Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. Ford is learning what Tesla knew from the start: dealership interests aren’t aligned with EV manufacturers. There’s very little service revenue, and dealers are incentivized to add “market adjustments” to vehicles (which Ford dealers have been doing) creating a poor customer experience. Ford has existing dealerships and is going to have a heck o…
> dealership interests aren’t aligned with EV manufacturers. There’s very little service revenue Citation needed. Both my EVs and ICEs needed similar amount of service. Breakage of drive trains are super rare nowadays (expect for over engineered performance stuff and just broken designs), same as breakages of batteries (cough, Bolt, cough). All stuff my cars needed a service for in last 20 years were comfort features…
Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
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Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
> dealership interests aren’t aligned with EV manufacturers. There’s very little service revenue Citation needed. Both my EVs and ICEs needed similar amount of service. Breakage of drive trains are super rare nowadays (expect for over engineered performance stuff and just broken designs), same as breakages of batteries (cough, Bolt, cough). All stuff my cars needed a service for in last 20 years were comfort features…
Your ICE doesn't need oil changes, transmission fluid, a timing belt, spark plugs, or any of that?
Oil change is maintenance not service. But ok, let’s include that. It’s done at the same time as rotating tires, so it only adds few extra bucks of revenue for dealers (yes, you can rotate yourself/at other places, same as you can do oil change).
Transmission fluid for modern cars lasts about 100k miles. So you’ll do it maybe once, unlikely at your dealer as you won’t pay dealer tax for an old beater.
Exactly the same for timing belt and spark plugs.
Drive trains aren’t money makers for dealers for a long time.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 400k km ? LOL Why not just use megameters? 400Mm OK, something about that looks odd. But what's the point in SI units if you can't actually use them? Maybe 250k miles?
Ah but is a megameter 10^6m or 2^20m? ;)
That would be a Mebimeter, according to SI. Whether or not this sounds silly is another issue.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every shop I’ve seen uses the book times for any standard job. My experience is that independents are significantly cheaper on a like-for-like basis, are also more willing to do a workable partial or alternate repair, but have worse lounges and often no courtesy car. (So you’re getting something for the extra cost.)
I am lost, what is 'book times'?
The auto manufacturers put out repair guides that list how many hours of a mechanics time a repair should take.
https://www.liveabout.com/the-truth-about-flat-rate-car-repa...
Many mechanics aren’t really directly employees of the shop, and often get paid based on work they get (some even have to “rent” the stall). It can be an interesting industry.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla had a big advantage because they never had dealers. Many states have laws banning online sales once dealerships are established.
I wonder if maybe they're preparing to fully spin off the EV models into its own corporation for this exact reason: https://chargedevs.com/newswire/ford-to-spin-off-its-evs-int...
Does the law apply to a business unit? I’d expect it to require a new company.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. Ford is learning what Tesla knew from the start: dealership interests aren’t aligned with EV manufacturers. There’s very little service revenue, and dealers are incentivized to add “market adjustments” to vehicles (which Ford dealers have been doing) creating a poor customer experience. Ford has existing dealerships and is going to have a heck o…
> "Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock." this was new to me and the 'to the rock' part didn't make sense to me, so i looked it up. http://marvin.cs.uidaho.edu/About/quotes.html this page says it's actually this: "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggy' until you can find a rock." find a rock as in kill them? :O
No canines we’re harmed in using the turn of phrase in my above comment.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#297I'm surprised they see spending less on advertising as part of their EV strategy. Copying Tesla in that regard might not work out the way they want it to. IMO Non-Tesla EVs are already facing an uphill awareness battle.
They can't build their EVs fast enough. The dealerships are marking them up 20k. Why continue advertising when it will bring them $0 more revenue?
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#298oh look, Ford is taking a page off the Tesla's book.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#299This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it IMO. He wasn’t saying dealerships are going away; he was actually saying the opposite. The point he was making was that Ford is going to adopt some of Tesla’s practices while using the dealership network to compete with them. Here’s the quote with more context: “I believe for retail, we have to -- it's kind of like what happene…
Selling online without negotiated price is a big change. That should make the dealerships really uncomfortable in the long run… he's kind of saying "oh the dealerships could rent out Mustangs" but is that actually realistic?
It's because Ford hates the dealer markup they've started charging in last couple of years.
Re: Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
#300The bicycle industry is rapidly moving to factory stores. The big brands are buying out their more-successful dealers and turning them into branded stores, locking out any other brands that the dealer sold in the process. For example, Specialized will buy a store from a retiring dealer, get rid of the Cannondale inventory, and re-brand it as "Specialized Bikes". This strengthens their brand and creates consistency, while simultaneously shutting out their manufacturer competition from the market.
The smaller dealers in little towns are completely screwed. They'll probably perish and be replaced by the manufacturer's online presence. Perhaps local "mobile bike repair" outfits will pop up to do local assembly and support.