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Comment by ourmandave | Hacker News Reader

...at least one Ford dealership [...] informed them that an additional price adjustment of US$30,000 would be necessary in order to receive a unit from the first batches of Ford's new electric truck.

An additional non-refundable US$5,000 deposit is apparently also required to place an order for the electric pickup truck.

At ONE dealership, if you want a first batch its +$30K. If you wait, it isn't.

If you want to reserve one now it's $5000 down. That's not extra and you don't lose it if you take delivery.

I'm not a Ford fanboy, just saying.

And I wouldn't buy (let alone pay extra for) any first gen vehicle.

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This kind of highlights a flaw in the dealership model, however. Ford took the reservation money and made a promise that they're unable to fulfill to the reservation holder.

They know how to take the reservation, but the don't know how to hold the reservation. The holding part really is the important part.

Not sure if you were making a Seinfeld reference there. Kudos if so...And if not, here's what I'm referring to: https://youtu.be/4T2GmGSNvaM?t=35

:-)

Unexpected Seinfeld

Ford ought to let customers place reservations and shop around which dealership they want to purchase though at delivery time.

If the dealership tells me "It's $30,000 markup or we're taking your built-to-order vehicle and selling it to someone else" then I should be able to take that reservation and move my order to a different dealer.

Or maybe they could require the dealer to sign a contract on the final out the door price in order to submit an order.

No, they should backstop direct to consumer.

Buy a car for 45k? Sure, dealer can deliver it at any markup you want. But, we will also drop it off at your house for exactly 45k. So not much room..

Ford is allowed to do GP's suggestion but isn't allowed to do yours.

> And I wouldn't buy (let alone pay extra for) any first gen vehicle.

I generally agree with this. I'm curious where you draw the line though. This isn't Ford's first EV and other manufacturers have been building them for years. At what point should we acknowledge this is as a mature technology? I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car with a new ICE, what will it take for EVs to reach the same level of trust?

Every so many years a new platform arrives. The generations built upon it iterate. The later iterations address issues and are considered superior. “The window seal on the driver side no longer potentially develops a leak, the headlight daytime running LED burnt out due to poor semiconductor fab you can see the new part number, the entertainment system revamped to support carplay” etc.

The down side is once they’re mature the body style changes and the cycle repeats.

I didn't read GP's comment as particular in any way to EVs. I'm not generally in the market for new cars (terrible value), but to the extent I consider them, I'd much rather buy a second-generation (or minimum, second model year) than a first-off car.

What do you mean by “generation” though? Take the Camry for example, that is a “new” car every ~8(?) years. That can’t be what you mean by “generation” so I assume you just mean “a few years after release”?

Anytime there’s a significant refresh of the model (when the Mustang got the Coyote motor, Corolla switched from rear to front drive, etc), I’d avoid the first year of that generation as well, but I’d particularly avoid the first year of a first-gen car.

My post above could have been much more clear. For a body refresh with an already proven engine/trans combination, I wouldn’t be as concerned (which is what I was trying to get at, albeit clumsily).

Not the commenter, but first gen vehicles have a particularly bad history of unreliability, even in ICEs. Later incremental model years tend to be the more reliable version of the car by a noticeable amount.

Ah I think I misunderstood. My most recent purchase was a mid-lifecycle refresh of an existing model, I guess that is what GP meant.

why are people caring about this. go to a different dealer or wait 5 minutes if you want to buy it at msrp

That's not gonna help, they're all sold out. It's part of a new crypto consensus algorithm called Proof of Transport (PoT). You need a mean truck to get the most rewards.

I doubt either of those strategies will yield results. The RAV4 Prime and Ford Focus RS are 2 examples of many of cars that pretty much were never available for MSRP except from a select few dealerships. I'm sure a couple people will respond and say, "wait but I got a Prime at MSRP so that invalidates your comment!" Nope, they just got lucky or were OK calling 20 dealerships to find one that wasn't OK ripping their customers off.

Is it a rip off? Supply and demand. Charging more incentivized more production. Which we desperately need.

How is dealers adding additional markup to the MSRP helping improve supply?

Yeah, no. Dealerships charging more simply puts more money into the pockets of unnecessary, useless, wholly antiquated middlemen.

It's really hard to get any new car right now at MSRP and the dealers that let you place a deposit may pull it from under you if someone is willing to pay more

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