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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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many small to medium size towns if you find the family who owns the local ($BRANDNAME) dealership they are often among the wealthiest people in the entire county. edit: I can see from the two other comments here alongside mine that this is a common observation.

Okay, I'll bite. How do I open a dealership?

Dunno, but I can tell you how my family started as I think it's really interesting.

Yugoslavia was just falling apart - the entire country went from planned limited production to open market. My family was importing cars from other countries as this started. The demand was so great, that when the truck with cars stopped on a parking lot at his home, people would come running putting their "reserved" stickers on cars. Everyday he did a trip out of the country and back. "Sold" all cars before he had a chance to step outside a truck.

This lasted for sometime, giving him enough bankroll to open car dealership. Not sure how exactly it happened, but few years later it became Ford dealership and still is.

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

#432
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy the latest and greatest and continuously upgrade to the next greatest it’s not that expensive; often cheaper than leasing.

Maybe it's cheaper than leasing the latest and greatest, but not everyone has an unlimited pool of money all the time , and the assumption that this type of purchasing behavior is in any way typical or representative of anything is absurd and out of touch at best, and purposefully misleading for the benefit of Tesla at worst.

It looks like you knee-jerked pretty hard at that line, because they didn't say anything at all about their purchasing behavior being typical. They just said the QC was good on the cars they got.

And in general the issues I heard about were from-the-factory issues, so only having the cars for 1-2 years each wouldn't matter much.

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

#433
post #82

This 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…

Ford reorganized back in March so that their EV business (Model e) is separate from the legacy ICE business (Ford Blue). There was speculation at the time that this was in part free itself of the dealership sales model. The dealers would keep the dying ICE business while the fast growing EV business would start with clean slate. Farley was quoted describing the EV sales model as: > "It's going to be much more efficie…

Excuse my ignorance, but how I understand is that ICE can't be sold directly to the customers, so that's why dealerships exists (?), so my question is, are EV not regulated or treated differently than ICE?

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time you can get a "good deal" on a car, is for a car no one wants anyways. Go ahead try it with a decent car.

Not just cars no one wants. Last car I bought, a Subaru Forrester, which is like 25% of cars in Seattle, I knocked $4000, off of msrp by haggling from 28k to 24k, cross shopping across dealers and walking in with a set price I was willing to pay after finding the lowest dealer. Also going in during 2 manufacturer rebates (one cash, one charity match), and at the end of the quarter. 2018s were starting to show up, bou…

Except they inflated the MSRP by $4k beforehand in order to give you the impression that you got a discount.

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

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any benefits that dealerships offer today over direct sales? Proximity and diversity. How are you going to have direct sales depots in every random town in the world? And which towns get which brands? Makes no sense.

> How are you going to have direct sales depots in every random town in the world? How about The Internet? Might work…

The Internet is terrible for such things. You want to see it and feel it, test drive it, kick the tires. .

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

#436
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla may not be the future of EVs Based on what metric? I have a hard time looking at Tesla's sales, revenue, profit, production capacity growth and not thinking they will continue to be a leader in EVs far into the future.

I agree with the OP, and: There's no hatchback, mini, SUV, or truck models available yet... And it feels like Tesla is even further behind in these areas because they are not giving any roadmap details (that I've heard of), while other companies have offerings available now. I hope Tesla can remain a market disruption and continue to push people to electric, but they currently are a one trick pony (which isn't a bad…

Isn't the Model Y an SUV?

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

#437
post #85
post #39

A lot has been said about the dealership model in the last few years, and the almost universal consensus is that it is an unnecessary and predatory industry and all auto makers should just sell cars directly like Tesla does. That being said, is there any counterpoint to this view? Are there any benefits that dealerships offer today over direct sales? What would we lose if we got rid of every dealership? If there is t…

>That being said, is there any counterpoint to this view? Are there any benefits that dealerships offer today over direct sales? the only thing I can think to say is that they are still a convenient repair facility, Tesla is fairly notorious for slow turn-around for repair.[0] I think a nice middle-ground would be the conversion of dealerships into showrooms/receiving-centers/repair facilities -- oust the sales porti…

That's how Polestar works- online sales with no negotiations, showrooms that are just that- showrooms and service is done at Volvo service places.

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

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ford reorganized back in March so that their EV business (Model e) is separate from the legacy ICE business (Ford Blue). There was speculation at the time that this was in part free itself of the dealership sales model. The dealers would keep the dying ICE business while the fast growing EV business would start with clean slate. Farley was quoted describing the EV sales model as: > "It's going to be much more efficie…

Excuse my ignorance, but how I understand is that ICE can't be sold directly to the customers, so that's why dealerships exists (?), so my question is, are EV not regulated or treated differently than ICE?

I believe the dealership network exists for historical reasons and car companies can't get rid of them for their existing models. Now's the time to change that using EVs as a reason. But it's something many car manufacturers would've liked to start doing 5-10 years ago.

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

#439
post #417
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe going direct is the secret plan, but I don’t see how they get there. Yeah, the dealership and the state level dealership associations aren't going to go out of business without some good fight. Even though I personally don't like the markup to be paid at the dealerships, but they exist for some good reasons: educate the consumers, financing, DMV paperwork and most importantly service your vehicles. EVs need m…

> educate the consumers, financing, DMV paperwork and most importantly service your vehicles. I bought a new car direct and I was educated, my credit union was better than the manufacturer's financing offer, the manufacturer did DMV paperwork, and the manufacturer does service. 9 years ago. What am I missing?

Memorial day Madness and wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men?

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

#440
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in a Mach-e......that was until I saw the markup the dealers wanted. I'm done with dealers. I recently helped purchase a car for my father after his was totaled. I talked to dealer and he promised that they are selling at MSRP. Next morning I call him and he wants above MSRP unless I RESERVE NOW. I told him I'm no longer interested in doing business with him and went elsewhere.

Not to mention the TERRIBLE experience of being treated like a pocketbook by the salespeople. That also call, text, email and pester you incessantly once they have your details. Block them and they will leave a VM twice a day. It's not entirely on the salespeople though. Their compensation structure and the nature of not respecting return customers, incentivizes this behavior

I disable voicemail. Hate it.

It's an avenue for abuse that's can't be triaged at a glance, as you've found.

People can SMS me. Then I can block numbers from abusers.

(no comparison intended to perpetrators of emotional or physical abuse)

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