41–50 of 261 posts
Still can't buy RaspberryPis... not sure if it's related. But for some reason I can still buy boat loads of ESP8266 and other micro-controllers...
Pico is still available, even in Canada.
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Really glad that dealers in Canada can't charge over MSRP for new vehicles.
I tried to buy a new car yesterday. The price was exactly MSRP, but there were plenty of ad-ons. That I couldn't remove "if I wanted to buy that car". In the end, there were about $11k in "extras" and they low balled me on my trade-in vehicle. I ended up walking away.
I have a hobby around electronics, and as a side effect, I have been keeping CSVs with all the components from JLCPCB Parts library for the last 6 months. It appears that we're slowly crawling out of the pit: date,in_stock,out_of_stock,in_stock/total 2022-06-06,185324,173101,0.517051 2022-06-05,185116,173227,0.516589 2022-06-01,184845,173355,0.516039 2022-05-28,183850,173676,0.514228 2022-05-21,181201,175377,0.508167…
I saw an article recently saying that dealerships and car makers want to keep inventories low because they like the post-covid margins they're experiencing. When I paid 5k over msrp a few months ago the salesperson claimed they wanted more inventory because salespeople were unable to hit the volume goals they have. Not sure who to believe but I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in between.
Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything expressed here is solely my own opinion and experience. I think each statement is true. Context: for ages, OEMs (the factory) have had a belief that Americans will not wait to buy a car. There's also a bit of a prisoner's dilemma: if any automaker wanted to trim inventories, the customer could go to a competing automaker's lot and buy today. Since customers will not wait to buy a c…
Also, what is the point of a dealership if you have to wait a very long time and have no negotiation leverage? They might find they regret their temporary boost of profits when it destroys them. Ford is selling EVs direct to consumer now, the writing may be on the wall for dealerships.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything expressed here is solely my own opinion and experience. I think each statement is true. Context: for ages, OEMs (the factory) have had a belief that Americans will not wait to buy a car. There's also a bit of a prisoner's dilemma: if any automaker wanted to trim inventories, the customer could go to a competing automaker's lot and buy today. Since customers will not wait to buy a c…
I was seriously looking to buy and stopped when I was quoted a 9 month delivery time. Also, what is the point of a dealership if you have to wait a very long time and have no negotiation leverage? They might find they regret their temporary boost of profits when it destroys them. Ford is selling EVs direct to consumer now, the writing may be on the wall for dealerships.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything expressed here is solely my own opinion and experience. I think each statement is true. Context: for ages, OEMs (the factory) have had a belief that Americans will not wait to buy a car. There's also a bit of a prisoner's dilemma: if any automaker wanted to trim inventories, the customer could go to a competing automaker's lot and buy today. Since customers will not wait to buy a c…
>Dealerships hate carrying extra inventory because it costs money to finance the vehicles until they sell them. Note that with interest rates having been really low, even negative in real term, an inventory was almost a good investment with relatively good returns (if you could get your hands on it). Now with rising interest rates and falling inflation, the cost of financing might become a burden again.
Since Ford’s plan to prioritize direct sales has made news recently, it seems plausible they will seek some means to limit existing dealer inventory.
GM went through a dealer culling after the government bailout to strengthen the remaining stores. The Covid shock, it appears, may permanently cull inventory levels across the board and (optimistically) have the same end.
I saw an article recently saying that dealerships and car makers want to keep inventories low because they like the post-covid margins they're experiencing. When I paid 5k over msrp a few months ago the salesperson claimed they wanted more inventory because salespeople were unable to hit the volume goals they have. Not sure who to believe but I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in between.
I saw an article recently saying that dealerships and car makers want to keep inventories low because they like the post-covid margins they're experiencing. When I paid 5k over msrp a few months ago the salesperson claimed they wanted more inventory because salespeople were unable to hit the volume goals they have. Not sure who to believe but I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in between.
Disclosure: I work for GM. Anything expressed here is solely my own opinion and experience. I think each statement is true. Context: for ages, OEMs (the factory) have had a belief that Americans will not wait to buy a car. There's also a bit of a prisoner's dilemma: if any automaker wanted to trim inventories, the customer could go to a competing automaker's lot and buy today. Since customers will not wait to buy a c…
That's it, I'm moving to Europe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure they will all return to the way they did things prior to covid. All it will take is GM or Ford to start stacking new vehicles on car lots, and all of them will have to follow along.
Ford leadership seems to really want to move to the Tesla preorder model, but changing this will be extremely difficult. This entrenched way of doing business may start seriously hurting their bottom line if Tesla and others can scale the direct to consumer model.
Now, if you can get the online order model to work with really short lead times, this might gain more traction than usual. E.g. bring me a car to test drive, and very soon -- today ideally. Then I order the car, and you deliver it to my house on a trailer within a week.
But months? No way, this is how you tell customers to go somewhere else.
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I ordered a new Porsche SUV in the middle of December. It just got offloaded from the ship at port today, so I should finally have it in a couple weeks. But it will be missing some of the electronics, such as the electric steering wheel adjustment due to chip shortages. My poor sister-in-law also thought she ordered a Toyota in December. But as it turns out, the dealership just took advantage of her and told her they…
I had been shopping since January for a 2022 Tundra. I talked to salespeople at probably 75 dealerships on the east coast/mid-atlantic. Two of them said they could order me what I wanted, with a large deposit and I’d have to wait up to 90 days. The remaining all said basically they’re at the mercy of what Toyota makes and decides to allocate to their dealership.