It's not penalizing people for pre-ordering.
Of course it is. The cars haven't even been given to buyers yet. The sales transactions aren't even finalized. There is still plenty of waiting to do -- for the very first wave. And yet, the cars are already decontented -- for the same money, in comparison with cars that will come out a few weeks later. That is absolutely penalizing those who pre-ordered.
It's deciding that more people would order the car if that feature was added, and adding the feature in partway through the model year, rather than waiting a whole model year to make the change, when they can just do it now. Would you rather VW wait to add the feature? It's not cost effective to go back and replace center consoles on every car sold to date, so the only way for VW to not lose money AND make you happy is to, as you would say, screw over everyone buying the October through June batches, and not give them the feature at all.
I already offered two suggestions. The cars are still at the factory. There is nothing stopping VW from adding the feature to all of them. Another potential option is to make it possible for dealers to add them at no cost to buyers.
VW is not a charity, they're a for-profit business.
Yes, and as I said before, the way good business is done is for people to be rewarded, not penalized, for pre-ordering. Pre-ordering and general early adoption benefits the business more than the customer and therefore businesses have an incentive to make it worthwhile to customers to not wait around. Businesses typically offer extra content, not reduced content, for those who pre-order products.
One poster here advised waiting two years to buy one of these. Two years! Yet, you don't see why VW has an incentive to make it more attractive to become an early adopter? Yet, if we look at what's being offered -- rather than extra content or some other incentive, people are merely getting the drawbacks of reduced content, a higher price tag, and more potential vehicle flaws. Getting the car less than one month sooner certainly does not balance that out!
Businesses that provide quality goods and services generally do better than those that don't. It's not a matter of being charitable. It's a matter of being a good competitor. Shafting early adopters is not good business.
If you disagree with their business practices, don't buy from them.
This is the "might makes right" fallacy.
However, because every for-profit car company does stuff like that, you'll want to move to a country where car companies are not a for-profit business, are government owned, and everyone is supposed to be equal with their cars. I'd suggest North Korea or Iran.
"Because every American automaker makes cars like the Pinto and the Vega, there's no reason to ask for more. Pay no attention to the Japanese makers an ocean away... If you don't like exploding break-down-quickly rust buckets, then move to Iran or North Korea!" :roll eyes:
Your point of view is akin to what got the American automakers into big trouble. Might makes right often results in might losing to right. Volkswagen has publicly said it wants to improve reliability and customer experience. Selling those who pre-ordered inferior cars certainly conflicts with those goals.
