Sounds like what you’re describing as a “platform” is what most people think of as a chassis or frame, even though most cars are no longer body-on-frame built.
How does that compare with something like the Cadillac Escalade, whose different models have been described as being built on the Chevy Tahoe, Avalanche or Suburban platforms? As I understand that usage, it’s being meant to say an Escalade is a Tahoe (or whatever) drivetrain and frame (the base vehicles are body-on-frame) with gussied-up sheetmetal and plastics and a fancier interior.
FWIW, the 2007 Escalade, Yukon and Tahoe are built on the GMT-900 platform, so at the bones, they really are the same vehicle, just wearing Caddy, Chevy or GMC nametags.
I don’t think the “name brand at generic rate” is because of fillers: the FDA would pull a generic pretty quick if it was actually shown to differ in effectiveness from the name brand. I’m sure it happens, but not for long.
When I’ve gotten the name brand at generic rate deal, it’s been for drugs that are recently off-patent, and the name brand drug company is responding to the much-lower-price competition by basically lowering its own price. Hopefully, the research cost to develop the drug was paid for during the patent period, so it’s not like the name-brand company has to sell at a loss to match the generic price: they just aren’t making the profit on it they used to. If they didn’t match the generic price, their profit would effectively go to zero, since many insurance companies insist on only paying for generic in the absence of such deals.
To me the “classic” chassis is that thing that’s left when you remove the body – essentially a full-running vehicle if you re-attach the steering wheel and strap on a chair of some type (I’ve seen these being driven in Mexico on the highway; they’re obviously new units in transit to someplace, but for the life of me I don’t understand why.). My use of platform (for unibody cars) doesn’t include anything but sheet metal, though – no drive train components, suspension, etc.
Ah, now we’re back to “classic” chassis. With this type of chassis, there’s a heck of a lot more in common between the vehicles because the entire underpinnings are identical or very close to identical (I would hope that the Escalade has some refined suspension or something). I actually launched the GMT-800 platform (the predecessor), and in that case the GMC and the Chevy had identical bodies in white, and the only difference was the badging. Chassis for both the short (Tahoe) and long (Suburban) were the same. I think that still goes for GM’s pickups as well. At the time there was no Escalade, but I imagine that now there are probably a lot of laser cutting booths that provide some place on the body to hang all the noizy bling. I would also expect that the Escalade have more body sealer, thicker glass, and other refinements aside from the interior details.