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Comment by itsoktocry | Hacker News Reader

>Consumers should have the option to purchase directly from the manufacturer.

They should have the option, sure.

But what difference do you think this makes in reality? The process ends up being the similar.

>but I admire the business model of buying directly from Tesla

A lot of people don't want to buy a $40,000+ item online. Tesla understands this, which is why they opened "showrooms" to have real people walk you through the process.

Oh, and let's not get started on surprise repair costs from Tesla, as if they are immune to that ridiculousness.

Saying "no stealerships" (so clever) doesn't change the fact that there's a manual process involved with buying a car.

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> But what difference do you think this makes in reality? The process ends up being the similar.

But there isn't a middleman with big facilities and staff to feed, so the resulting product can be cheaper, with the process being streamlined because the middleman's job is to milk you for all they can, meanwhile the original vendor just wants to sell their product.

> But what difference do you think this makes in reality? The process ends up being the similar.

The difference is the price listed is the price you pay. There's not an environment where the dealer is injecting whatever BS fee or piss poor financing they can to milk out every extra cent from the customer.

The manufacture is incentivized to sell these cars at the advertised price.

>The difference is the price listed is the price you pay. There's not an environment where the dealer is injecting whatever BS fee or piss poor financing they can to milk out every extra cent from the customer.

What does the "advertised price" mean, when companies like Tesla can, and do, change it on a whim? Is that really better?

No one is stopping you from walking into a dealership and paying sticker/MSRP.

What does Tesla do differently regarding changing product prices that they're worth calling out compared to other companies?

My personal experience is that they honoured my order and delivered a vehicle superior in every metric but "turning radius". (Which has a far higher price if ordered again on my delivery day)

Every company in every industry modifies products and pricing? See e.g. "shrinkflation"

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