Late last month, Ford also announced that it would be delaying or canceling around $12 billion of its own planned investments into EVs amid waning demand,
Is that waning demand for EVs or waning demand for Ford EVs? Maybe if they’d build a decent economy EV (see: bolt) available for msrp people would actually buy the thing.
One of my local dealers is famously all in on Ford EV’s. The E Transit only gets 120 range…in the summer and it’s $50k. They have assloads of F150 Lightening but they are all $55k or higher. It’s so hard to justify when the gas equivalent is 30% cheaper out the door.
Is the E Transit in the US also a commercial panel van like here in Europe? I would think that 120 miles would be plenty for a lot of use cases for these things. Maybe less so in rural areas, though.
I wouldn’t be upset if every dealership in the world’s insurance suddenly lapsed and mysteriously burned to the ground. There is no reason there should be a middle-man in a car buying process.
The actual buildings don’t even need to go away. Turn them into delivery centers and maintenance/repair (which is already there). I want to order a car online, get ALL the paperwork finalized online, then go in to review/sign a couple documents, get my keys and leave.
And who is going to turn them into these barebones delivery centers? Dealerships are all independently owned and have to pay rent on a substantial amount of land beyond just the building itself. No automaker on the planet has the spare cash to buy all of their dealers out. With certain exceptions like Ferrari of course. But why would they want to deal directly to the public?
Cars that normal people can afford have thin margins.
The fat pandemic days of product scarcity and low interest rates are gone. Cheap cars will be back, but not without a lot of kicking and screaming first.
You’d think they could make a decent profit on a bare bones electric car once they go more mainstream. Just an electric motor, stereo and power windows and the basic safety features. Don’t need all the other fancy stuff.
Nobody buys bare bones cars, at least in the states. The value proposition just isn’t there. Most people will go used as the feature set is better for your money.
“bare bones cars” is one of the memes on this subreddit, along with “le manuel wagon”. Nobody wants them, that’s why they don’t make them.
Yeah for petrol cars. Electric is new and soon to take over and probably has lots of people who can’t afford expensive new electric cars that would take a bare bones electric one that was comfortable and offered cheap running cost over a second hand petrol/diesel car instead. It just has to be priced appropriately
Is that waning demand for EVs or waning demand for Ford EVs? Maybe if they’d build a decent economy EV (see: bolt) available for msrp people would actually buy the thing.
Waning demand compared to projections, which were all obviously bullshit from the beginning. That or CEOs are really that out of touch.
One of my local dealers is famously all in on Ford EV’s. The E Transit only gets 120 range…in the summer and it’s $50k. They have assloads of F150 Lightening but they are all $55k or higher. It’s so hard to justify when the gas equivalent is 30% cheaper out the door.
Is the E Transit in the US also a commercial panel van like here in Europe? I would think that 120 miles would be plenty for a lot of use cases for these things. Maybe less so in rural areas, though.
A panel van with only 120 miles of range would not work in the US.
But how are dealers supposed to gauge customers in poverty spec EVs? Think of the children!
The dealership model itself has a lot of modernizing and updates in general that need to happen…
Lol it is pretty brutal in a lot of ways.
I wouldn’t be upset if every dealership in the world’s insurance suddenly lapsed and mysteriously burned to the ground. There is no reason there should be a middle-man in a car buying process.
The actual buildings don’t even need to go away. Turn them into delivery centers and maintenance/repair (which is already there). I want to order a car online, get ALL the paperwork finalized online, then go in to review/sign a couple documents, get my keys and leave.
And who is going to turn them into these barebones delivery centers? Dealerships are all independently owned and have to pay rent on a substantial amount of land beyond just the building itself. No automaker on the planet has the spare cash to buy all of their dealers out. With certain exceptions like Ferrari of course. But why would they want to deal directly to the public?
Absolutely. If it costs Ford 10k to build a car, msrp is 20k, dealers should be getting these things for like 16k to sell for the 20.
Or manufacturers just need to supply the inventory for free and allocate a base sales commission for units sold.
If the MSRP is 20k, Ford is probably making $800/unit and the dealer is making $400. Unless the dealer can sell it for 25k…
Unfortunately, this is true.
Cars that normal people can afford have thin margins.
The fat pandemic days of product scarcity and low interest rates are gone. Cheap cars will be back, but not without a lot of kicking and screaming first.
You’d think they could make a decent profit on a bare bones electric car once they go more mainstream. Just an electric motor, stereo and power windows and the basic safety features. Don’t need all the other fancy stuff.
Nobody buys bare bones cars, at least in the states. The value proposition just isn’t there. Most people will go used as the feature set is better for your money.
“bare bones cars” is one of the memes on this subreddit, along with “le manuel wagon”. Nobody wants them, that’s why they don’t make them.
Yeah for petrol cars. Electric is new and soon to take over and probably has lots of people who can’t afford expensive new electric cars that would take a bare bones electric one that was comfortable and offered cheap running cost over a second hand petrol/diesel car instead. It just has to be priced appropriately