Is he leasing them the properties at fair market rates? If so he might be preventing gouging by not forcing we work to bid against the rest of the market.
I doubt these vehicles made it onto the road with the half fixes, they most likely just used the tape to allow the vehicle to move down the line then when the parts were available replaced them before customer delivery. This is probably not apparent and not explained to the untrustworthly assembly line worker.
Your story is completely unbelievable. Automobiles are not impulse buys, the idea behind the General Motors strategy is to make a vehicle for each class of buyer lifestyle. Now sure if a whimsical or uneducated buyer walks in with no idea of what they want and money to burn the salesperson (never a GM employee, GM) will try to put them in the most expensive vehicle, the reasons for that are obvious.
If you are the lead, call a meeting, explain the tech stack that will be used, explain that their performance will be judged based on meeting deadlines using said tech stack, summarize this meeting in an email to your leadership, in this email explain meeting deadlines depends on using the tried and true tech stack you chose. If they refuse or come up with some contrived reasons why your plan won't work, methodically and politically knock those reasons down, institute daily stand up meeting where they have to explain progress or blocking issues. If employee misses deadlines they go on probation and then get fired. If management does not support you, find a new job then give your notice.
I've taken the past year off to live on my savings and build a new saas, data as a service platform, it's possible and people do it all the time. You have to save money, then take the time off.
That would make sense, the reason they have to pay so much is because the work is sketchy, if this was truly rewarding engineering work the market would see falling salaries. Doctors still want to be doctors even if they are paid less. You have to pay me 5x to do shitty work.
I'm more worried about the future sudden need to stop supporting the existing internet once a few companies decide we should just use their new space internet, that seemsnlike the more profitable longterm play.