• ZeroWashu@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • dima1109@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • the_lamou@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        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!”

        • dima1109@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • the_lamou@alien.topB
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            1 year ago

            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.

      • TheKirkin@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        I’m not sure I understand this comment. Are you referring to the costs associated with producing the vehicles as a marketing exercise?

        • dima1109@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          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

          • TheKirkin@alien.topB
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            1 year ago

            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.