The only reason the stuff is there is because not putting it on certain cars and putting it on others would be more expensive that putting it on all cars. So they took the approach to put everything and simply lock it depending on the consumer needs. That and the fact that some people change their minds and it allows to unlock features after they have bought their vehicle.

It is not price gouging. They are selling them cheaper because it has less features, that’s it. If you add features you pay more. The difference it’s that the hardware is there already, but that doesn’t matter, the price isn’t just the hardware. If it required hardware changes the exact same would happen but the costs of building the car would go up due the increase in complexity of the construction for the car.

If all the cars had all the features unlocked you simply would pay more per vehicle, they wouldn’t suddenly become cheaper.

A separate thing is the subscriptions models… That I agree is completely gouging.

There is a full-option car to reduce assembly line complexity which reduces the manufacturing cost. You have one line and components building one car and then you can pay for what you want. If they build a separate line for a cheaper car it won’t be as cheap anymore. Subscriptions, on the other hand, is a different business model and I don’t agree with subscriptions for cars.