Ford Wants to Compete with Tesla, but Its Dealers Are Getting in the Way

jalopnik.com

22 points·CarCooler··6 comments

My wife and I were in the market for an EV and checked out a Mach-E at the dealership down the street. Horrible experience with the sales team and they were charging 10k over MSRP.

Went home and bought a Tesla Model Y online. Absolutely love it and happy to not have dealt with that dealership.

It's crazy to me that dealerships still exist. It's like an anti-product. You pay out money in order have a worse experience.

Maybe this is why NADA pushes back so hard against Tesla opening showrooms anywhere: it's not so much that they want a cut of every Tesla sold; it's more so that they don't want the public to realize how much better the car buying experience can be without them.

I think there's something to it - I forget the exact details, but services like Carvana have been getting pressure as well

I fully expect to maintain this... perceived necessary upselling experience

Dealerships are the epitome of rent-seeking middlemen. There might have been a time that they provided some usefulness in terms of informing people about the cars they sell, but now with information everywhere you don't need a salesperson to tell you these things anymore. What usefulness do they now provide besides making vehicles more expensive?

I think an overlooked part of teslas very high valuation is that it seems inevitable that legacy, stagnant and mostly incompetent companies like Ford and GM will fold (and would have long since if they didn't keep getting propped up by the feds).

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