Pay Up: GMC Hummer EV Taillights Cost $6100 to Replace
caranddriver.com
caranddriver.com
"GM confirmed the price of the taillight to Car and Driver and explained the reason: each light has a microconductor in the housing that allows the individual lights to perform their respective animations."
Not sure what a 'microconductor' means, but any reasonable microcontroller that exists on the market for controlling something as simple as headlight automations shouldn't cost more than a few dollars, even in an automotive variant. Sounds more like price gouging to me.
GM has almost certainly forced some subcontractor to bear the risk of holding the required inventory for the legally required repair period. That subcontractor worked out the cost per item to be able to do this--especially for something qualified as a safety system.
This price has very little to do with material cost and everything to do with outsourcing.
Exactly. Unless each taillight is run by a gold-plated Mac Studio there’s no reason for them to be that expensive.
I think even GM realised that the only people who buy Hammers are those with a lot of money and little knowledge in cars.
Automotive retail and repair is not a pretty business if you follow the money. The full dealership retail price of some of the plastic parts with no electronics in them can be over 95% markup. The logic is that because there are so many dealers and so many brands of almost identical cars, the honest dealers need to make money on repairs or starve, and cars are getting so reliable that they have to make so much money on so few repairs that you don't even want to know how much.