I bet a lot of the cost is the plastic, as the design I've seen from pictures would require fairly expensive molds as they would have to have moving parts (I wo

I bet a lot of the cost is the plastic, as the design I've seen from pictures would require fairly expensive molds as they would have to have moving parts (I wouldn't be surprised if the molds were $500k for just the body). Complex molds also need more time on the machine so the price per part goes up. Also, do to the size, there are fewer places with machines that big so the manufacturer has more leverage to get a higher rate. They could have also specified the wrong class of molding to make the coolers as they could have hired the wrong engineer to design it for them. They could have specified traditional injection molding rather than blow molding or other techniques more suitable for large cheap plastic objects. Injection molding machines that can do small parts (dozen cm square at most) are very common, and time on them is cheap ($10k for mold + <$0.25/part). Large Machines (1m, also with a large draw) are rare, and the per-part price alone can make the $180 product impossible, as they would need the outer shell and the inner liner made on a large machine. I would not be surprised if they were charged $100 for the two pieces after yield was factored in. Also, the molds probably would take 6 months to make, which pretty much is the timeline they promised the units. Making 2 large pieces of steel have a even, thin gap with moving parts is non-trivial and expensive. A good comparison for how much they would have to charge would be how much 2 knock-off pelican cases the size of a cooler would cost (hint: more than $180).