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Comment by JohnJamesRambo | Hacker News Reader

Automakers will say and probably rightfully so, it was never about the software it was about the nuts and bolts of making large amounts of vehicles and the act of actually selling them to dealerships. It probably turns out automakers do it the way they do it because it is the best way to make money and not because they are stupid.

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Nuts and bolts are becoming commodotized by the day, as they do in any other industry frankly. EVs are a huge accelerator of this process because they are a fraction of the complexity of an IC drivetrain.

The supply chains in automotive are also becoming more dominant and most of the stuff in your car is sourced from Aptive or Bosch or Continental or whoever.

So it's not just a commodity yet, but it will be - especially towards the lower third echelon of the market - in a decade or two (a decade is not long in auto industry terms; it's merely two product cycles).

What was not commoditized in automobiles in the seventies that is now?

We'll just keep waiting :)

The global supply chain was in its infancy. You had national suppliers, but nothing like the multinationals you see today.

The number of automakers in the 1970s was much higher and the number of unique models (vs dress ups like GM does across brands) was higher still.

Virtually no mass market car brand was formed in the last four decades, other than Tesla.

Bosch was founded in 1897. Here Japanese cars made it big in the eighties. Korean cars in the last ten years. A local factory has produced Saab (now defunct), Porsche and now Mercedes cars, spanning about five decades? Maybe some consolidation but also I think there's a high amount of constant flux.

The ICE drivetrain is arguably the least complex part of a modern car. Converting to electric reduces some complexity, adds some, but fundamentally it's still a car. Nuts, bolts, ECUs, brakes, etc -- all of these have been commoditized for decades. What the manufacturer is bringing to the table is the structure. From the way it looks to the way it crumples in a crash, that is arguably the single most critical element of a car and I don't see any commoditization going on there. And those are two of the biggest decision makers for buyers.

How is a dealership network more intrinsic to success than physical bookstores? Auto dealers are demonstrably not the best way to make money for a manufacturer. This is why dealers use legal means to prevent companies from selling cars without dealers.

If you need laws to protect your business plan, your business plan is probably not the best way to make money for anyone but you.

Was the best way to do it maybe.

I work in the industry and you would be shocked at how sluggish these companies have gotten.

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