- cross-posted to:
- electricvehicles@gearhead.town
- cross-posted to:
- electricvehicles@gearhead.town
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Dealerships have undue legal protection from the government. All manufacturers should have the right to sell directly.
I mean if the most practical one even after incentives wasn’t 55K CAD before tax, I’d consider it.
Also keep in mind most houses don’t have charging stations in the garage. So you’d probably have to buy that on top of the car. I’m not sure how much that would cost including install, I would imagine something like $1000 to $3000?
I just installed a Tesla charger for $750 after a $250 rebate from our utility provider.
That price included the purchase price of the charger itself.
I just did one myself for my 4xe. Charger was $380, proper outlet, correctly sized wire and box was around $200. I had the breaker already but that’s another $40 or so. I installed it myself for free so total cost was $580-$620.
This is why Toyota went hard into hybrids instead of straight EVs and it’s showing to be good decision. Toyota has always been more about being practical and for everyday consumers.
It was a smart short term decision. They won’t be able to scale and catch up on EVs and will now completely miss the boat. Hybrids will be too expensive and irrelevant within 5 years.
I’ll take that bet.
EV’s won’t be the majority of new vehicle sales within even 10 years, much less the shorter and ridiculously optimistic 5 year timeline you propose in your comment there.
EV’s won’t be the majority of new vehicle sales within even 10 years
That’s a joke. What do you think happens to the market when the cost of the battery is 50-70% less than today? This will happen by 2030. Tesla EVs will be cheaper than ICE cars, let alone hybrids. Toyota won’t be able to compete.
in europe it absolutely is. EVs are only accelerating and even poor countries are over 30% new car share.
looks like Toyota is getting the last laugh
Not just toyota. A whole bunch of armchair analysts (self included) have been doubting the “inevitability” of EV’s the whole time.
REAL curious how that Ramcharger thing affects the full size pickup world.
But yet ALL of the manufacturers say they’ll be EV only within the next 10-15 years?
I smell BS!
Ford should have been using their battery supply to make hybrids all along, which they are excellent at making.
Maybe Ford knows something about a better alternative to EVs 👀 One can only hope
I’m not familiar with Ford EV business but I only know of the Mustang SUV and the ford lightning. Both are way overpriced
Consumers are starting to see through the BS.
Battery tech is projected to advance so fast that I’d almost consider all EVs today concept cars for “what will be”. I doubt a big automaker would ever go public with that message but they have to see the writing on the wall regarding the pace at which they’ll out-date their own cars.
A 500mi/charge EV will completely sink the value on their inventory for a 250-300/charge model. So why mass produce it when they run that risk?
I enjoy your optimism
Technician here who also worked in auto sales.
There’s no margin in cars. All your gross profit is in premium truck and SUV’s. There’s a reason you don’t see bare bones work truck trim level trucks on the lot.
Combine that with the fact that entry level EV’s are still pretty expensive and it just makes sense. (I live in Canada, so this might not be as true if you’re in the states.)
An economy EV from Ford might boost interest. The EV market isn’t waning, perhaps it’s the approach that needs an overhaul
Good thing they got a fat loan recently to keep themselves afloat.
My 2009 Ford fusion cost me $680 last year to maintain and that included a new power window, two cylinder heads, and 4 oil changes.
My dad was quoted $1150 to replace a cracked windshield in his Tesla that was damaged all the way back in January, he’s still driving with the crack.
Ford won’t have an issue selling EVs when the cost of replacement parts is not the cost of a cheap used car.
Windshield cost isn’t because it’s an EV, it’s because of all the additional tech involved in new car windshields - heating elements, sensors, etc. It’s not just a piece of glass anymore on a lot (most?) newer cars.
That’s not an EV issue bro. Every modern car has a crap ton of sensors and radars on the windshield now.
How about Tesla owners with over 100K discovering that they need to replace their batteries to the tune of $15K? It’s certainly not wide-spread yet, but it’s an issue that’s popping up. Also, repeated use of fast chargers shortens battery life.
If Right To Repair was a thing they could take it to a shop to replace whatever cells are broken. And fast charging can shorten battery life if you always fast charge to 100%, the rule of thumb is to fast charge between 20%-80% to prolong the life of the battery.
The owner of Electrified Garage (back East) and Youtuber, RichRebuilds, just did a piece on it. He can do the job but it’s more expensive for him to do it than Tesla. Basically, he said owners with bad battery packs have three options: put it for sale on Copart and try to get a little bit back; pay Tesla $15K; pay an independent $20K.
Well shit, I hope that can only go down in price.
The biggest issue is that a lot of places are slow to have a dedicated EV certified bay. One it’s super expensive due to all the high voltage equipment. Then you’re down a bay that can pretty much only be used for ev’s. As far as I know Ford didn’t really do much to offset that cost. If the dealership is in an area where space is an issue the cost goes up even more. Not an issue with the large dealerships the small ones I can see not wanting to go with it.
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.
Demand is there. But if Ford met the demand they might go bankrupt. They dont make money on EVs. Pretty much only Tesla does.
Waning demand compared to projections, which were all obviously bullshit from the beginning. That or CEOs are really that out of touch.
The Bolt lost GM almost 10k on every unit sold when they discontinued it. I don’t know how it balanced out for GM in terms of their ability to meet CARB regulations, but in itself it was not a viable product.
Lucid and Rivian also bleed money, it’s the nature with any new technology. GM certainly lost money, but they’re absolutely leapfrogging ford in EV nowadays.
Just feel like not investing as much in EVs is going to bite them back in the future
The big issue is that the BEV is not new. It’s older than the ICEV. It’s just never worked or succeeded because no matter how you slice it batteries suck. They’ve always sucked, they still suck, and they always will suck. That’s just the nature of the beast because their limitations are rooted in the laws of physics and those laws cannot be broken.
ICE sucks more, yet still succeeded. Nothing has to be perfect to be viable.
Not in the ways that matter to consumers. Consumers don’t care about drivetrain efficiency or stuff like that. They care about ease of use, range, and time to get back on the road when running low on stored energy. BEVs at best match and usually do worse on those things.
You think consumers love spending $60 every week at the pump, and being late for their morning meeting because they forgot to do so the previous evening? You think they enjoy having to wait for heat to finally appear on a cold morning? You think they enjoy oil changes and 30k service intervals and when their timing belt craps out and they bend a valve? And don’t even get me started on the externalities consumers don’t pay for. If they had to absorb those costs, imagine just how much less they’d like it!
I am convinced the majority of people don’t “like” it, but rather tolerate it because it’s all they’ve known, and change is scary. They’ll come around.
Lucid and Rivian also bleed money
And it’s okay for them to lose money because Wall Street treats them like startups. If Ford or GM began losing money then shareholder would dump them immediately, because the investor that holds their stock does so expecting immediate quarterly dividends, not maybe-profit in 5 years.
So what you’re saying is ford management is ok kicking the can down the road instead of making difficult choices to ensure the future of the company. Isn’t that how ceos justify making so much more money than workers?
These companies are taking the easy way out by not making investments for the future. It’s inevitable the company will either need to make EVs profitably or cease to exist.
No, what I’m saying is Ford shareholders are okay with that, and part of the CEO’s job is making them happy alongside their workers. And if you look at the largest shareholders of Ford, they’re mostly wealth management companies who want those quarterly yields so the people who set up retirement/investment funds with them see returns.
If I’m Ford, I know that I can wait out the tech curve of EV development over the next five years, and then buy a smaller company for their tech and scale it - all for less than 12 Billion. In 2022, Rimac’s valuation was $2B according to their fundraise, and their tech is miles ahead of Ford’s. Now picture a company much smaller than Rimac.
Rivian was worth 32B for most of 2022, 16B currently. Ford is worth 41B currently. So buying Rivian would be pretty hard to do, given the usual market premium you need to offer.
every time I see these kind of numbers I am completely befuddled. Ford vs. Rivian and even the current “worth” is not even 3x. potential is soooo overrated to me, but who I am to judge, in the end I have no clue.
Debt. Ford has $95B in long term debt.
Growth is very attractive because rarely do stagnant companies become growth stocks and plenty of growth stocks keep growing and growing and growing. I thought Amazon would stop being “overpriced” for like 15 years now. Nope. Always trades at a generous multiple and (generally) keeps growing.
I’m personally not a huge fan of rivian as a stock but in general this market loves to give growth stocks a massive premium.
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.
I don’t know why the gap in price is so huge. BMW and MB can somehow make an EV that’s only 10-15% more than the gas equivalent (closer to 10%).
Part of it is brands like Ford and GM didn’t even bother with lower trim levels, so you get the expensive models out the gate with the hopes of cheaper trims on the way.
My top of the line model Y performance with upgrades was $53k out the door before the 7500$ EV credit. Cheapest Lightning/mustang mach E was like 59k where I’m at. Then couple the no-hassle dealership-free approach and it becomes really obvious.
Is it truly a “gas equivalent?” Last I looked, an equivalent gas trim was comparably priced to the Lightning one. And with incentives now, some Lightnings are cheaper than gas.
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.
Maybe if you are in construction or something where you spend most of your time at one site in a workday.
You also have a lot of plumbers, repair men, etc. who do a lot of smaller jobs in a day, and I’m not sure how that would do using a van with only 120 miles of range. Thinking back to having my air conditioner repaired, the guy spent maybe 45 minutes to an hour at my house. If you have an 9 hour workday (common in the summer when they are busy) that only gives you 12 miles average between each call. That’s not much. I live in a small to mid-sized city, and you can travel that far and still be on the same side of town. Not to mention most of these companies cover a pretty large area with one distribution center.
No it wouldn’t 120 miles is nothing when you have to drive all over to making deliveries, runs to the hardware store, or lugging around heavy cargo.
Delivery drivers are short on time, they cannot wait at a charging port.
A lot of fleet customers use them for fixed routes, package delivery or shuttle buses.
A panel van with only 120 miles of range would not work in the US.
Whether it’s “sufficient” or not is irrelevant when cheaper more convenient options exist.
“More convenient” is very subjective. I find it very convenient to be able to pull into my garage with 10 miles of range left and then have a full tank the next morning. In an ICE, I would start getting anxious at about a hundred miles of range, and doesn’t panicked at 50.
Why would you possible get anxious at 100 miles of range?
First, because I’ve found traditional ICE mileage estimations get progressive worse the lower you go under 100.
Second, because I grew up in Jersey, and still drive there regularly to visit family, and in Jersey you just never know if the gas station coming up at night is going to be open or not. Because all pumps are full service and you can’t pump your own gas, this is a real concern.
Third, because even in NY, the closest pump near me that’s guaranteed to be open after 9:30 is almost a half hour drive away.
Fourth, because my wife is terrible about not getting gas, and I’ve had days where I’ve left the car with a quarter tank, gotten in it the next day, and had 10-15 miles of range.
Can’t speak for him but on a road trip this makes sense
More like overall. The 2035 sales ban for new gas vehicles won’t stop. It’ll just cause people to go on a buying frenzy in 2033 and 2034 with ADM priced very high.
There’s nothing preventing the sales ban from being pushed back though, which it would if there’s not sufficient infrastructure in the form of cars and chargers.
That’s more of a 2030 milestone though.
Hybrids will still get sold, brands will just shift to hybrid drivetrains
2035 is a long time from 2023. Sounds silly but worth repeating. Plug-in hybrids can be solve after that date with a huge battery I believe, but more like the i3 range extender than a regular hybrid. Good solution for towing I think.
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.
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.
Lmao, a car with 20k MSRP has a margin of like $200. In no world is there a 10k profit margin on a 20k car.
Tesla makes like $9k per car they sell.
That’s just depressing.
It would be if it was true, but it’s bullshit. Pre-COVID, it was common for many dealer brands to discount 10-15% off MSRP, sometimes 20%, and still make money on each vehicle sold. And that’s not counting the manufacturer profit that is already baked into that as well.
As another example, Tesla’s margins used to be around 30-35% per car, but now are a bit under 20% average from what I remember. Nobody is selling shit at MSRP and only making $200, that’s just nonsense.
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.
But that would undercut their argument that no one wants them and that regulators should give them a break. Don’t worry, the Chinese will find a way into the market eventually and offer them.
That will not sell. People buying new cars are not people on a super budget who will be continuing to buy used economy cars.
Yes, but they make their money on financing and service.
Oh, I agree. I can only afford cheap cars myself. (Happy Honda Fit owner).
But I also understand how low interest rates and fat pandemic-era profits gave automakers an excuse to chop the affordable products off their lineups.
I’ve been trying to buy a Ford Maverick (hybrid) for a while. Holy shit has it soured me on dealerships and the dealership model.
This is legitimately a big part of the reason why Teslas are selling and other EVs aren’t. The Tesla buying experience is like the difference between a handjob and a root canal. No sane person is going to want to go back to spending hours talking to a sweaty man in a cheap suit when they can just go online and finish a purchase in 20 minutes instead.
Same. Tried to get one last year and they stopped taking orders (and then there was a 12+ month wait). Tried again this year when the order banks opened, but Ford increased the price (and then there was an unknown amount of wait).
I bought a Model 3 instead from my phone that was cheaper and I picked up a week later.
Same
I ended up getting one at msrp but fuck the dealer and greasing on another $1600 in fees. I could have walked but there where three other guys who showed up to look while I was test driving it lol
Probably their 3 EV sales guys who swapped clothes to get you to eat the extra $1600
Lol maybe, this was in 2022 and to walk on a lot and get a vehicle at Msrp at that time was surprising in itself
Same here man
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?
Car dealerships are way overbuilt for that – whenever you see a fancy showroom, remember that you’re paying for it when you buy a car.
The dealership model itself has a lot of modernizing and updates in general that need to happen…
It’s incredible how backwards they are. When they list cars on their sites or third party sites, they still post very long lists with all the old school crap like “Power Windows,Power Door Locks”, but with many not even listing the actual options on the car, or the exact color, describing the color as just “gray” when there are two different types of gray offered. It’s hilarious.
I think you mean gouge?
gouge works better with ‘dealer’ in the same sentence.
Maybe gauge like earlobes. Gauge customer assholes. Stretch them wide open.
The mach e barley breaks even and the bolt is a loss leader. Ford’s second generation of EVs will cost much less to produce, due to Ford producing many of the electronics in house instead of buying them from Delphi or Bosch.
Mhhh… in Europe Ford is coming out with a new Explorer EV. Only thing is that it is a rebadged VW ID.4.
So I guess that’s their next move? It doesn’t seem smart tbh.
Pussies. Go get another govt handout to keep your investment up.
It’s a standard tactic in large businesses. The amount of government handouts fueling large business is pretty eye opening.
Little bit of both probably. Tesla has been lower their prices. They would be doing that if the demand was the same
Demand for EV’s is higher than ever. EV sales increased 6% from Q2-Q3, and have every quarter since Q3 2021. The demand is still growing, but it had slowed down from the 10% percent quarterly growth of the last few years. Tesla is lowering prices because supply is growing faster than the demand with all the companies, including Tesla, adding EV manufacturing.
Tesla has returned their EVs to pre-pandrmic prices. They increased them by like $20k between 2021 and 2022 because demand was so high and no one else had any EVs to sell. The whole market is returning to “nornal” but all people want to talk about is the EV side of things. If you look at pickups these days it’s not uncommon to see $10k in incentives.
A lot of the problem is it’s very expensive on the dealer side to be an EV dealer. At least in my experience on the chevy side - you had to have EV trained techs, proper equipment for battery replacements, fast chargers installed, etc etc. Very easily cost anywhere from $100-200k. Smaller, lower volume stores just simply could not afford it.
Not to mention on the sales side with Chevrolet we aren’t exactly incentivized to sell them as MSRP = invoice on all chevy EV’s which translates to practically no money made outside of SFE/holdback/onstar. Add onto that EV customers typically being on the higher maintenance compared to your typical domestic customer and it’s a recipe for dealers not wanting to play ball.
Again, not sure if it’s exactly the same for Ford but I’d be willing to bet there’s some crossover.
Maybe if they’d build a decent economy EV
Most probably the physics just isn’t in there when it comes to built a decently-priced EV which should also have decent range.
Maybe if they’d build a decent economy EV (see: bolt) available for msrp people would actually buy the thing.
You know the Mustang Mach E was the only non-Tesla EV that could match the Bolt for sales this year, right?
There have been a couple of F150 Lightnings sitting at the local lot since probably September, both with prices over $100k. The waning demand is because very few people want to spend that much on a pickup. Sure, truck guys will spend that much if they have the funds, but they’re usually not into EVs.
I’m surprised, my wife works for a ford dealer in NJ and they can’t keep f150 lightnings on the lot they sell so quick
I thought the Mustang Mach E did pretty well sales wise?
How much of the EV demand fall off is because of people waiting for the NACS non-Tesla EVs? No one wants to buy an EV they can’t reliably charge on road trips
A nacs adapter is what, 150 bucks?
Also, won’t that make them even less affordable, due to lower supply?
I keep saying it, all the automakers rushed into $50k midsize crossovers and $70k+ “lifestyle” pickups because of the profit-per-unit but they saturated those segments and pushed the focus on fast-charging because nobody’s going to spend that much on something that big and not have it be the household road-trip car.
If demand appears to be waning for every company who isn’t selling entirely based on being trendy (i.e. Tesla) does that not indicate that EVs in general aren’t popular and instead there is one outlier company who is basically using the Apple strategy of being a fashion statement above a practical item? Because it’s not just Ford who is backing down on BEVs. It’s everyone except dedicated BEV companies, many of whom are not expected to actually survive for that long.
Tesla’s are good cars, just like iPhones are good phones. Fashion statements are a small part of the equation.
Economy and EV aren’t exactly overlapping terms. EVs are expensive and incentives is what helps make them more affordable.
100% waning demand for Fords in particular.
The Mach E is just a shittier Model Y and the Lightning has two options: unaffordable with dogshit range, and super unaffordable with slightly less dogshit range
But how can they make any money on the lifetime oil change package?
EV demand is super strong. Sales worldwide of EVs are increasing at a 50% yoy clip (most of it Tesla and BYD)
What this means is that their (Tesla/BYD) price reduction strategy (to put pressure on competitors and drive them out of business, while still capturing a fast growing market) is working
bring back the C-Max with a full EV option
https://fordauthority.com/2023/03/small-group-of-ford-dealers-drop-out-of-ev-sales-program/
So there were 1,920 that initially signed up out of 2,968 Ford dealerships (~65%). 29 dropped out shortly after, leaving 1,891. Minus another 400 now leaves 1491, meaning 50% of Ford dealerships are not participating in the program.