- cross-posted to:
- cars@gearhead.town
- cross-posted to:
- cars@gearhead.town
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Well, uhhh, what are they going to sell when all vehicles switch over?
I’m not a fan of ford dealers. I spent 100k on a vehicle and took it in for a recall. I asked where my loaner car was. They said ford doesn’t do that. Who spends on 100k and doesn’t get a loaner car?
GM doesn’t provide a loaner car anymore either.
My Volvo dealer is the same way. My C40 wouldn’t recognize my key and couldn’t be locked or unlocked. I brought it in, they wanted to keep it overnight, and then told me there wouldn’t be a loaner available for two months. I asked if they would call a rental company for me and I would pay out of pocket, and they shrugged at me and told me they weren’t familiar with any rental companies nearby. I ended up taking my car home and fixing it myself.
Compare this to my Mercedes dealer that always had a loaner available within a day or two, and the one time I had to wait a week they profusely apologized for the inconvenience. I love my Volvo, but I definitely won’t buy another one.
I got the same treatment you got at Mercedes when my Model 3 shit the bed early last year. Inverter malfunction blew the pyro fuse, and I had to get towed to the Tesla service center across town. They profusely apologized that they had no loaners at the time, but would get me one as soon as possible.
They gave me free Uber credits for the week it took them to round up a loaner, which I drove for the next two weeks while they waited to get a good replacement inverter (the first one they got also went bad during their testing).
That seems pretty unusual for a Volvo dealer. Was this during the COVID inventory shortages? A lot of dealers simply just didn’t have any cars available to put in loaner service.
This was last year. No idea if it was because of inventory shortages, but the dealership made me feel like a piece of shit for just being there. Like I was inconveniencing them. Never seen anything like it.
Volvo seems to be the worst of the luxury brands when it comes to customer service. I was shocked at how useless they were when I went to test drive an XC-40 recharge. I asked about the wool seats and they laughed at me, telling me no one buys that from them. I said they might sell more if they actually had some to look at, but they blew me off. They couldn’t tell me anything about the car itself, including charge rate, battery size, efficiency, etc.
I went there expecting to order one, and ended up leaving with no intention of ever buying a Volvo again.
Volvo is a Chinese company now. The car side was sold to Ford a long time ago, leaving the original Volvo as a commercial truck manufacturer. And then Ford sold that car division to Geely. It’s long removed from the company that built its reputation.
From my experience, Geely is better than Ford in many of these things. I know my Chinese in-laws like Geely at least.
If the problem is covered under warranty than they should be providing some sort of transportation.
The problem is it has to be APPROVED by ford corporate for warranty work. If they have a backup of service calls your car will just sit on the lot for weeks with nothing being done and no loaner/rental for you.
If they were forced to give a loaner, I guarantee that would be a quick turnaround. BMW has always treated me well putting me in a loaner of a newer model of the same car. Obviously trying to get me to trade in but at least they make an effort the few times I’ve had to do warranty work on a 15 year old car.
Wasn’t worth the added costs and training.
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV last quarter!
This article provides useful context: www.autoblog.com/amp/2023/03/16/ford-model-e-dealer-changes-unhappy/
This isn’t dealerships saying they don’t want to sell EVs nearly as much as it is about dealerships not wanting to deal with Ford’s burdensome and expensive corporate policies around selling them.
Ford’s burdensome corporate policies around selling them.
i don’t think having fast chargers onsite is burdensome for people who sell EVs.
which involves investments of between $500,000 and $1.2 million,
that’s where most of the cost is… all the shit that goes in the ground needed to support fast chargers (utility vault hardware) - dealership won’t ever touch it, but it’s got to be there - and the utility will charge you for every hour of work they have to do.
https://energy5.com/dc-fast-charging-stations-cost---a-comprehensive-guide
DCFC station hardware can cost between $50,000 to $100,000. Installation costs for these EV charging stations range from $30,000 to $70,000, depending on the location, size of the equipment, and whether you want it installed indoors or outdoors.
Car dealerships are installing diners and boutique latte bars and other shit like that. Installing a place to charge the cars they sell isn’t a stretch.
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
I’m guessing the dealers have issue with this rule: “The automaker wants dealers to set no-haggle prices.” So they can continue charging crazy dealer markups, raking in extra profit and not having to be bothered with installing chargers getting EV specific tools and training.
From what I recall there were also a few other obvious problems with it for dealerships beyond that, including 1) very jacked up prices for stuff like Ford installing chargers at their location, 2) each dealer can only get a fixed supply of EVs, regardless of if they live near a ton of people and sell way more cars than the average dealerships or are in some rural areas that might only sell half as many vehicles as a result. And I’m sure that there were other things to that I’m forgetting.
And ford keeps changing the requirements… lot’s of dealers ticked off over changes due to ford corporate not having their end together.
It’s about the no-haggle and truth-in-pricing requirements that would prevent them from playing their stupid dealer games.
The other stuff they’re complaining about is just chaff.
Legacy has switched to the full propaganda against ev model instead shrug
Given the surveys, they seem to be finding some success with this, tbh.
To create an affordable EV vehicle at a price that still allows the company to make money will take time and resources invested in creating the infostructure to do so. The people at the helm of the company now will not be there when this comes to fruition so there is no motivation for them to reduce their company profits for something that will hurt them during their tenure.
The switch to EVs will have winners and losers, companies that are run like this will probably fall within the loser camp.
EVs will never be a thing because they will be the loser.
Are you serious? You must live under a rock, over a million EVs are slated to be sold in 2023 by year’s end.
Come back when you have found a braincell.
Nobody wants an EV other than a Tesla. they’re dogshit products. Hence this story. Cant even have a road trip in one, whats the point?
Wow, so I must’ve dreamed all those road trips I’ve take in my i4. And I guess I’ll dream the one I’m taking on Friday, too.
Enjoy your long ass charging breaks if you can find a public charger that works. Where do you put the 4 kids and dogs? The roof?
Eh Ford specifically sells a shitload of trucks. Most vehicles they sell are trucks. Trucks make most of their profit. And trucks will still allowed to be combustion for a while
don’t worry, the american taxpayers will bail them out again
If the Chinese automakers start having success, we’ll just tarriff them and keep burning expensive gas. Problem solved!
Sadly, I think you are correct.
well, ford told them they had to, among other things, hire and train competent and knowledgeable sales and service staff, and that’s just a bridge too far for your typical car dealer
test driving EVs with sales staff is awful. They know next to nothing about the car or EVs in general.
And it’s not like they didn’t have a chance to see it coming, either. Our 2010 Chevy Volt buying experience was exactly the same. “Oh, yeah - the new kid - he’s the one who knows about the hybrids…”
And the kid was like 23, fresh out of college.
And then the service center, ugh. We did have something weird going on with ours (it eventually got swapped out under Lemon Laws) but basically they were having to fly in engineers/techs from GM in Detroit because like the 1 mechanic at our dealer who took like 1 Volt maintenance training class … couldn’t figure anything out at all.
That was >12 years ago now. ICE dealers have had time to see this coming. They have no interest in adapting.
In May I bought my Kia EV and had the weird experience of the dealer’s sales manager telling me pure EV FUD foolishness about range anxiety while I was signing the purchase papers.
So if you are inconvenienced by range, you come back in 3 months and trade it in for another and they make another commission.
Hyundai Sonata. Two Hyundai dealers in town. Four more along the way until I get to a Hyundai dealer with a tech that can actually service my car three hours of driving later. But from a known brand with a local dealer they said. Service will be local they said.
test driving with sales staff is awful. They know next to nothing about cars in general.
FTFY.
When I bought my gas cars, they had no idea about the features of the car. Same held true for my EVs.
They’re just there to make sure you don’t run off with the car while you figure out for yourself if you like it.
I had them outright lie to me about range and charging time, and were confused when I corrected them lol
They don’t know anything about their ICE vehicles either, it’s just less obvious since they have general car knowledge.
When I test drove my Kia Niro EV the dude couldn’t even tell us how to turn the car on or shift into drive. (step on gas pedal then press button)
The last guy who sold me a car didn’t even know which company he worked for. He kept saying the car/brand of prior place he worked.
That’s funny and familiar. One salesman could tell me absolutely nothing about his EV model, but kept pushing the EV at the dealer next door.
It’s not hard to find the information, there’s literally entire YouTube videos dedicated to it.
I think the first time I ever test drive a car was about 20 years ago and it was a Kia Rio. The salesman couldn’t stop telling me how shitty some other car company’s cars were and had nothing to say about the Rio.
They don’t even know anything about their ice vehicles… I taught so many salespeople about things they didn’t know last time I shopped because I had spent a lot of time researching that particular truck and its trims.
I test drove a few in the past year, but I’m not exactly in prime EV sales territory. Every single one was at under 10% charge when I sat down.
I keep reflecting on how my experience was so much different than everyone else, and how lucky I got. In 2018 even and the sales dude actually knew his shit, even if he was slightly more PHEV than BEV.
I feel liked I found a damned unicorn based on the horror stories I hear regularly.
They know nothing about cars. If they did, they wouldn’t be car salespeople.
They know nothing about gas F150s, in my experience.
Every time I’ve ever test driven a car with a salesman it’s been the dumbest experience of my life. People who clearly don’t know a damn thing about the car, and can only tell you “this thing really suits you” or something. If I ask “does it have apple CarPlay” they gotta look it up because they don’t even know. I can only imagine it’s worse for EVs.
I’d love to just be an EV salesman for like 4 hours a day after my normal 7-3 workday. I’d be like do you love gas stations? No? Me either. Do you have a garage or drive to a work parking lot? Yes? Well you’d be perfect for an electric car. It’s the convenience and knowledge that you’re helping reduce carbon emissions after only a few years.
At some places they’re still not even knowledgeable about fucking hybrids. Went with the wife a couple weeks ago to toyota to test drive a couple and the salesman that went with us couldn’t answer literally anything she asked about them, I had to do it.
I remember shopping around for a used old Leaf. Couldn’t answer the most basic questions, like if the model came with Chademo or not (first few model year Leafs had DCFC as optional)
They didn’t even know about the federal tax credit
Ford seemed like they were making competitive products for a while. Now they’ll be relegated to the dustbin of automotive history.
yeah their ev efforts are, er, stuck in neutral at the moment and for the foreseeable future
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
And to stop slapping a 30-40k markup on EVs
Sounds like a personal problem for the dealers
That’s ok. Only the strong survive. Hope they are customer centric.
Competent sales staff, jeezus! What’s next? Competent mechanics?
Ford would do themselves a huge favor to start direct to consumer sells like Tesla does… I’m almost 1000% positive that lightning would’ve been a much bigger deal had dealers been excluded… EV6 also, both had ridiculous markups, $70K for base models w/dealership packages… it was insane!
It seems the only thing standing between Ford and greatness… are dealerships smdh
given the low profit and sales what did anyone expect? spending over a million dollars and agreeing to no haggle pricing when the average profit on a Mach E, it has been stated it may be lower than five percent per sale and most of that from the manufacturer.
So if they clear two to three thousand dollars on the sale of one Mach E the pay back is… well, never. I am not even counting the investment in training sales persons who may just be gone in less than a year.
Ford cannot make the vehicle at a profit so it had to extract some of the costs from the dealers. Ford has around three thousand dealers in the US and their total sales was 1.8m - which means the average is six hundred per dealer but its obvious many dealers are small town types who might do half that at best.
The numbers were never going to support a large number of dealerships going forward and we will end up seeing the smaller local stores lost to the big super stores and that may not be a desirable outcome.
this puts me in a pretty small minority but I don’t actually believe the automakers when they say that they can’t make a sufficient profit on evs or that they lose money on every one they make. be it accounting tricks or outright lying, but spending billions of dollars on something that’s effectively a marketing exercise just doesn’t make any sense.
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
I’m not sure I understand this comment. Are you referring to the costs associated with producing the vehicles as a marketing exercise?
I think any ev from a big 3 brand (with possible exception of the bolt) isn’t actually designed to make money or develop technology and is designed as a showpiece to show consumers that they’re innovative and are in with the latest trends
Ahh I see what you’re saying.
I’d probably disagree with you just due to the significant costs associated with engineering and manufacturing a new product in general let alone a relatively new category. I will say I do feel like EV products from the big 3 sans GM were rushed so you’re probably right to some degree.
They’re not saying that. That’s how it’s being reported. What the actual manufacturers are saying is “this is new tech and all the cost is in the up front, so we’re going to lose money per car until the R&D is sufficiently amortized.” Which is then being turned into click-bait headlines of “X Manufacturer is losing $500,000 per car!”
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
this would make sense if they were consistently communicating this exact message. but instead we get stuff like ford raising prices and justifying it by saying that they’re losing money on their evs - if losing money was both true and expected, there would be no need for them to do or say any of this.
They’re raising prices on everything, though. And just because they expect to lose money doesn’t mean they don’t want to lose less money.
huh? they recently lowered prices on the lightning by a good amount
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
Kind of like that ID.4 couple I found at the only charger for miles who had arrived at 1% because the dealer didn’t tell them about ABRP
could be because abrp is garbage
What’s the better alternative for a Volkswagen?
google maps and chargehub
Yeah, they want to make money, not know anything.
Would be cool if Ford does what it does in China, which is opening dedicated Ford EV stores, but imma guess that’s probably not happening in the states
But then they would be violating all those dealer laws they lobbied for.
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
America needs an upgrade. Let’s put a chick in it and make her gay, I guess?
That would also violate Ford’s dealership contracts and would be illegal in many states due to dealership protection laws.
Those ancient laws need to be repealed but I’m guessing dealership owners are fairly big political donors so the chance of this is absolute zero.
Dealership owners are the political machine in local politics in a lot of areas.
due to dealership protection laws
Which, of course, the dealers themselves made sure were passed through lobbying
We need multi-manufacturer EV-focused sales and service centers.
Our local Ford dealer in small community closed. He made it sound like Ford was forcing the $1 million dollar upgrade, is that how it works?
Yes, that’s how it works
If that’s the case I almost done blame many dealers for wanting to participate. Ford needs to find some loophole for direct sales then.
If they want to sell EVs, yes.
It’s obvious that dealerships are trying to kill EV sales or they would actually be putting forth effort.
It’s the service center, they make bank off ICE cars that need this type of maintenance. EVs require basically none.
They are really just speeding up the death of dealerships, it’s all good.
Gas cars require costly maintenance every 6 months. EV’s need minimal maintenance once a year.
Gas cars require costly maintenance every 6 months
Come on. I can’t wait for ICE to die, but what are you doing to your poor ICE that it needs costly maintenance every 6 months?
When I bought my Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid it had scheduled maintenance every six months.
One time I brought it in for its regular maintenance and my bill was $900. Sold it right after that and bought an EV. My apartment also has free charging so it made sense :)
My econobox Prius C had scheduled six-month maintenance, too. That said, it was free for the first three years as a factory standard, and I paid (probably too much) for the extended warranty that upped that to five years.
The average car is driven 12000 miles a year. That’s two oil changes.
Which are easy to do yourself. I taught my daughter to change the oil and filter on her Corolla.
And any time a vehicle goes in for an oil change, that’s an opportunity to upsell all kinds of stuff. Overpriced air filters, wiper fluid, etc.
Yeah, they don’t give away those free oil changes with new cars for nothing. The local dealer would try to sell alignments on the first visit, and they always had at least $40 in “needed” maintenance to add on.
Sure but I think it’s obvious we can agree that one oil change every 6 months isn’t “costly maintenance”.
I’ve spent like $300 maintaining my 2013 Subaru for 4 years lol
Did yours chug coolant like mine?
Not individually. Multiply $100 visits times hundreds of clients and it adds up for the dealership.
That’s without mentioning how often they use a simple oil change visit to tell people something else in their car needs replacing even when it doesn’t really yet.
All of that adds up to a LOT of missing money.
Depends on the car. That’s one oil change on a Lexus.
That’s 3+ oil changes on a beater.
Ford lost $36000.00 on every EV sold last quarter!
Sell them direct like Tesla does
They can’t do that everywhere. Dealership protection laws prevent them from being rid of the middle man. What they can do is keep those 400 dealers from having the top selling models.
What I don’t understand is that it’s illegal because of dealership protection laws but what if someone wants to buy an EV but no dealer around them sells them? There has to at least be an exception for direct order if say no dealer within 100 miles sells them or something.
Then you do like Tesla buyers and get one in a state that sells them. It’s not uncommon for car buyers to leave their home state for a model that they want.
Could you imagine? “Meet our EV requirements, or no F Series trucks.”
I like the way you think!
Lobby to reverse those laws. They have the power.
There goes the EV competition is coming…
Ford is going to a direct sales model so this is unsurprising.