One of our loyal, handsome readers, Cody, was building a Mercedes-benz CLA250 on Mercedes' website when he became alarmed by how rapidly the price was rising. Looking through his options, he noticed something: a 2GB SD card that costs nearly $60.
Now, that one SD card's $60 price isn't what makes the car so expensive, but if it's any indicator as to how much Mercedes is marking up the cost of items, it's pretty alarming. For example, a 2GB SD card normally costs, let's see, on Newegg, $5.99. That's ten times less than what Mercedes wants to sell you one.
Sure, that drive kit for iPhones is expensive at $599, but I'm hoping that at least involves more integration than plugging in a cable. I hope. Alternately, it could be that Mercedes is using a web platform for their car configurator that only allows the use of 5s and 9s in their prices, but even then you'd think they could have priced that SD card at a real-world $5.99.
So, when building your cars online, it makes sense to really think through what's needed from the factory and what's not, because it's a pretty reasonable assumption that the company will screw you out of as much cash as they can get away with.
Like it says in the Bible or Rig Veda or somewhere, Caveat Emptor.