It's not your imagination: Airlines are piling on more fees and extra charges, driving up the cost of air travel. From a report: Across the industry, revenue from what's known as ancillary sales -- fees for selecting seats, checking bags, and buying food, to name a few -- will reach a record $117.9 billion in 2023. That's a 7.7% increase from pre-pandemic records, according to a recent study from airline consultancy firm IdeaWorks and B2B car rental company CarTrawler.

As plane ticket prices have become more competitive, airlines have turned to ancillary sales to boost profits. And where these fees were once largely confined to low-cost carriers, practices like charging customers for seats and checked luggage are now widespread across all airlines. As the IdeaWorks study points out, carriers like British Airways, Air France, and KLM are now even charging fliers to secure 'better' business class seats.

It's not simply the fees that are raising hackles. It's also how they're sold online. Due to the time sensitive nature of airfares, as well as the dozens of upgrades and extras offered as you click through the sales process, airline websites can be ripe environments for what's known as dark patterns. Coined in 2010 by Harry Brignull, a UX designer with a doctorate in cognitive science, dark patterns are design strategies used to trick consumers during their purchasing experience and guide them to decisions they would not make otherwise. Airlines employ a range of tactics on their websites, ranging from manipulation to deception, Bringull says. "People need to be aware of their tactics if we want to see changes in the way they operate."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel today outlined a new proposal that would ban cable and satellite companies from charging subscribers early termination fees. Deadline reports: Some subscribers who sign contracts with cable and satellite operators face paying early termination fees if they want out of the agreement before the expiration date. The companies put such fees in place to reduce churn. The FCC proposal also would target requirements that subscribers pay for the entire billing cycle when they end their service before that date. The proposal would require that the video providers grant a pro-rated credit for the remaining days in a billing cycle. The proposal applies only to cable and satellite providers, not streaming services. The FCC will vote at its Dec. 13 meeting whether to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking for public comment. Rosenworcel said in a statement: "No one wants to pay junk fees for something they don't want or can't use. When companies charge customers early termination fees, it limits their freedom to choose the service they want. In an increasingly competitive media market, we should make it easier for Americans to use their purchasing power to promote innovation and expand competition within the industry."

The chief executive of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange, plans to step down and plead guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money laundering requirements, in a deal that may preserve the company's ability to continue operating, WSJ reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Changpeng Zhao is scheduled to appear in Seattle federal court Tuesday afternoon and enter his plea, the people said. Binance, which Zhao owns, will also plead guilty to a criminal charge and agree to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion, which includes amounts to settle civil allegations made by regulators, the people said. The deal would end long-running investigations of Binance. [...] The deal would allow Zhao to retain his majority ownership of Binance, although he won't be able to have an executive role at the company. He would face sentencing at a later date.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Music streaming service Spotify struck a seemingly unique and highly generous deal with Google for Android-based payments, according to new testimony in the Epic v. Google trial. On the stand, Google head of global partnerships Don Harrison confirmed Spotify paid a 0 percent commission when users chose to buy subscriptions through Spotify's own system. If the users picked Google as their payment processor, Spotify handed over 4 percent -- dramatically less than Google's more common 15 percent fee. Google fought to keep the Spotify numbers private during its antitrust fight with Epic, saying they could damage negotiations with other app developers who might want more generous rates.

Google's User Choice Billing program, launched in 2022, is typically described as shaving about 4 percent off Google's Play Store commission if developers use their own payment system, bringing down Google's 15 percent subscription service fee to more like 11 percent. That often ends up saving developers little or no money since they must foot the cost of payment processing themselves. And in court, Google has focused on benefits like greater flexibility rather than cost savings. [...] Harrison says Spotify's "unprecedented" popularity was great enough to justify a "bespoke" deal. "If we don't have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones," Harrison testified. As part of the deal, both parties also agreed to commit $50 million apiece to a "success fund."

Google acknowledged Harrison's testimony in a statement to The Verge. "A small number of developers that invest more directly in Android and Play may have different service fees as part of a broader partnership that includes substantial financial investments and product integrations across different form factors," says spokesperson Dan Jackson. "These key investment partnerships allow us to bring more users to Android and Play by continuously improving the experience for all users and create new opportunities for all developers." Google would not name other developers that have gotten the company to agree to more generous rates. During the trial, we learned that Google offered Netflix a special discounted rate of just 10 percent, but Netflix refused. Netflix no longer offers an in-app purchase option on Android and no longer pays Google anything to distribute its app as a result.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Apple has been sued by Venmo and Cash App customers in a proposed class action claiming the iPhone maker abused its market power to curb competition for mobile peer-to-peer payments, causing consumers to pay "rapidly inflating prices." Four consumers in New York, Hawaii, South Carolina and Georgia filed the lawsuit (PDF) on Friday in San Jose, California, federal court. They alleged Apple violated U.S. antitrust law through its agreements with PayPal's Venmo and Block's Cash App.

Apple's agreements limit "feature competition" within peer-to-peer payment apps, including prohibiting existing or new platforms from using "decentralized cryptocurrency technology," the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks an injunction that could force Apple to divest or segregate its Apple Cash business.

The US Justice Department is seeking more than $4 billion from Binance as part of a proposed resolution of a years-long investigation into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. From a report: Negotiations between the Justice Department and Binance include the possibility that its founder Changpeng Zhao would face criminal charges in the US under an agreement to resolve the probe into alleged money laundering, bank fraud and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the discussions. Zhao, also known as "CZ," is residing in the United Arab Emirates, which doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US, but that doesn't prevent him from coming voluntarily. An announcement could come as soon as the end of the month, though the situation remains fluid, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter.

An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC: Central bank digital currencies have the potential to replace cash, but adoption could take time, said Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday.

"CBDCs can replace cash which is costly to distribute in island economies," she said Wednesday at the Singapore FinTech Festival. "They can offer resilience in more advanced economies. And they can improve financial inclusion where few hold bank accounts." [...] "CBDCs would offer a safe and low-cost alternative [to cash]. They would also offer a bridge to go between private monies and a yardstick to measure their value, just like cash today which we can withdraw from our banks," the IMF chief said.

The IMF has said that more than 100 countries are exploring CBDCs — or approximately 60% of countries in the world. "The level of global interest in CBDCs is unprecedented. Several central banks have already launched pilots or even issued a CBDC," the IMF said in a September report. According to a 2022 survey conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, of the 86 central banks surveyed, 93% said they were exploring CBDCs, while 58% said they were likely to or may possibly issue a retail CBDC in either the short or medium term. But as of June, only 11 countries have adopted CBDCs, with an additional 53 in advanced planning stages and 46 researching the topic, according to data from the Atlantic Council...

On Wednesday, the fund launched a CBDC handbook as a reference guide for policymakers around the world...

Georgieva also said that artificial intelligence "could amplify some of the benefits of CBDCs" by providing accurate credit scoring and personalized support.

"NFTs aren't gone yet," writes the Verge.

"Disney will launch an 'all-new socially driven collectible experience' called Disney Pinnacle later this year, turning characters from Pixar, Star Wars, and its classic animated films into tradable digital pins." While announcing Pinnacle, Disney and its partner Dapper Labs won't even say the word "NFT." Dapper Labs still calls itself "the NFT company," but between a variety of scams, an eye-blistering episode at a recent Bored Ape event, and a market that has plunged since peaking in early 2021, that's a term they apparently will steer clear of. The only thing available on the site right now is a privacy policy that makes clear this is a Dapper Labs effort that's licensing content from Disney — not an in-house effort on the level of Disney Plus.

The NFT collection is being launched through an iOS app, and a spokesperson tells CoinDesk that web and Android applications will come later.
The Disney Pinnacle website has a few seconds of background animation showing the pins — and, of course, a waitlist signup form.

Microsoft's stock price plumetted 16% after OpenAI fired CEO Sam Altman — but appears to have immediately recovered most of the drop in after-hours trading. Yet OpenAI's move "also blindsided key investor and minority owner Microsoft," writes Ars Technica, "reportedly making CEO Satya Nadella furious."

Tech reporter Kara Swisher called the firing a "badly managed coup de Sam," tweeting more details Friday night. "Sources tell me that the profit direction of the company under Altman and the speed of development, which could be seen as too risky, and the nonprofit side dedicated to more safety and caution were at odds. One person on the Sam side called it a 'coup,' while another said it was the the right move."

Ars Technica fills in the story: Sources told reporter Kara Swisher that OpenAI's Dev Day event on November 6, with Altman front and center in a keynote pushing consumer-like products, was an "inflection moment of Altman pushing too far, too fast."

In a joint statement released Friday night, Altman and Brockman said they were "shocked and saddened" by the board's actions... OpenAI has an unusual structure where its for-profit arm is owned and controlled by a non-profit 501(c)(3) public charity... Insiders say the move was mostly a power play that resulted from a cultural schism between Altman and [cofounder/board member Ilya] Sutskever over Altman's management style and drive for high-profile publicity. On September 29, Sutskever tweeted, "Ego is the enemy of growth." The schism is causing further turmoil on the inside. Three AI researchers loyal to Altman departed the company as well on Friday, resigning in reaction to the news: Jakub Pachocki, GPT-4 lead and OpenAI's director of research; Aleksander Madry, head of a team evaluating AI risk, and Szymon Sidor, an open source baselines researcher.

Rumors have already begun swirling about potential internal breakthroughs at OpenAI that may have intensified the slow/fast rift within the company, owing to Sutskever's role as co-lead of a "Superalignment" team that is tasked with figuring out how to control hypothetical superintelligent AI. At the APEC CEO Summit on Thursday, Altman said, "Four times now in the history of OpenAI — the most recent time was just in the last couple of weeks — I've gotten to be in the room when we push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward. And getting to do that is like the professional honor of a lifetime."

The concern here not necessarily being that OpenAI has developed superintelligence, which experts say is unlikely, but that the new breakthrough Altman mentioned may have added pressure to a company that is fighting within itself to proceed safely (from its non-profit branch) but also make money (from its for-profit subsidiary).
Former Google CEO/chairman Eric Schmidt tweeted, "Sam Altman is a hero of mine. He built a company from nothing to $90 Billion in value, and changed our collective world forever. I can't wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work- it's going to be simply incredible."

And reacting to the news, angel investor Ron Conway tweeted Friday that it looked like "a Board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs. It is shocking; it is irresponsible; and it does not do right by Sam & Greg or all the builders in OpenAI."

Addressing the charges of a "coup," OpenAI held "an impromptu all-hands meeting" Friday after the firing, according to a (paywalled) article from The Information: "You can call it this way," Sutskever said about the coup allegation. "And I can understand why you chose this word, but I disagree with this. This was the board doing its duty to the mission of the nonprofit, which is to make sure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity...." When Sutskever was asked whether "these backroom removals are a good way to govern the most important company in the world?" he answered: "I mean, fair, I agree that there is not an ideal element to it. 100%."
Reporter Kara Swisher predicted that Altman "will have a new company up by Monday."

"If i start going off, the openai board should go after me for the full value of my shares," Sam Altman posted on X Saturday — although Swisher wondered if Altman was simply trolling the company that had fired him.

"He has almost no shares, I believe."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Replicate developer Charlie Holtz combined GPT-4 Vision (commonly called GPT-4V) and ElevenLabs voice cloning technology to create an unauthorized AI version of the famous naturalist David Attenborough narrating Holtz's every move on camera. As of Thursday afternoon, the X post describing the stunt had garnered over 21,000 likes. "Here we have a remarkable specimen of Homo sapiens distinguished by his silver circular spectacles and a mane of tousled curly locks," the false Attenborough says in the demo as Holtz looks on with a grin. "He's wearing what appears to be a blue fabric covering, which can only be assumed to be part of his mating display." "Look closely at the subtle arch of his eyebrow," it continues, as if narrating a BBC wildlife documentary. "It's as if he's in the midst of an intricate ritual of curiosity or skepticism. The backdrop suggests a sheltered habitat, possibly a communal feeding area or watering hole."

How does it work? Every five seconds, a Python script called "narrator" takes a photo from Holtz's webcam and feeds it to GPT-4V -- the version of OpenAI's language model that can process image inputs -- via an API, which has a special prompt to make it create text in the style of Attenborough's narrations. Then it feeds that text into an ElevenLabs AI voice profile trained on audio samples of Attenborough's speech. Holtz provided the code (called "narrator") that pulls it all together on GitHub, and it requires API tokens for OpenAI and ElevenLabs that cost money to run. During the demo video, when Holtz holds up a cup and takes a drink, the fake Attenborough narrator says, "Ah, in its natural environment, we observe the sophisticated Homo sapiens engaging in the critical ritual of hydration. This male individual has selected a small cylindrical container, likely filled with life-sustaining H2O, and is tilting it expertly towards his intake orifice. Such grace, such poise."

Lauren Irwin reports via The Hill: Google agreed to pay $8 billion over four years to Samsung to make its apps default on Samsung phones, according to information presented by Epic Games in court. James Kolotouros, vice president for partnerships at Google, testified Monday in a San Francisco trial, saying that the company and Samsung were to share app store revenue to ensure Android mobile devices came with Google Play preinstalled. Epic, the company that makes the popular video game "Fortnite," sued Google in 2020, alleging the company's app marketplace violates antitrust laws.

Epic is trying to show that Google executives have discouraged third-party app stores on Samsung devices so it wouldn't cut into the profit of Google Play, Bloomberg reported. According to Kolotouros's testimony, half or more of Google Play revenue comes from Samsung devices. The trial targets the app store that distributes apps for the company's Android software, which powers virtually all the world's smartphones that aren't made by Apple.

Epic alleges Google has created an illegal monopoly on Android apps so it can boost its profits through commissions, ranging from 15 to 30 percent on purchases made within an app. Google argues it was doing so to compete with Apple and its app store, an argument attacked by Epic attorney Lauren Moskowitz. Earlier in the trial, Google's attorney said the company can't be a monopoly because it faces competition from companies such as Apple. Further reading: Apple Gets 36% of Google Revenue in Search Deal, Witness Says

A bloc of 48 nations have developed the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), aimed at standardizing reporting requirements for crypto assets to address concerns related to money laundering and tax evasion. It's set to be implemented by 2027. The Register reports: Developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the CARF was developed under the 168-member Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, with the G20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development looking on approvingly and lending a hand. As the name implies, that Forum is all about sharing data so that each nation's tax authorities have the information they need to understand money movements and make sure they can see what they're allowed to tax. The Forum and the legislative instruments it has fostered include reporting requirements that ensure relevant information is collected by those who facilitate transactions and will be shared.

CARF brings similar reporting requirements to crypto assets. Note the term "crypto assets." That's important, because cryptocurrency is not the only blockchain-based instrument that worries authorities. Some, like non-fungible tokens, rely on the same "greater fool" theory that pumped up cryptocurrency prices, and can attract - ahem - interesting investors. But others are far less contentious or speculative, and instead aim to speed transaction processing. Stablecoins, for example, are often suggested as a means for faster and cheaper cross-border transactions than is possible with dominant transaction processing services. Tokenized assets can also be more easily integrated into applications to ease automated money movements.

That speed and flexibility is increasingly appreciated. But unless transactions made with those instruments can be observed, the potential for their use to evade tax authorities is high. CARF's use of the term "crypto assets" therefore signals an effort to cover the weird world of cryptocurrencies and the emerging classes of classier tokenized assets. The Framework was signed off in March 2023, and in the time since OECD members and other interested nations have been dotting the Is and crossing the Ts to prepare for its implementation. The Framework can be found here.

After a tech entrepreneur and investor lost his password for retrieving $100,000 in bitcoin and hired experts to break open the wallet where he kept it, they failed to help him. But in the process, they discovered a way to crack enough other software wallets to steal $1 billion or more. From a report: On Tuesday, the team is releasing information about how they did it. They hope it's enough data that the owners of millions of wallets will realize they are at risk and move their money, but not so much data that criminals can figure out how to pull off what would be one of the largest heists of all time.

Their start-up, Unciphered, has worked for months to alert more than a million people that their wallets are at risk. Millions more haven't been told, often because their wallets were created at cryptocurrency websites that have gone out of business. The story of those wallets' vulnerabilities underscores the enormous risk in experimental currencies, beyond their wild fluctuations in value and fast-changing regulations. Many wallets were created with code containing profound flaws, and the companies that used that code can disappear. Beyond that, it is a sobering reminder that underneath software infrastructure of all kinds, even ones explicitly dedicated to securing funds, are open-source programs that few or no people oversee. "Open-source ages like milk. It will eventually go bad," said Chris Wysopal, a co-founder of security company Veracode who advised Unciphered as it sorted through the problem.

A person linked to a scam that tricked an elderly victim into transferring more than $100,000 formally requested the FBI give back his seized cryptocurrency, claiming in a petition to the agency that he is a part-time crypto investor and not doing anything illegal, according to a recently filed court record. From a report: 404 Media also reached the person by email and they largely repeated the same story. The request is an unusual sight, and, to be frank, probably not going to work. In the court record, authorities allege that the frozen funds are linked to a scam of a victim in the U.S. The document says authorities seized just under 18,500 Tether, valued at around $18,500, in July with a federal search warrant.

"Hello Sir/Ma'am, My name is Vishal Gautam," the request starts. "The funds which you have on hold that is a very big amount of money for me and my family, I request you to please release it from your custody. Thank You & Regards." The message says that Gautam lives in India and as well as investing in cryptocurrency, he is a "full-time Health Insurance" worker. "In the month of July 2023 suddenly my crypto from Binance got disappeared, I don't know how it happened but then I got to know that the FBI has put hold on my assets," the message continues. "I am not into something illegal and never will be, I will not do any such thing that can harm your country or your people in any manner." U.S. authorities, meanwhile, allege that the seized cash is connected to a fraud scheme that targeted a senior citizen in Knoxville, Iowa. In February, this victim opened an email on her iPad that claimed it had been compromised, and that she needed to contact the sender for assistance, according to the court record.

Japan plans to establish a new 1 trillion yen ($6.6 billion) fund to develop the country's outer space industry. "We believe it is a necessary fund to speed up our country's space development so we don't lag behind the increasingly intensifying international competition," Sanae Takaichi, minister in charge of space development, said in a news conference last week. The Japan Times reports: The fund will be allocated over a 10-year period for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), an Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry spokesperson said. Some 300 billion yen has been set aside for the fund in the latest supplementary budget approved by the Cabinet on Friday. The funding, which will support JAXA and the development of Japan's space industry, was a response to increased public and private sector focus on space activities.

Back in June, Tokyo unveiled a Space Basic Plan, detailing budgetary support for innovation in the private sector as an area of business growth. At the same time, it also unveiled a Space Security Initiative, which labeled space "a major arena for geopolitical competition for national power over diplomacy, defense, economic, and intelligence, as well as the science and technology and innovation that support these national powers."

According to Reuters, banks on the payment app Zelle have begun refunding victims of imposter scams to address consumer protection concerns raised by U.S. lawmakers and the federal consumer watchdog. From the report: The 2,100 financial firms on Zelle, a peer-to-peer network owned by seven banks including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, began reversing transfers as of June 30 for customers duped into sending money to scammers claiming to be from a government agency, bank or existing service provider, said Early Warning Services (EWS), the banks' company that owns Zelle. That's "well above existing legal and regulatory requirements," Ben Chance, chief fraud risk officer at EWS, told Reuters.

Federal rules require banks to reimburse customers for payments made without their authorization, such as by hackers, but not when customers themselves make the transfer. While Zelle disclosed Aug. 30 that it had introduced a new reimbursement benefit for "specific scam types," it has not previously provided details on its new imposter scam refund policy due to worries doing so might encourage criminals to make false scam claims, a spokesperson said. The new policy marks a major shift from last year when bankers, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, told lawmakers worried about rising scams that it was unreasonable to require banks to refund transfers that customers were tricked into approving.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Civitai, an online marketplace for sharing AI models that enables the creation of nonconsensual sexual images of real people, has introduced a new feature that allows users to post "bounties." These bounties allow users to ask the Civitai community to create AI models that generate images of specific styles, compositions, or specific real people, and reward the best AI model that does so with a virtual currency users can buy with real money. As is common on the site, many of the bounties posted to Civitai since the feature was launched are focused on recreating the likeness of celebrities and social media influencers, almost exclusively women. But 404 Media has seen at least one bounty for a private person who has no significant public online presence.

"I am very afraid of what this can become, for years I have been facing problems with the misuse of my image and this has certainly never crossed my mind," Michele Alves, an Instagram influencer who has a bounty on Civitai, told 404 Media. "I don't know what measures I could take, since the internet seems like a place out of control. The only thing I think about is how it could affect me mentally because this is beyond hurtful." The news shows how increasingly easy to use text-to-image AI tools, the ability to easily create AI models of specific people, and a platform that monetizes the production of nonconsensual sexual images is making it possible to generate nonconsensual images of anyone, not just celebrities.

The bounty of a real person that 404 Media saw on Civitai did not include a name, and included a handful of images that were taken from her social media accounts. 404 Media was able to find this person's online accounts and confirm they were not a celebrity or social media influencer, but just a regular person with personal social media accounts with few followers. The person who posted the bounty claimed that the woman he wanted an AI model of was his wife, though her Facebook account said she was single. Other Civitai users also weren't buying that explanation. Despite suspicions from these users, someone did complete the bounty and created an AI model of the woman that now any Civiai user can download. Several non-sexual AI generated images of her have been posted to the site.

OpenAI plans to secure further financial backing from its biggest investor Microsoft as the ChatGPT maker's chief executive Sam Altman pushes ahead with his vision to create artificial general intelligence (AGI) -- computer software as intelligent as humans. From a report: In an interview with the Financial Times, Altman said his company's partnership with Microsoft's chief executive Satya Nadella was "working really well" and that he expected "to raise a lot more over time" from the tech giant among other investors, to keep up with the punishing costs of building more sophisticated AI models.

Microsoft earlier this year invested $10bn in OpenAI as part of a "multiyear" agreement that valued the San Francisco-based company at $29bn, according to people familiar with the talks. Asked if Microsoft would keep investing further, Altman said: "I'd hope so." He added: "There's a long way to go, and a lot of compute to build out between here and AGI... training expenses are just huge." Altman said "revenue growth had been good this year," without providing financial details, and that the company remained unprofitable due to training costs. But he said the Microsoft partnership would ensure "that we both make money on each other's success, and everybody is happy."

Images and information from social media (and other online sources) are being used by AI to create "create convincing and personalized scam calls, texts and emails," writes the Palm Beach Post, citing a warning from Florida's consumer watchdog agency. In an older version of the scam, a caller would greet "Grandma" or "Grandpa" before saying, "It's me — I know I sound funny because I have a cold," and then make an urgent plea for money to get out of a scrap... Using audio and video clips found online, the con artist can clone the voice of a family member to make the call more compelling...

Listen for clues to a con like incorrect or mispronounced names or unfamiliar terms of endearment. The pressure to act quickly and to keep the call a secret are all timeless hallmarks of a scam, the agency notes. Detailed instructions on how to deliver funds in a form that is hard to recover — wired funds, a gift card or pay app — are also indications of a ripoff in the making.
The consumer watchdog agency suggests this precaution. "Encourage family members to set their social media pages to private."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the article.

"Dealers don't want to change the model. They want to be the gatekeepers." That's according to Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan who studies the laws and economics of car dealerships. He's quoted in a Washington Post article warning that "Electric vehicles are hitting a road block: Car dealers."

Former Chevy salesman Buzz Smith tells the Post that it can take longer to sell electric cars (with multiple visits and questions about their technology and chargers) — in effect reducing what a salesman earns per hour. But more to the point, "he believes the pay structure of auto salespeople isn't a good fit for the EV era." Electric cars have narrower profit margins, he said, which cuts into the commission a dealer can get. And if a customer returns to the dealership multiple times, salespeople may have to split the commission, again cutting into their take-home pay. At the same time, car dealerships make most of their overall profits from providing service for vehicles — not selling new cars. According to an analysis from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 16 percent of dealers' gross profits came from new car sales, while 43 percent came from parts, labor and service. (The rest of the profits come from used car sales and financing and incentives...)

That could also discourage dealers from selling EVs. Gas cars have 100 times more moving parts than electric vehicles do, and studies show that EVs have lower maintenance costs. An average gas-powered car, for example, needs an oil change about every six months, or every 5,000 to 7,500 miles. But many electric cars don't require a major service until around 150,000 miles.

"They're all terrified of that loss of maintenance," Smith said.
The Post reports one woman's complain that after buying an electric car, her salesperson "offered her a plan for oil changes and an extended warranty for a gas-powered car."

But is there something bigger going on? Since the 1950s dozens of states passed laws protecting auto dealerships, and many of those laws prevent manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. The Post notes that now "many automakers have to sell their vehicles through one of the country's more than 16,000 franchised auto dealerships. And those salespeople often don't have extensive training on how to sell an EV or even on the technology itself." Frustrated customers told The Washington Post that dealers tried to redirect their attention toward gas cars, or gave incorrect or unclear answers to questions about charging and day-to-day electric vehicle use... Then there is the maze of federal and state tax incentives that can help drivers afford a new or used EV — but only if the dealer and the consumer can understand how they work.

Some dealers, however, don't seem to want to offer electric cars: According to a survey that the Sierra Club conducted at the end of 2022, 66 percent of dealerships did not have an EV available for sale. That was at the height of EV supply chain problems, but 45 percent of those dealers — or 30 percent of all dealers surveyed — said they wouldn't offer an EV even if they could. Amid concern over an EV slowdown, electric cars are sitting longer on dealerships' lots than gas-powered cars. According to data from Cox Automotive, dealerships started the year with a roughly 50 days' supply of gas cars and electric cars. Now the supply of gas cars is around the same, but the supply of EVs has doubled.