That’s why dealerships need to die. Manufacturers don’t like that shit either, but dealerships have been banding together to lobby to remain a shitty middle-man that greatly marks up prices.
Don’t even have to go far for the lobbying, there are a lot of politicians who own or are involved with car dealerships directly :|
Manufacturers love the dealership model, because those shitty middlemen at the dealerships shield the manufacturers from direct contact with the consumer and all of the consumer’s problems and complaints. And the dealerships absorb the costs of holding inventory and investing in the real estate square footage required to sell cars.
I don’t know, there are a lot of very recent examples of legacy manufacturers trying to sell direct and then getting caught up in litigation and politics with dealers.
I was recently caught up in a mess with Volvo. I leased direct through Volvo, no dealer. Then the program got shit canned because dealers through a fit. Volvo fought back, and now it’s back in many US states.
This.
A friend of my parents desperately wanted one of the new Broncos, and they were just selling out everywhere, so they decided to work with the small local dealership and order one direct from Ford.
So they picked out every last detail, placed the deposit, and waited.
It was like 5 or 6 months then they finally got the call to come down, it was ready.
Well when they got there, the fucking piece of shit dealer tells them that he’s increasing the price by 10k.
They ask why and what happened to the price they agreed on, and the guy tells them that basically these kinds of customer orders are the only way he can get more broncos from Ford, but he knows he can get more for this one so he’s going back on their agreement. So they can either agree to the higher price right now, or go home empty handed and he will still sell it within the week.
I don’t know how they walked out of that place not in handcuffs, because I’d have assaulted the guy.
They get home and call up Ford and Ford basically said, “Sorry you had to go through that, but we have no control over our dealers, so they can do that and neither you nor we have any recourse or any way around it.”
Basically that story alone meant to me that A. I’ll never drive a Ford, and 2. I will badmouth that little locally owned dealership any time anyone I know is considering using them, and I hope they go under.
The thing is, Ford can control that shit, they just have no desire or motivation to do so. Contrast that story with Subaru. Post pandemic when car prices were insane and demand was through the roof, Subaru of America mandated that all their dealers were not too MSRP on any new Subaru vehicles. If they found any dealership price gouging, they got one warning, then SoA pulled their fucking license to sell the brand.
You don’t need to be smart to be a car salesman. I think it may actually be a hindrance.
I had a salesman tell me once that I could get a really good deal on an R32. Someone at the dealership took it out for a joyride and rolled it, but because it wasn’t insured, they slapped it back together and sold it with a clean title.
Another time I had a sales guy try to sell me a truck with 100k miles put on it in 12 months with no maintenance records.
I honestly wanted to walk when I heard that but my mom and her husband wanted to still give them a chance.
You must be young. You need to find someone with sense to help you with the car buying process. Your mom and her husband are not it if they still hadn’t figured out the dealership and sales guy were shady at that point.
I swear half the popularity of Tesla is being able to avoid dealerships/saleslizards
Previously we seemed to have decent luck at Toyota dealers but for one car we had such a bad experience that we went to a different dealer and said we’d be willing to pay more if the original saleslizard doesn’t get a commission.
I definitely don’t even understand - when a customer has something very specific they’re looking for, how do you waste both your and their time and abuse the customer enough to lose an easy sale? I can see the attempt to upsell but come on, try something that might work
They marketed the Lightning at $40-something-k, everyone wanted one. Then they only made them cost twice that, and “suddenly nobody wants one”
Same energy as “nobody wants to work anymore”, really
No demand?? I want it. I just can’t afford it. Do something about THAT.
An 800v LiFePo truck would actually be able to tow reasonably as chargers improve. You’d have to stop every 120mi and change for 10-15 mins but I could live with 15 min stops every two hours.
Plus they don’t have thermal runaway and burn your fucking house down while charging.
I don’t understand why EV use Li-ion or Li-po in the first place. LiFePo is clearly a superior choice for something like an EV.
One of the biggest challenges with mass EV battery production is making sure performance stays somewhat flat across the entire market you’re selling them in. Typically, LiFePo batteries perform better at higher temperatures than other chemistries, at the expense of low-temperature performance.
This works well, as long as
- These batteries are only in vehicles sold in warmer climates
- Customers never drive these vehicles into cold climates.
#1 is much easier to enforce as a manufacturer, but customers will be pissed if they move north, and their vehicle has worse range and power.
Li-ion has a flatter temp/performance curve, so it’s more suited to geographically larger markets like the US, where regulations require a single range number for the entire country, despite the significant climate variance
Energy density. NMC batteries are 50+% better when it comes to energy density so you can pack more energy storing capacity for the same weight
Edit : I read up and my percentage figure is off. I was deriving numbers from some old articles. Currently it seems NMC batteries have around 20℅(? Please correct me if I am wrong again) better energy density.
Gas at Costco is 2.75. When it jumps back up to $4, they’ll start selling more again.
I think Ford’s bigger problem is that the R1T is a cooler truck that costs about the same.
I hate it because you can’t see 20 feet in front of you. My friends got an R1 and like it, but admit that the hood is so high and flat that they can’t see if their own kids are in front of them.
After driving both I went with the lightning.
The R1T is cool. It’s a single person camping truck all the way. A little smaller, more capable of getting in and out of tight places that are predominately Jeep accessible. But the center rear seat is very uncomfortable, the payload capacity is lower both size and weight wise, and for me being forced in to one pedal driving was not ideal.
The lightning is wider, and heavier. But also more comfortable for everyone inside, can tow better, and I have loved having the power options, no need for a generator.
The audiences are similar but a bit different. I do think that Ford is nuts for saying there’s no demand. Make the ER pro for 50k and you could sell them all day. But you can’t even order that option, much less get it for that price. Maybe it costs more than to produce, but I’m willing to bet not. They would just need to be able to sell them direct to public to make it worth it and most states don’t allow for it.
and for me being forced in to one pedal driving was not ideal.
I don’t know anyone with an EV who hasn’t eventually moved to one pedal driving. It’s one of those things that you think feels weird at first but once you try it for a few days you never want to go back.
Make the ER pro for 50k and you could sell them all day. But you can’t even order that option, much less get it for that price.
This is the obvious issue. They marked the base model up by $12k before it ever came out and then didn’t make any. I would have one right now if I could get one for $40k like they said originally and I don’t even like trucks!
Sure, for internal combustion trucks, but we’re talking about their F150 EV.
Ford sold around 21,000 F-150 Lightnings in 2023. Rivian sold around 19,000 R1T pickups and 23,000 R1S SUVs on that pickup platform. And there is still a wait time to get Rivians. They’re not manufacturing fast enough to meet demand, while Ford is winding down.
My friend bought one for 80k and loves it.
Yeah wtf, I thought demand was nuts, just that no one could get ahold of one.
