The US already lags far behind China and Europe, but we're going too fast, dealers say.
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Car dealers say they can’t sell EVs, tell Biden to slow their rollout
- Thread starter JournalBot
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Cry some more, car dealers. Without car dealers the Republican donation machine goes broke. Screw 'em.
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I guess trying to head off anthropogenic climate change is just too hard for the most-reviled category of resale.
Oh well.
Oh well.
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I mean, I would just train my salespeople and offer the salespeople incentives to not quit so quickly, but that's just me.
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Fox: you are collecting the chickens eggs too fast. Here is some money and veiled threats on campaign finance
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Horrendously marking up already expensive vehicles at the same time interest rates have exploded and everyone is running around crying "muh inflation" turned out to be bad for sales. Who fucking knew.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Car dealers are a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
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Sounds like some dealerships got the "find out" part of their "super markup on EV fuck around".
My parents part own a dealership in Canada. But they didn't mark up any vehicle during Covid. Guess who still has regular, happy customers buying vehicles? EV and Normal vehicles, though they have way more ICE vehicles than EVs on lot.
My parents part own a dealership in Canada. But they didn't mark up any vehicle during Covid. Guess who still has regular, happy customers buying vehicles? EV and Normal vehicles, though they have way more ICE vehicles than EVs on lot.
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If only there was some group of people whose job it was to sell cars. Maybe they can put their heads together and figure out how to move all this inventory.
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Such is the attitude of most capitalists when they're faced with the threat of free markets working against their favor.
Engage in shady sales practices, underpay your employees such that they quit, then act like a persecuted victim and whine to the government.
Engage in shady sales practices, underpay your employees such that they quit, then act like a persecuted victim and whine to the government.
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You may say it's due to "ignorance", but there's much more nuance to that.
Take my situation. I live in an area where the closest next city is 300km drive, and the closest place I'd call a metropolis is maybe 600km away?
An EV would not be a great choice "at the moment". Once battery tech improves not only for range, but winter driving, I'll consider buying one for sure. Until then, I cannot own an EV as my only vehicle, and I cannot afford 2 vehicles.
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Aren't most manufacturers selling $60K - $150K electric vehicles? They chased after the whales; GM discontinued the Chevy Bolt, their best selling EV and decided to offer more expensive vehicles. Of course demand plummeted - we call can't afford driving F150 lightnings around.
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Having worked in the car dealer world once upon a time, salespeople at lower end brands are almost uniformly and constantly engaged in a competitive environment that makes your head swim. There’s little room for learning and understanding why a particular model may be better for a customer - the onus is on the sales people and sales manager to move product as quickly as possible.
At the premium brand dealerships the folks tend to stick around longer and be more knowledgeable and useful, but the game is still there. The customers just care less.
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People can't afford your EVs. Price your EVs within reach of the market and you'll sell them. ezpz
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Add to this problem the whole "you can't get the full tax credit unless you make ~80k+/year."
If I walk into a dealership today, I get about a $3,000 tax credit if I buy an EV (and, yes, people making making <$80k/year absolutely are interested in buying EVs!). Someone making six figures gets a $7,500 tax credit. Ignoring markup, it's pretty hard to sell me a car that automatically costs me more because I make less money.
And I will almost certainly drive that cheaper ICE car for far longer than Dr. Six-Figure's kid will drive their EV for.
If I walk into a dealership today, I get about a $3,000 tax credit if I buy an EV (and, yes, people making making <$80k/year absolutely are interested in buying EVs!). Someone making six figures gets a $7,500 tax credit. Ignoring markup, it's pretty hard to sell me a car that automatically costs me more because I make less money.
And I will almost certainly drive that cheaper ICE car for far longer than Dr. Six-Figure's kid will drive their EV for.
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Well, since they are appealing to the federal government about how they don't want to sell EV's, how about a Federal law that let's manufacturers sell EV's directly. Win-win!
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Mostly Ignorant
Ars Centurion
I'm not going to shed a tear for dealerships. which are the bane of the car buying experience. That said, automakers are just as much to blame here. Instead of making affordable EVs, plugins and even standard affordable cars, lots are filled with EVs that are twice as expensive as an average person can afford, traditional vehicles with insane markups and somehow back-ordered on cars that people actually want and can afford (Toyota and Ford with their Maverick).
Thankfully auction prices have been dropping significantly the past few weeks, so I'm hoping this is the start of a corrective trend.
Thankfully auction prices have been dropping significantly the past few weeks, so I'm hoping this is the start of a corrective trend.
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A decent number of Americans (compared to Europeans) certainly would experience some limitations with an EV as their sole vehicle, but just about every household with more than a single car should ideally be bulking out that fleet of vehicles with EVs, especially for vehicles that are commuter centric rather than needing to haul a bunch of people or equipment.
We don't buy expensive or new vehicles, so I'm waiting on a bit more used inventory to add a second car (and EV) for me to use for commuting and taking the kid to school, but besides having one vehicle I can easily use to visit family 1000 miles away once a year, everything I buy I hope to buy electric.
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Speaking as someone who once did commute 300 miles round trip each day for a few months, why in the world would you need to regularly drive an EV 300km (or 600km round trip) daily?
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As a comparison, in the EU, about 14% of newly registered cars are EVs now, so it’s not like uptake is stellar here either.
-edit-
For those doubting the data or complaining that’s it outdated, here’s a link from October 2023 (in German, sorry):
https://ecomento.de/2023/11/23/eu-neuzulassungen-im-oktober-2023-elektroautos-mit-142-marktanteil/
-edit-
For those doubting the data or complaining that’s it outdated, here’s a link from October 2023 (in German, sorry):
https://ecomento.de/2023/11/23/eu-neuzulassungen-im-oktober-2023-elektroautos-mit-142-marktanteil/
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I'm glad to see that the four dealerships I've done any business with in the last 15 years (and have any intention of continuing that) are all absent from the list.
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The pandemic screwed up car making economics, then automakers doubled down and started pricing things like there would always be stimulus checks and 0% interest.
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I suspect if they didn't spend all of their time trying to talk customers out of buying them (I say from experience) then they would probably be able to sell them.
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Right?
Dealership: "We have too much inventory!"
Public: "Price to move?"
Dealership: "That's fuckin' crazy talk. We need government to stop doing things."
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Wait, so the dealerships that rely on the majority of their profits coming from service revenue and as a result have been discouraging consumers buying EVs because there's a lot less shit on there to break are saying that EV sales suck?
The auto industry deserves to die. It won't, but it deserves to.
The auto industry deserves to die. It won't, but it deserves to.
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And I'm sure dealers being unable to convince buyers to go with an EV has nothing to do with the fact that electric cars have much lower maintenance needs, thus starving the dealer service centers of quite a bit of profit.
Edit: Goddamn it johnsonwax, you ninja'ed me by seconds!
Edit: Goddamn it johnsonwax, you ninja'ed me by seconds!
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Most of their sales people don't know much of anything about the existing ICE vehicles, so not sure how this is any different not knowing anything about the EV.
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A lot of the perception is it's not easy to charge while on the road. This isn't wrong. I mean, needing a different app for each system is ridiculous. Make it like as reliable as a regular gas station - even if it takes longer, it will do wonders for adoption.
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This reminds me of the hue and cry after the Bush administration and Republican-led Congress mandated improved light bulb efficiency. Everyone was certain that the standards couldn't be improved, that nobody would want the new bulbs, that the new bulbs would be worse for the environment, and that everyone would end up paying the price for environmental theater.
What happened is that despite a partial roll-back by later Republican Congresses, LED light bulbs are now the norm not the exception. They cost the same or less to install as regular light bulbs, are much less expensive to operate, and offer a lot of options that the old-style incandescent never did.
I hope that the same happens here. Because EVs are a technology that we need to adopt.
What happened is that despite a partial roll-back by later Republican Congresses, LED light bulbs are now the norm not the exception. They cost the same or less to install as regular light bulbs, are much less expensive to operate, and offer a lot of options that the old-style incandescent never did.
I hope that the same happens here. Because EVs are a technology that we need to adopt.
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We're going to need a big wall, there's A LOT of different categories of people that are queued for time slot 1 during the revolution.
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I think the problem is that many dealers see the handwriting on the wall with regards to reduced EV service requirements and are opting to slow-walk this transition to the best of their abilities. Dealers make a lot on service, and it makes sense that they'd view a transition to a more reliable breed of vehicle as a business disaster.
In my local experience, dealers are putting less than zero effort into marketing EVs to potential customers.
edit: ninja'd by BOTH johnsonwax and thekaj, I now see. I need to go back to typing school.
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To be fair many regular salespeople do not either. When I went to Hyundai the guy not only ignored my wife and asked me the questions when she was buying and had done the research he didn't know much about the cars. I knew more and I am not a car buff and I had last been on a Hyundai lot over a decade prior.
I used to work doing software and data for Chrysler - they send their dealer employees (especially the sales people) to lots of courses specifically to know about the models. Or they did when I was there. . I would hope the other OEMS would do the same.
Especially with EV's. EV's owners do a lot of research I have found. You really don't want to go "uh well I dunno" to them.
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