Dealers Will Go the Way of the Blacksmith Shop

SpaceEVDriver

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It's baffling why they would wanna keep out a product that has an average price of $60k?
My local Ford dealer is sandbagging EVs as much as it can even though most of the other dealers are doing good business with them. I believe it's finally decided to sell them, but that's probably only because of Ford's requirements. The dealer has always been very strongly against anything they view as "liberal," so it's not at all a surprise that they are against EVs.

I certainly wouldn't trust them to service my vehicle.

The next nearest Ford dealer who I know sells and services EVs is about 90 minutes away. They're who sold me my Mustang. Taking it in for service is basically a full-day ordeal.

I would much rather take it to a local mechanic who has been trained on EV service and can perform warranty work, but warranty work isn't legally available to the true small business owner because of the dealer monopoly.
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jbooth

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It's baffling why they would wanna keep out a product that has an average price of $60k?
Why is it baffling? That's close to or maybe less than the average truck or suv price, and those need services every how many thousand miles? 3k or so? That's where the money is, the article says as much. A Mach E with every 10k rotate the tires and check the suspension and maybe check the fluids, replacing those at I don't even know how many 10s of thousands of miles? 100k?

Dealers only hope is that legacy dealers remain as bad at OTAs as Ford has been. Take that away and I'd have been in twice in two years -- one for the 10k and one for the glass recall. Were it not for the recall and OTA issues we'd be in less than once a year. Our fit, back when it was the only car was in about 2.5 times a year for the oil change, not to mention any recalls (aka takata, also I guess the lift arms, and we had the traction control/abs die just out of warranty) and there's everything to do the EV has (rotate tires, inspect, )... and the oil/transmission/etc.
 

BMT1071

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I doubt you'll find many independent shops willing to make the huge investment in specialty tools that is required on an annual basis. They also won't want to work for warranty time and warranty rate.
 

jbooth

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Your population density has blinded you to the fact that the next dealer might be an hour drive and if they suck it could be a 90 minute drive. With 3 hours alone burned in transit, if it's a sit and wait affair it could be 6 hours lost to the void if a loaner is weaseled out of when you have to pick it back up. Meanwhile there's half a dozen other shops close by that should be able to be utilized for the same service with equally qualified technicians.

I know someone with an F150 that's had it in the shop longer than it's been in their possession. Ford should cover the payments while their incompetence has it sitting in a lot.
This in a big way. It is super unlikely I buy another Ford EV. The local dealer has seen to that -- and they don't even hate EVs. I tried to test drive their MME, but the manager/owner had just bought it as it hit its time/miles limit as a test drive mule. But their service blows chunks and I'm more than willing to hold a grudge.

I'm not at the point of getting rid of the MME (currently), but whereas we've had the fit since 2009 and plan to drive it till it dies (or rusts enough it is structurally unsound), the MME we have already considered trading it in and will likely trade it for something else, when the right EV hits the market. Heck, if Hyundai had had the cars available to test drive and buy last year at this time, we'd likely have already traded it in for an Ioniq 5. But they didn't so we didn't (and I wasn't paying markup).

I just don't know what EV will trigger the trade, yet. I know it isn't a Ford. Could be the id buzz. Could maybe be a canoo. Could maybe be a chevy ev or even an ioniq 5.

The only thing Ford has going in their court right now is the tesla charging deal, and the fact we already own it. Ford is also going to have to deliver on that charging deal, because if they don't and someone else does, that's a good reason to trade out.
 


SpaceEVDriver

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Lots of people do that. Amazon. Target. Your local supermarket. Best Buy. Walmart. Costco. Hot dog vendors. Cable companies.

Selling stuff you didn't make is a pretty good business!
So?

I can go to any number of retail shops, online or offline, often including the manufacturer, to purchase pretty much any item I want except a vehicle.

There's nothing that should be legally-protected about the business of selling a vehicle.

K-Mart's business wasn't protected by a bunch of archaic laws. They failed to offer superior services and collapsed.

Dealerships should also not be protected. If they offered a superior service compared with ordering directly from the manufacturer, then they might survive without those legal protections. But everyone knows most of them couldn't possibly survive if the law didn't preserve them.
 

Hammered

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So?

I can go to any number of retail shops, online or offline, often including the manufacturer, to purchase pretty much any item I want except a vehicle.

There's nothing that should be legally-protected about the business of selling a vehicle.

K-Mart's business wasn't protected by a bunch of archaic laws. They failed to offer superior services and collapsed.

Dealerships should also not be protected. If they offered a superior service compared with ordering directly from the manufacturer, then they might survive without those legal protections. But everyone knows most of them couldn't possibly survive if the law didn't preserve them.
Kmart's problem is that they just didn't buy enough politicians, duh
 

tuminatr

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Fear of, and resistance to change is basic human nature.
Exactly right, nothing new. The Pessimists Aarchive was in my podcast list for some time it's all about people's fears and reasons for not accepting change. Check it out if you have time

Its now called built for tomorrow, but check it out

https://pessimistsarchive.org/



 
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Guss-E 2021

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Sales wise, Tesla is scaling just fine. They sold 536,000+ cars in North America alone in 2022. Area wise, they’re doing fine as well. Out here the deliver to Honolulu only and have zero trouble finding customers on the neighbor island. Those customers are responsible for shipping the car beyond Oahu. Service wise, they have mobile service on all islands. Major service is done on Oahu. And they’re about as ubiquitous as a Toyota Corolla atm.
On a side note, the Model Y outsold the Corolla in Q1 by around 10 thousand units. The Corolla is sold in about 70 more countries and costs half of what a base Y costs. You can look at that from a BEV vs ICEV perspective or dealership vs no dealership.

I had a good dealership experience buying my Mach-E but they are far from full on gung ho about a full transition to Model E. I can't blame them. BEVs will crater parts and service revenue.
 

Guss-E 2021

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If you are a young employee at a car dealership, get some training on DCFC service and/or installation. In fact, Ford et al should pay for that training. Though I recall Farley saying Ford simply won't be able to train up everyone from the inside. Some of this stuff is just too specialized.
 

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If you are a young employee at a car dealership, get some training on DCFC service and/or installation. In fact, Ford et al should pay for that training. Though I recall Farley saying Ford simply won't be able to train up everyone from the inside. Some of this stuff is just too specialized.
He was referring to Ford, not dealerships.
 

RickMachE

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So?

I can go to any number of retail shops, online or offline, often including the manufacturer, to purchase pretty much any item I want except a vehicle.

There's nothing that should be legally-protected about the business of selling a vehicle.

K-Mart's business wasn't protected by a bunch of archaic laws. They failed to offer superior services and collapsed.

Dealerships should also not be protected. If they offered a superior service compared with ordering directly from the manufacturer, then they might survive without those legal protections. But everyone knows most of them couldn't possibly survive if the law didn't preserve them.
[Laughing] KMart, then Sears, went out of business for one reason, and one reason only. Eddie Lampert. Any other claim is ridiculous.
 

RickMachE

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Slate writes articles with a political slant, and don't belong here. Texas is trying to restrict wind and solar now. Same reason as EVs, they want to feed the petroleum industry.
 

SWO

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The Slate article cites NADA campaign contributions trying to paint this as a partisan issue, but 99% of dealer protection laws are at the state level (the article uses examples of state laws, but somehow doesn't see - or want to see - this disconnect). NADA is (duh) focused on federal legislation. Their top legislative priorities (from their PAC's website) are opposition to EPA NOx Emissions Rules, repealing the federal excise tax on HD trucks, opposition to a right-to-repair bill, and support for a catalytic converter anti-theft bill.

Go to a conservative state and most of the contributions are to conservatives. Go to a liberal state and most of the contributions are to liberals. In California, the California New Car Dealers Association made $5.8M in contributions last year (almost as much as NADA spent for the whole county), including $32.4k to Gavin Newsome. The CNCDA PAC's top issue is *drumroll*....AB 473, dealing with new car dealer franchise law.

The list of top recipients are all democrats:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Dealers Will Go the Way of the Blacksmith Shop donations


Trying to paint this as a partisan issue isn't going to solve the problem.
 

mkhuffman

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I agree with Rick, again. :oops: Slate is not a reliable source.

Anyway, I happen to see a lot of value in the dealership model and have had good experiences with the dealers I have worked with, both for sales and service. As many have already posted, the problem is they are protected by regulations that prevent the free market from working properly.

If all the protections were removed, many dealers would struggle to survive but the good ones would thrive, IMO. There are other models that can work, but it does not mean the dealership model will die like the blacksmith did. It is still beneficial to see people in person, form a relationship and do business together. Point and click and your car is delivered is fine for some people. Not for others. There is room for dealers in a free market.

By the way, everyone who is condemning the regulations that protect dealerships should also be condemning all the other regulations that restrict the free market. Most regulations restrict the free market and have negative consequences.

The regulations protecting dealerships were designed to "protect jobs", basically, but the negative consequences are worse than the benefit the regulations are supposed to provide. This is true for almost all regulations. I say "almost" because there might be a stray regulation out there that has very minor negative consequences, but then it is probably a minor regulation anyway so who cares.
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