> Tesla dont pay for advertising, so I'm not sure what marketing you are referring to. Or how they are reaching a larger market?

Marketing doesn't exclusively mean advertising:

The American Marketing Association has defined marketing as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."[0]

Tesla has a clear marketing strategy in terms of what types of cars they sell and to what types of people. The fact that they don't pay for advertising doesn't change that. Musk/Tesla can be selective about who they do interviews with, or provide test cars to, etc. Those things are part of the marketing, even if there is no explicit purchasing of advertising.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing

Well fair enough. But given they dont actually advertise in the traditional sense, I dont see how the comment above can argue that they are 'aiming for a bigger market' than Mercedes flipping Benz.

You market a product towards a market with PR, interviews, ads, design, features which is much more than

"Tesla dont pay for advertising"

Thats true. But given that they dont pay for traditional advertising, I'm not sure why you are saying that they are aiming for a bigger market than Mercedes Benz. Do you think more people of the appropriate income bracket have heard of Mercedes Benz, or Tesla?

So by virtue of giving your product a "feature" you've necessarily engaged in marketing? Sometimes people broaden definitions to such a degree they completely neuter the word.

Choosing which features to offer in which products absolutely falls into the widely accepted definition of "marketing." In fact, market segmentation is one of the most fundamental marketing strategies, and market segmentation is essentially just the practice of choosing a specific set of target customers and building features specifically for them.

Just look at the hype they get on HN.

The God King doesn't need advertising when his disciples spread his words for free.