The electronics are pants, but you might get away with them if you don't go overboard and fit metal tracks. If you want to battle, then you'll need to throw them away as they are not compatable with the DBC/DBCRC2 (the Transmitter isn't HL compatable either).
To answer the original question - the Mato tanks are sold thru a much smaller number of dealers, so their production cost is higher per unit. As Matt pointed out, its also larger than a HL so the box is bigger = higher shipping cost per unit, because there is less per container / pallet
(which I'm sure is why HL's tiger and Pershing have barrels that are too short!
)
