Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price

Post by vkou » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 6:37 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #380

themitigating wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's wait times could be because they are scaling up and part delays.

Tesla's wait times are because every part that sits on a shelf for warranty/service/accident repairs is a part that can't go on a vehicle coming off the assembly line, and we all know that Tesla / Elon has a raging hard on for "deliveries, deliveries, deliveries". "Because they're scaling up". They've been making vehicles for 14 years, how much more time do they get to realize they should have a parts network?

Post by taeric » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 6:40 AM UTC

zarathustreal wrote: post #197

taeric wrote: post #50

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Local profit? That is, in many towns, my understanding is that the local dealerships are relatively well off. Which implies that a bit more of the money is kept local to where the cars are being sold. I'm guessing this is less true today than in years past.

Why is "local profit" is assumed to be a positive thing? It seems to me that if we were to prove keeping money in certain places to be a benefit to society as a whole there would be much more effective and direct ways of making it happen

Post by Animats » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 7:07 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #143

dghlsakjg wrote: post #118

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Just a note, If you want to go sit in a Tesla or test drive one, you can still do that despite a complete lack of dealerships. In my experience, a Tesla is the only showroom experience where there was 0 pressure, and no-one trying to get my info or photocopy my driver license just to see the inside of a car. A lack of dealerships does not mean that there are no showrooms or test drives. There's nothing stopping Ford,…

The thing is Tesla is a luxury car for rich people - upper middle class and above. This means you only need a limited number of show rooms - where most rich people live - and rich people are also pretty mobile, so they can come to you. Scaling the same for car with more broad appeal may be hard to manage for the company, and there's no incentive for the third party to do it if they can't sell. Honda sells 4x more car…

Post by otabdeveloper4 » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 7:10 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #190

jvm wrote: post #157

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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?

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…

Post by kalleboo » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 7:16 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #155

raz32dust wrote: post #142

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Why would a fixed, online price end up being higher on average than what someone paid after haggling at a dealership. If anything, it should be lower because of (1) Reduced overhead, and (2) It is more closer to a free-market due to more transparency. Yes, there might be outliers where an extremely good haggler paid less, but that would be outweighed by a novice who paid way more, and the average has to be higher bec…

Why would Ford (or any manufacturer) offer cars on their website for cheaper than MSRP? What is their incentive? MSRP is a suggested retail price, which is based off the manufacturer's costs + what they believe is a reasonable margin for their vendor (dealership in this case). Ford cutting out the middle man means they can offer cars at the same exact price (MSRP in this case), but not have all the expenses dealershi…