe.

To be clear, cheap base-model cars are still being manufactured and sold, just not for the U.S. and other wealthy markets. They’re being sold in droves in India, Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.

This is incorrect. The inflation adjusted price of the first smart phone is ~$600. I can get a vastly more capable device shipped to my house for $129 unlocked for any carrier. The most barebones available car has steadily dropped in price relative to average income while becoming drastically safer, more reliable, and lasting longer.

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