Ford is done with car dealers video..

[John Auer]

Ford has not and will not sell directly to customers. Jim Farley personally said it at the triple crown GM's meeting. They are not tesla and want to put tesla out of business.

Watch what they do, not what they say. Ford is splitting in two. They’ve located Blue Oval City in Tennessee and their battery factory in Kentucky, (both right-to-work states: no unions). Farley also said Ford Model e will be retailed in a different manner. Eventually, Ford Blue will fade into the sunset, along with the current business model.

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[Cable Guy]

Hmmm….

1- I wish
2- I doubt it will happen soon
3- Eventually it will

 

[dbeyers]

The writing is on the wall dude. Tesla is already doing this & there is carvana. Times are changing dude. I bet you never thought you could shop for groceries online & have them delivered to your house too lol.

Tesla is prohibited from selling in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Alabama unless they go through a dealership ... until recently Michigan ... to the point it will take time. Tesla set up a dealership on a pueblo in NM to circumvent the law.

 

[bdub2you]

The writing is on the wall dude. Tesla is already doing this & there is carvana. Times are changing dude. I bet you never thought you could shop for groceries online & have them delivered to your house too lol.

I'll never buy my groceries online, I want to pick out my own fruits and veggies. That said, I essentially already bought the Bronco more or less like the Tesla model with a reservation, years of delays between reservation and delivery, and paid MSRP.

 

[Romano]

Duuuuude

Really dude….?

 

[indio22]

You paid a lower price because of the current auto model where OEMs fill lots and have to put cash on the hood (rebates + incentives) to move the cars. Those days are probably not coming back.

Customers strongly strongly dislike experiences where they pay more/less than other people for no good reason, I would bet that this is a driving trend for the next generation of auto retail.

Those retail factors can be part of it. But it's also a function of some customers simply not being good at buying cars. Aversion to disagreement/haggling. Too strong a desire for the material item. Whatever it is - they just pay too much. More than they have to.

I'd rather them pay too much, at the individual level, then have them drive prices up across the board for people like me.

 

[JD155]

Personally have no problem w/ dealerships but once COVID hit, alot of them lost their souls. Once there became a shortage. Alot of them started price gouging taking advantage of people during hard times. Yes, the customer can always walk away & go somewhere else. But the problem is, when you reserved a Bronco & dealers try & hit you w/ a $5K-$20K adm fee, after something you waited for, for two years, it's alot different, when you were expecting to pay sticker. Than your fu#ked ! Unless you have a purchase agreement. I've seen several night mare posts on this forum.
Hey Johnny your Bronco has been delivered. Then arrive @ dealer to be told if you want it, then it's $15K over sticker. Naturally refusing to pay Johnny goes home heat broken after something he's had waited for so long. That's just bad business dude.

 

[Maine Explorer]

Makes sense. Tesla spent insane amounts of money to legalize its direct-to-customer model. Ford can benefit from all the doors tesla opened without having to pay all the lawyers. Not going to be every state for a looooong time because politicians are in the pocket of dealers

(I mean from a political environment of business perspective it is actually really about Concentrated Benefits and Dispersed Costs rather than actual wholesale corruption. More of a systemic flaw rather than a simple grift but no one wants to hear me do a half-assed dissertation on The Logic of Collective Action ).

Long story short, we were getting screwed and it didn't matter politically but now that it's hurting ford and other manufacturers it's something our political system will likely (gradually) address

 

[GoTigersGoBronco]

I think it’s safe to assume that Ford will screw their dealers long term. Volvo/Polestar offers a decent blue print to emulate.

 

[Gritty]

As a flyers fan I appreciate your profile photo. However, they need to free Giroux

Ditto!

 

[ferbm]

Dealerships relying on legislation to save their piece of the pie are already dead, they just don't know it yet. Their unwillingness to be flexible will save them for a day, but kill the parent company over time. Meanwhile, newer and more innovative business models will grow and outcompete them. EVs (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid) right now have a big gap to fill in the consumer's mind, but soon enough, they will be CLOSE ENOUGH in all features and performance requirements to pull many more buyers than just early adopters. When that happens, the dealerships who refuse to change will take their last breaths as they cannot provide the consumer with the entire package they desire. It is already in motion.

 

[Mike_D]

Watch what they do, not what they say. Ford is splitting in two. They’ve located Blue Oval City in Tennessee and their battery factory in Kentucky, (both right-to-work states: no unions). Farley also said Ford Model e will be retailed in a different manner. Eventually, Ford Blue will fade into the sunset, along with the current business model.

I wonder if Ford Blue or Ford Model e will last longer. Obviously, the consensus is that “Electric is the way.” Not sure I’d bet on it.

 

[Sherminiator]

I'll never buy my groceries online, I want to pick out my own fruits and veggies.

Funny you mention that but when COVID hit, we started having the local grocery store do our shopping for us and they do pretty good with picking out things like that-We only had one or two things that where "bad" in the past two years.

Sometimes it just takes a leap of faith to change something and you'll never go back to what you did previously.

 

[Sherminiator]

You paid a lower price because of the current auto model where OEMs fill lots and have to put cash on the hood (rebates + incentives) to move the cars. Those days are probably not coming back.

Those days will come back as long as some company wants to grab market share (at the expense of profit) and there is enough supply or even oversupply in the market.

 

[ScoobyDrew]

Most people would rather have a colonoscopy than go to a car dealership.

I just had one last week and I can vouch for the accuracy of this statement!

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