This is just a rant… maybe a discussion starter
Margins on 2nd hand and new electric cars are thin, gone are the days where you could get 25% off a new car, and thin margins mean lower commission.
Servicing costs are minimal so no kickbacks for selling the servicing plans.
People are wise to paint protection and alloy wheel cover that cost more than a refurb.
EV buyers tend to make better decisions and are more likely to be cash buyers or finance elsewhere, so no kickback for selling a finance plan.
Manufacturers still selling higher margin hybrid and ICE vehicles mean they are the real target for salespeople.
Manufacturers also want to shift their ICE inventories and new products so they are still pushing the FUD on electric, and myths like “EVs will be obsolete once Hydrogen cars come out, you may as well get an ICE car in the meantime.”
I’ve had a really bad customer experiences at Toyota, Honda and now Kia dealerships.
I know people will suggest the Tesla online sales model, but Musk is just ruining the brand to the point where I can’t buy or recommend one.
So now I’m going to do all my own research, find the exact car I want, and contact the dealer/seller directly while avoiding as much interaction as possible.
EVs will be obsolete once Hydrogen cars come out
follow up question, and when would those come out?
Follow up comment: Even if they do come out and we’re somehow green, dealerships won’t sell them either. Oil money speaks pretty loud
Back when I was considering a Ford Lightning, I went to a local Ford dealership and the salesman came out like they do. He asked what I was looking for and I said I just wanted to see the Lightnings.
He literally said “you know we’re an oil and gas country, right?”
Even if I was fully planning on buying that day, there’s no way I would have bought from that guy.
At one point, he also said something along the lines of “they don’t give us any incentive to push these.”
Ah well that is one of the reasons why big oil has invested so much in hydrogen, the way hydrogen is made right now is by refining it from natural gas using massive amounts of electricity which oil companies can generate for themselves. This hydrogen is then sold along with the same 0.1% of hydrogen which is electrolysed from water using solar and wind power and greenwashes the remaining 99.9% masking the fact you would have been better off just refining crude oil into diesel, or burning puppies and kittens in a steam engine.
I did ask… apparently “Toyota have had some big breakthroughs and they should be out in a couple of years, with instant refuelling!”
I believe my reply was “that’s absolute bullshit”
Instant refuelling
I do not think the word means what you (the dealer) think it means.
I see Tesla Superchargers and a growing number of other charging stations popping up all over the place.
Where do I go to fuel up a hydrogen car? I don’t see hydrogen fueling stations anywhere… How long will it take to build all that out?
Well I last looked a couple of years ago and there were three in the UK, I found one source that says there are 14 but half of them are offline and in places like Universities.
An impressive 1 for every 18,736 miles of road, and a working one for every 37,471 miles.
I wonder how far you can get on a full tank?
