Comment by nradov
4 months ago
Ferrari will sell all that they make. If you want to purchase one of the highly desirable low-volume models you can't just walk into a dealership and write a check. You first have to purchase a few of the high-volume models to earn enough "points" on their internal customer priority list. A lot of rich guys will buy a Luce just for that purpose, and then leave it in their garage or maybe drive it to the country club occasionally.
For the type of buyer you describe this vehicle parked in the garage, to speculate, may be capable of doing double duty as an automated battery backup for the estate nearby to store energy during times of excess grid capacity and to discharge during periods of high demand or grid interuptions. I would be interested to know if the vehicle includes this capability, or if it could be easily modified to offer this capability. Probably is preferable to an onsite diesel generator for example even if it is not an exactly comparable situation, just due to lower local emissions.
You've got to be kidding. The people who can afford multiple luxury cars aren't going to mess around using them as backup batteries just to save a few bucks on generators for their mansions.
It not a killer feature, granted. I would be willing to bet that the cost of the engineering to develop and support this feature as a default capability for the fleet of all vehicles would be less than the value of energy saved ammortized over the lifetime of all relevant vehicles.
wow. I never cease to marvel at the companies that make you jump through hoops in order to give them your money. chesterton had a good passage on that in his father brown mysteries (highly recommended to any fan of the genre):
The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners. It was that topsy-turvy product—an “exclusive” commercial enterprise. That is, it was a thing which paid not by attracting people, but actually by turning people away. In the heart of a plutocracy tradesmen become cunning enough to be more fastidious than their customers. They positively create difficulties so that their wealthy and weary clients may spend money and diplomacy in overcoming them. If there were a fashionable hotel in London which no man could enter who was under six foot, society would meekly make up parties of six-foot men to dine in it. If there were an expensive restaurant which by a mere caprice of its proprietor was only open on Thursday afternoon, it would be crowded on Thursday afternoon.
Yeah the fact that Rolex and Hermes fanboys/girls get so suckered into it and applaud them for it is pretty bizarre. Even believing Rolex has a limited capacity for making ten grand watches out of €5 of metal parts.
I sometimes wonder whether listening to Public Enemy rap “Don’t believe the hype” at a young age wired me for life.