This is the only way they can compete with Tesla and other direct-to-consumer EV manufacturers. Glad to see Ford doing this. As a Tesla owner, I’d be open to buying a Ford EV but have no interest in dealer markup or the dealer buying scenario.
Some dealers won't do this, but you'll need to put in some work to find them.
This is sort point for me. I once custom ordered a BMW with the exact options I wanted. Made a downpayment. Waited 3 months for it to arrive taking the bus to work and getting rides home from friends. It arrived at the dealer and they sold it someone else and then told me I could order another if I wanted. You can probably imagine the rage I felt.
Right now Tesla is coasting on VC and IPO and being early entrant innovator. The bitch slap of truth that is automotive manufacturing and marketing is about to land it's hand. Ford understands that bitch slap better than anyone.
Tesla literally ship with AMD Ryzen CPUs, while other manufacturers still can't even get CPUs. They got 8 cameras, 4 of which you can watch live....anytime on your mobile phone. The supercharger experience sets a standard that no 3rd party comes close to reaching. The supercharger network itself gives Tesla customers the ability to confidently travel and easily charge - fast.
I actually test drove a Mach-E and a Model Y. Ford was straight up trying to rip me off, and made the whole experience really off-putting. On top of that, the Ford dealers literally had no idea what they were doing, or any of the facts. There is no passion in it.
Tesla is all passion. Every Tesla employee wakes up to do one thing; make the world's best EV. Ford (and every other legacy) is trying to change engines in an airplane midflight while trying to learn how to build EV's.
It isn't for the lack of trying - in any area, that Tesla isn't the best at something. Tesla has the smartest people in the room/industry. Their energy and focus is on AI, scaling up manufacturing, battery tech, charging tech, etc. They spend nothing on marketing, and get more free press and word of mouth than any brand but Apple.
Marketing like legacy car companies comes off as desperate and thirsty. Just listen to the two CEO; Ford CEO will play buzzword bingo and talk high level corporate empty-speak. Elon Musk will talk to you about the challenges in battery manufacturing, the nuances of the minutia of building these amazing vehicles. Elon Musk will sleep on the factory floor to get it done. What other CEO has slept on the factory floor?
The man is not without his defects, but literally consider his life accomplishments; PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, tunnel digging because why not, solar panels, residential utility scale battery storage, 30000 "gas stations" around the world.
Literally Ford can't even build vehicles right now. Like production down. Assembly stopped. Tesla is pumping out EV faster than ever before. And Elon Musk is trying to fly rockets to Mars in his spare time.
I respect the history of the legacy's; but they are simply not in a strong position. Musk won. His cars are the cool ones everyone wants.
It isn't that Ford has crazy demand; they have no production. Same as Rivian, etc. It markets well to say Ford/Rivian deliveries of EV are way out to 2024 - but has to be taken in context that they are struggling to produce 50k EV a year.
Tesla has the proven product. Literally no one knows how well a Rivian or Lucid will hold up, or what defects will haunt their early buyers. There isn't enough data out there yet. Same for the Mach-E. Tesla has 10yrs of data for customers to look at; and Tesla has what feels like a 100yr head start...
So, let's check list, shall we?
Paypal, wasn't him (at least not even close to the level of what people think)
Tesla, there Elon had to sue to get the title of founder
SpaceX, at least as much Shotwell than him
Tunnel digging, well ever herd of subways?
Solar panels and residential solar, one isn't even noticeable in terms of market share, the other had to be bailed out by Tesla (did I mention some strange corporate governance and financial links between tesla and SpaceX around that time? And that the bailed solar company was owned by his cousin?)
30k "gas stations, impressive... Just ask BP or Exxon how many they have. Credit where credit is due so, Tesla did build the first true charging network. The first, not the only one.
And let's not pretend SpaceX will be the first to reach Mars.
SpaceX without Elon would still have been SpaceX, SpaceX without Gwynne Shotwell would have been another Blue Origin.
I ended up canceling my reservation.
> That’s a good thing. Buyers are able to know the exact price without having to waste hours driving to a dealership and haggling.
Your comment doesn't address the point about markup at all. Knowing an "exact" with a higher markup doesn't seem live much of a good thing to me.
I'm not so sure. You're giving a rather tendentious account of the practice, and I'm pretty skeptical of handwaving "regulatory capture" as justification to get rid of regulation some corporation dislikes. As far as I understand, the dealership system was meant to engineer more competition into the auto market [1], and frankly I prefer something like that than giving more control to larger companies.
[1] And that passes the smell test, at least. A dealership is buying in bulk and can probably be assumed to be more savvy in negotiating with the manufacturer than a private consumer. And putting those dealerships in competition with each other should put downward pressure on prices.
I'm pretty pessimistic on this. For one, middlemen traditionally increase costs, due to the reduction in inefficiency and well, their cut. Furthermore there already exists a competition layer at the manufacturer level.
In the supply constrained world, this is even more so, as middleman will happily arbitrage prices upwards (see GPU scalpers), meaning that they get to extract value, while providing minimal service of their own.
What do you mean "at least not for Tesla." Don't they famously lack dealers, so there's no point of comparison for them?
> as middleman will happily arbitrage prices upwards (see GPU scalpers)
That's certainly true for some middlemen, but I don't think that can be generalized into a rule. Naively, some people think that everyone in a market should act like price gougers, but that's obviously not true, and I don't think the the reason is that there's something special about being the original manufacturer.
Or perhaps I'm just bitter about the GPU shortages, who knows.
That's obviously not true. I've never paid MSRP for a car and I've never bought a Tesla.
With Teslas, you pay MSRP. With any other car you pay whatever the dealer wants to charge, which is usually dealer cost plus some markup, which is usually less than MSRP. On some rare occasions you can even buy a car for at or below dealer cost.
You obviously haven't tried to buy a car during the pandemic.
With dealers anymore, they make you hustle to get some of that markup knocked off, then once you think the negotiation is over, you're tossed into the next stage of the negotiation gauntlet.
I'd rather know up front that I'm going to pay $50,000 for a vehicle, rather than think I'm going to pay $40,000, then upon arriving at the dealership, find out the market price is $55,000, which goes down to $45,000 after negotiation, and after all that, have to deal with finance secretly adding $10k in options and fucking around with interest rates.
Thus, you can sometimes get a lower price by ordering from the factory (dealer is passing along this savings) than buying from inventory. Not to mention this also eliminates price competition amongst dealers. Some dealers take a loss on sales to earn manufacturer incentives.
Service however is where they make money, and as time progresses and cars are more software based and self-repair becomes impossible - total cost of ownership goes up.
You are absolutely correct that these things typically do not happen with the major car manufacturers, and that Tesla needs to get its act together. But it is worth considering the other car manufacturers have been doing it at scale for a much longer time often with better understood materials and technology.
People often ask "What are the other carmakers going to do to compete?" and this is exactly one of those things that they'll bring to the table.
The opinion and memery about this brand is just unbelievable. Cars are big and complicated devices and selling them is equally complicated, and I'm sure there are people who have bad experience buying them, as is basically inevitable. But the overwhelming majority of owners think it's great.
[1] If you don't count the incessant, obsessive checking to see what the current delivery estimate is, of course.
I don't care at all what the overwhelming majority of owners think. Maybe 95% of customers are happy to have saved a few hours in a dealership, but when the 5% are without a car for six months that's pretty cold comfort.
The problems I am discussing are very serious. It is not enough for them to be uncommon; they must be unheard of.
This is sadly quite common right now. If you own any vehicle with Tesla production levels, it's possible there's a shortage of certain parts for it.