Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 612 posts

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

#444

Post by heavyset_go »

elif wrote: post #402
heavyset_go wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, manufacturers' interests are often not aligned with retail customers' interests. For example, with Tesla, the company optimizes delivery numbers of cars sold by sacrificing quality control, and their service center model is anemic and almost an afterthought, especially when it comes to addressing the QC issues their customers experience. For every Tesla with 400k miles on them with a few thousand dolla…

wow 17 borderline cosmetic opinions on a fully functional vehicle. how dare they sell that vehicle. Not to mention that when they bought it, Tesla gave the buyer the opportunity to reject it and have another specimen manufactured at no cost. they decided to keep it because it appears their vanity is literally only skin deep.

Those are issues that would be caught by any competent quality control process, and that particular example is just from the top of the r/TeslaLounge page from a few hours ago. At any point you can log into spaces for Tesla customers and find dozens of stories of just like that one, or worse, when it comes to quality control or service center service[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].

And you make a great point about the importance of rejecting deliveries, which is exactly what a dealership would have done upon inspection instead of forcing layman retail customers to do it free and to their detriment. We even have Tesla customers asking why other customers choose to take deliveries at the end of the fiscal quarter[12], because Tesla has a reputation of pushing out as many vehicles as they can in order to boost delivery numbers, even if that means delivering cars in poor condition. When quality and service is consistently that bad, you can't blame the customer for accepting a delivery of the car they spent tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on.

Also, your comment goes against HN guidelines[13]:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/u9v1mo/off_my_...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/rqie4g/gotta_lov...

[3] https://twitter.com/aprildawn78/status/1481450029462212616?s...

[4] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/nurlbg/my_model_...

[5] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/qzr5tx/how_is_th...

[6] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/comically-poor-deliv...

[7] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/my-first-model-3-exp...

[8] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/took-delivery-today-...

[9] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/j59ovh/so_tesl...

[10] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/smettt/terrify...

[11] https://old.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/l0ownx/my_y_ha...

[12] https://old.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/j59dp1/tesla_own...

[13] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#445

Post by redox99 »

smegger001 wrote: post #372
seattle_spring wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> giving it a small bed with angled sided making it badly shaped for carrying many loads I genuinely doubt the average Cybertruck customer is planning on using for hauling anything more than kids and groceries.

then why not get another form factor better suited to hauling kids and groceries.

Because people buy based on what they like and enjoy, not what's optimal.

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

#446

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

nixass wrote: post #408
devy wrote: 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…

Al these things are available at official manufacturer's shops in Europe, no need to go to private dealer. And for some of those you're likely to get better rates if you shop around (car service, financing)

Official manufacturer’s shops in Europe are dealerships or are affiliated to a dealership. That’s literally what a dealership is.

The difference is that the customer experience seems to be radically different in Europe. I have no bad things to say about the dealership I had to deal with. They mostly sell at MSRP. They will gladly order you a customised model from their online platform if you need something specific and don’t mind the delay. You will have to negotiate the price if you want them to take back your old car but that’s mostly done in a very professional manner. Even buying used is generally quite pleasant. You will not get swindled at an official dealership. Meanwhile the US seems extremely cutthroat.

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

#447

Post by dreamcompiler »

Thorrez wrote: post #395
user3939382 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it Ford announced 3 months ago that they were forming a new corporation, Ford Blue, whose purpose is to skirt state dealership laws in order to lawfully sell these EVs direct to consumers. So this is definitely not just a comment. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2022/03/02/ford-...

Slightly related, Tesla built a store on tribal land to avoid state laws.

Brilliant solution IMHO. It's located just outside Santa Fe which is very convenient. There's a huge number of Teslas in New Mexico that had all been bought out of state before they built this store. Now we have a place for local service for procedures that can't be done in the field.

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

#448

Post by MrMan »

tomc1985 wrote: post #207
more_corn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe instead of auto manufacturers getting all the profit it’s nice that a local middleman gets rich too?

The world needs fewer middlemen

Not necessarily true at all.

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

#450

Post by majewsky »

bhauer wrote: post #370
skolos wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the company optimizes delivery numbers of cars sold by sacrificing quality control How do you know this? Did you see their internal data? There are lots of anecdotes going around about Tesla's quality. However, with all the TeslaQ it is hard to believe that there is real correlation between anecdotes and data. Here are my anecdotes - I owned 6 Teslas over last several years. Not one of them had any QC issues. I had…

> Not one of them had any QC issues. Same in my experience, though it's not as extensive as yours. It's surprising how often you see negative anecdotes about quality control amplified as representative of a larger trend. It often seems there is an agenda compelling many to work so hard circulating negative opinions.

There is a much easier explanation: Disgruntled customers are always more vocal than happy ones.
Post reply on HN