Ford gives dealers 2 months to accept new rules or stop selling EVs.

[timbop]

This is a very large country, one size does not fit all.

Very well said

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[timbop]

There is only one driving concern to keep/staying in business.

Stay competitive.

Now while a few of them will elect to not go into the deal that Ford is offering, I think it would be suicide to continue with a model that will be going instinct in the relative near future.

This will be like what happened a few years back when GM and others were thinning the herd. The Dealerships that were small and were not selling many cars had their new Dealership License to sell taken away. Many of them are used car Dealerships now while some folded shop altogether.

This is almost the exact situation but rather with a choice if you will.

Stay selling new cars or say goodbye to your new car franchise if you don't invest now.

It is not that complicated.

No, it is not that simple. The bigger picture is more complicated because of a potential cumulative effect

 

[DennisD]

You live in an area with dealer competition don’t you? Some of the smaller dealers that may not be able to swing the cash for an elite classification, allowing more than a handful of BEVs per year, aren’t in those areas. Failure to have contingencies for those areas will backfire. There are at least 5 manufacturers I can think of right offhand that either prohibit sales here or mandate an acknowledgement that there is no service, warranty or otherwise, here. And GM had to break all their new rules just to have a Chevrolet presence here. Do we want Ford to join those ranks for their BEVs?

This is a very large country, one size does not fit all.

https://www.honoluluford.com/all-inventory/index.htm?year=2022

As you can see, the Honolulu Ford Dealership has nearly 300 2022's on their lot.

On average, I would guess that most Dealerships are now making around 4K on each new vehicle sold with exception of the EV's.

Once again, not sure on where Hawaii was on new car sales back 2 years or so but the new cars sold here were around $300 mark up on Dealer cost around here. Once again, they made their money on used car sales and the crap they would sell for paint protection etc. They still do that btw.

Now assuming it was the same there as it was here, they will make enough on just the 22's current inventory on the lot to pay for the charger. In other words, they will be the same financially to where they were 2 years ago when not needing to buy the charger.

Like I have said all along, they can either choose to purchase the charging system and realize the potential for selling electric cars exclusively in around 15 years or they can use the Cuba Model of selling cars from the 50's in about 15 years. I would guess most would not choose the latter.

PS- There are at least 8 New Ford Dealerships in Hawaii. I didn't realize that there would be that many? I would assume that at least half of them will buy into this? Just a guess though.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

https://www.honoluluford.com/all-inventory/index.htm?year=2022

As you can see, the Honolulu Ford Dealership has nearly 300 2022's on their lot.

On average, I would guess that most Dealerships are now making around 4K on each new vehicle sold with exception of the EV's.

Once again, not sure on where Hawaii was on new car sales back 2 years or so but the new cars sold here were around $300 mark up on Dealer cost around here. Once again, they made their money on used car sales and the crap they would sell for paint protection etc. They still do that btw.

Now assuming it was the same there as it was here, they will make enough on just the 22's current inventory on the lot to pay for the charger. In other words, they will be the same financially to where they were 2 years ago when not needing to buy the charger.

Like I have said all along, they can either choose to purchase the charging system and realize the potential for selling electric cars exclusively in around 15 years or they can use the Cuba Model of selling cars from the 50's in about 15 years. I would guess most would not choose the latter.

PS- There are at least 8 New Ford Dealerships in Hawaii. I didn't realize that there would be that many? I would assume that at least half of them will buy into this? Just a guess though.

There are three dealers on Oahu and one on each of the other islands. One dealer has two locations, but they are not separate dealers nor even separate operations. There is an additional car retailer on Oahu that advertises as a Ford Dealership, but that's not exactly correct.

No one is arguing that in the long run being an EV dealer is a bad thing, it most definitely is not. The problem is transitioning to that point, particularly in rural areas, without selling ICE vehicles. And as I said before, the public side has an amazing dearth of information about the program.

The last thing that Ford is going to want here is a repeat of the Chevy dealership problem where the owner of the Toyota brand with all the distribution rights (and that's not Toyota USA) is the dealer of Chevrolet products on this island. And that brings up an interesting tangent. All these local dealers of various manufacturers? They often advertise implying they're family owned. Yeah, no in a great many cases. Many Oahu based dealers were bought up years ago. The remaining family dealers are, for the most part, on the neighbor islands.

 

[Guss-E 2021]

Let's not forget that there is already a wholesale cost well below the MSRP that the dealer pays. That can get eaten up with floor plan interest. That was the encouragement to mark down the selling price. And when a model doesn't move, they also get a further discount. With the supply chain shortage that seems to have gone away. You'll notice that the small dealers have empty new lots. Yet the mega dealers are getting cars. So FMC is kind of generating this to increase profits.

I've underwritten three Ford dealerships this year. They are all doing just fine and Floorplan assistance has exceeded interest expense in every case because inventory turn (days) is so short. CFC has been well over 1.2X.

 

[Jim D]

At a minimum, Model E Elite dealers will need to install two high-powered DC fast chargers and a level 2 charging station, as well as offer at least one DC fast charger available for the public to use...Model E Certified dealers are only required to install one DC fast charger, and it must be made available for public use.

This won't help in many cities where dealers are located and infrastructure is already going in but will be a big improvement to charging infrastructure in rural areas.

I hope Ford adds up-time requirements on those chargers.

Yeah, the available for public use is important. I followed the directions to the nearest charger one Sunday evening and it lead me to a Ford dealership. It had a charger, but it had no power. At least there was another charger within reach. They should not be allowed to list a charger on the Ford network site if it is not available all the time.

 

[Rfehl62]

My nephew is a GM at a fairly small Dealership. While I realize that a Dealer doesn't make much on an EV vehicle at MSRP now, the ICE vehicles have been selling equally as well with a high surcharge if you will. My nephew has informed me that the owner of his Dealership is making way more now than in the previous 20 plus years. Just think about it. A few years ago, one could negotiate down to a few hundred over dealer cost. Now, the Dealership is making up to 10K over what they used to on every vehicle sold. If you have time, do the math and let me know how tight their hands are tied?

With that being said, anyone that feels sorry for the Dealerships can only feel sorry for them for not knowing what to do with the millions they are raking in.

In the last couple years, the owners of Dealerships are making more now than they ever have. The minor investment in getting equipped for the EV's are a drop in the bucket for most. In just a few years, they will be selling more EV's than their ICE counterparts. I would guess that most if not all will abide by Ford's suggestions.

By having Ford "look away" for many high ADM's, I don't see that as "tying their hands behind their backs". Ford watched many of their Dealerships rape the consumer while doing next to nothing about it. If you want to feel sorry for someone, I would look at the consumer in this climate.

I think your nephew would agree with me when I saw the times of the dealer making that much on the ice are coming to an end. Ford is beginning to claw back a lot of the profit the dealer was making. Consumers will still be paying the same absurd prices but the money will be going in Fords pockets. We had a good couple of years though lol.

 

[DennisD]

I think your nephew would agree with me when I saw the times of the dealer making that much on the ice are coming to an end. Ford is beginning to claw back a lot of the profit the dealer was making. Consumers will still be paying the same absurd prices but the money will be going in Fords pockets. We had a good couple of years though lol.

Actually, it has only been a couple years that the Dealership's have been making money on new vehicles, before that not much on the new sales end.

Like I said before, their money was always in the service and used car side.

It is not the New vehicle sales structure that they need to be concerned about but rather the Service end. I would assume much less in service with EV's compared to their ICE counterparts.

 

[Skip Towne]

My local Ford dealer (North Country Ford, Lancaster, NH) told me they are dropping EVs at the end of this month. They've sold VERY few, keeping enough techs is hard enough, but EV Certified?? And, their service departartment is booked out 5 weeks. - so they aren't exacly looking for the work.

The downside of pushing the small dealers put of the program - sometimes the small dealer is the only dealer within 50 miles. Pretty soon, I'm going to need a full charge to get to the dealer ;-)

 

[AKgrampy]

My local Ford dealer (North Country Ford, Lancaster, NH) told me they are dropping EVs at the end of this month. They've sold VERY few, keeping enough techs is hard enough, but EV Certified?? And, their service departartment is booked out 5 weeks. - so they aren't exacly looking for the work.

The downside of pushing the small dealers put of the program - sometimes the small dealer is the only dealer within 50 miles. Pretty soon, I'm going to need a full charge to get to the dealer ;-)

My nearest dealer, if my local opts out, is 350 miles. If that dealer opts out its 1500 miles!

 

[Billyk24]

My local Ford dealer (North Country Ford, Lancaster, NH) told me they are dropping EVs at the end of this month. They've sold VERY few, keeping enough techs is hard enough, but EV Certified?? And, their service departartment is booked out 5 weeks. - so they aren't exacly looking for the work.

The downside of pushing the small dealers put of the program - sometimes the small dealer is the only dealer within 50 miles. Pretty soon, I'm going to need a full charge to get to the dealer ;-)

True for most rural dealerships. Going to hurt potential sales in such areas. Too much too soon for such dealers and this may backfire on the corporate Ford. What is wrong with rural dealerdhips having ev and ice vehicles for sale?

 

[dtbaker61]

It is quite likely that third-party investment/ownership of the public-facing L3 charger(s) will be allowable.... as long as it is either on or near Dealership. How near I think is still being discussed.

What this means is that Dealerships may only have to invest in a couple cheap L2 chargers if they want to allow a 3rd party to own/operate the expensive L3 and take that risk on as a stnad-alone business.

The bigger choices for the 'old-school' Dealerships is whether or not they want to change their business models to try and make money selling and servicing EVs, or just sell/service ICE vehicles for the next 5-10 years and see how it goes.

 

[Billyk24]

It is quite likely that third-party investment/ownership of the public-facing L3 charger(s) will be allowable.... as long as it is either on or near Dealership. How near I think is still being discussed.

What this means is that Dealerships may only have to invest in a couple cheap L2 chargers if they want to allow a 3rd party to own/operate the expensive L3 and take that risk on as a stnad-alone business.

The bigger choices for the 'old-school' Dealerships is whether or not they want to change their business models to try and make money selling and servicing EVs, or just sell/service ICE vehicles for the next 5-10 years and see how it goes.

Demand charges from utility companies can be killer. Have read of such compsnies demanding $1000 a month extra for providing high flow capabilities. Cant see smaller rural dealers going this route especially when towing ranges of ev are less than 100 miles.

 

[dtbaker61]

Demand charges from utility companies can be killer. Have read of such compsnies demanding $1000 a month extra for providing high flow capabilities. Cant see smaller rural dealers going this route especially when towing ranges of ev are less than 100 miles.

this is turning out to not be a problem. The utilities are jumping at the opportunity to create special TOU rateclass for EVs... with variable rates peak/off-peak, which the L3 chargers can handle on the fly, the charge stations can adjust the cost 'at the pump' peak/off-peak to encourage off-peak charging, and make the consumer pay the price for fast charge during peak, or offer a lower rate for slower charge during peak.

 

[Billyk24]

this is turning out to not be a problem. The utilities are jumping at the opportunity to create special TOU rateclass for EVs... with variable rates peak/off-peak, which the L3 chargers can handle on the fly, the charge stations can adjust the cost 'at the pump' peak/off-peak to encourage off-peak charging, and make the consumer pay the price for fast charge during peak, or offer a lower rate for slower charge during peak.

Not in this neck of the woods. Such information is posted on plug share in the up of Michigan.

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