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> Ford, or GM, or whoever can buy a mostly competent company and then roll out vehicle after vehicle Those manufacturers have perverse incentives in this game.
by thephyber 9y ago
> Ford, or GM, or whoever can buy a mostly competent company and then roll out vehicle after vehicle
Those manufacturers have perverse incentives in this game.
GM, especially, was a forerunner in "planned obsolescence"[1], which was how they grew by taking advantage of perverse incentives in the early days of car manufacturing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
- ams6110 9y agoWhat are they? Planned obsolescence, in the face of worldwide competition and better than ever reliability data, is no longer a workable strategy.
- paulddraper 9y ago> planned obsolescence Sounds like my smartphone.
- ZoeZoeBee 9y agoPlanned obsolescence is the opposite of a perverse incentive, by definition. A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result which is contrary to the interests of the incentive makers. Planned obsolescence is intended and has a desirable result for the incentive maker. An example of a perverse incentive at GM would be attempting to make a few extra cents per car by squeezing suppliers and cutting corners on internal design decisions, while awarding bonuses for doing so. The end result being GM's use of a cheap ignition switch that ends up costing the company billions