Ford Wants to Move to Direct Sales for EVs

[Longhorngirl]

Jim Farley wants to move to direct sales like Tesla and Rivian. The important word is “wants”. I assume the dealerships will have something to say about that. I don’t see it happening, but it would be a good move in the interest of customers.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/0...no-dealer-markups-says-ceo-farley/?comments=1

Few Americans enjoyed the car-buying process even before supply chain chaos, and the chip shortage led dealerships to mark up inventory by thousands of dollars. But buying a Ford electric vehicle might be a lot less painful in the future, if Ford CEO Jim Farley gets his way. On Wednesday, Farley said that he wants the company's EVs to be sold online-only, with no dealer markups or other price negotiations, according to the Detroit Free Press.

"We've got to go to non-negotiated price. We've got to go to 100 percent online. There's no inventory (at dealerships), it goes directly to the customer. And 100 percent remote pickup and delivery," Farley said while speaking at a conference in New York.

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[3121]

Dope

 

[ads75]

Ford wants to do what is best for its profit. And in modern times, it is controlling the process from build to delivery. If a customer can order online, Ford can see what the customers actually want, instead of dealers doing generic ordering for their lot to sell to customers who are willing to compromise on what they want. I think Ford is probably also getting tired of some of their dealers giving bad customer experiences (through markups and service), it only takes a few, and the stories get out online. Ford can also set the price, like Tesla, and move it up or down depending on inventory/build times, keeping any excess profit for themselves, instead of a dealer.

I haven't bought a Ford in almost 30 years, the first car I paid for was a Ford, and when it had some problems, I went to a dealer who performed service that didn't fix it, and they charged me a fortune for it, when I couldn't really afford it. And I've held it against Ford ever since, and will probably continue to do so. I even remember seeing a story on a national news program about how bad that specific dealer was some time later, but they kept the Ford brand. A 2nd Ford dealer in the area diagnosed and fixed the problem, for significantly cheaper.

 

[rodhx]

They’ve done so well with their Bronco/Mach E/Lightning preorder process I can’t imagine they’ll have any problems with direct sales.

 

[R1Sky Business]

About time

 

[JamesPolk24]

They should just spin-off a branch of the company entirely (new brand, possibly it's own IPO) for direct to consumer sales on future models. Get out of the teeth of dealerships.

 

[Longhorngirl]

They should just spin-off a branch of the company entirely (new brand, possibly it's own IPO) for direct to consumer sales on future models. Get out of the teeth of dealerships.

I think there was talk of spinning off the EV part of the company off as a separate company, but the Ford family was against that idea.

 

[E.S.]

I can see the dealership wanting to turn to their lawyers for this one. The amount of butt hurt they're going to feel for not being able to artificially markup vehicles is going to cause some serious strife

 

[ads75]

I can see the dealership wanting to turn to their lawyers for this one. The amount of butt hurt they're going to feel for not being able to artificially markup vehicles is going to cause some serious strife

I'm sure Ford has enough of their own lawyers. Might actually help those of us (and Rivian) in states that have strong pro-dealership laws.

 

[Lysdexic]

….and if Ford is successful, I wonder how far behind the other auto makers will be with this move. Could be dominoes are beginning to fall. This will be interesting to watch.

 

[ja_kub_sz]

This is gonna be one of the ugliest fights you'll ever see.

Ford vs. Ford Dealers

Wow! Don't see this going good at all. I'm all for dealers becoming glorified service centers (as they should be), but let's just watch this massive grenade go off.

Grab the popcorn!

 

[NY_Rob]

This is gonna be one of the ugliest fights you'll ever see.

Ford vs. Ford Dealers

Yeah, car dealerships practically wrote the book on dirty tricks... but i have a feeling the manufacturers aren't far behind.

Should be one hell of a knock down drag out....

 

[ja_kub_sz]

Basically it in a nutshell.

 

[SANZC02]

This will be interesting. Dealerships tend to make most of their money from service and not sales. The challenge for them even without losing the sales is where is the revenue stream going to come from? EVs need way less scheduled maintenance than ICE vehicles so they are already going to be under pressure as the sales shifts from ICE to EV.

I can see a lot of dealers shuttering in the near future. I also wonder if some dealers will end up leasing their showrooms to the manufacturers so they can create customer engagement centers similar to Tesla and Lucid and run service centers in the rear.

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