I remember when tesla was young and elon talked about selling electric cars through dealers. He said it would not work, they would not be advocates, they would prevent sales.

And I think that is spot on.

I also suspect internally the thinking is that the f150 lightning costs more to make than sell, which means it won't get strong advocacy.

Thing is, I'm 100% certain years of tesla vehicles cost more to make than they sold for, just in the nature of developing new things.