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.
At least in Europe, both Volvo and Polestar sell online at «fixed» prices.
Polestar 2 is in between Model 3 and Y, size wise and releasing 3 and 4 these days. Volvo has options from the EX30 to EX90.
I heard that from a salesman perspective that EVs are harder to sell, because the customers tend to know less and have more questions. And there is not really an incentive for salespeople to sell more EVs.
A friend of mine who works in a Mercedes service department has a fleet of electric vehicles to loan out during repairs. Problem is, this being the US, nobody wants them. So he sits on a bunch of luxury EVs because people would rather wait for ICE cars to become available. You seriously can’t live with an electric Mercedes for a week? Maybe learn a little about it? Nope.
I think you need to look into how dealer pricing works, because you’re making a lot of common incorrect assumptions. The dealer’s margin on a new vehicle is, like 2%. They make a third of their revenue from accessories, a third or more from repair work, and the rest from financing finders fees.
You got 25% off a car because either it was used, or the manufacturer kicked in incentives. Not because a dealer could afford to give you 25% off.
Also, LMAO on hydrogen.
However the dealer achieved it, as a customer when I bought my car 8 years ago I ordered the spec I wanted and a price came up, I said I wanted it at a price the was 25% lower (I had found 24% discounts online) and as I was walking out the building they stopped me and agreed.
For new model cars discounts from car brokers are only around 3% on the cars I’ve looked at.
You’re talking 25% off MSRP, or worse a locally adjusted market price which isn’t the price people should pay. It’s a suggested price. You should be paying invoice price plus a margin for dealer profit. It would really help for people to know how products sell and what the various prices are, because not knowing these things leads to mistakes like thinking you got an amazing deal by discounting MSRP or even a local market price rather than moving upward from invoice price.
Probably because their list price was too high. Doesn’t mean they’re all that inflated.
I used to be a huge Toyota fan. I’ve been driving a 3rd hand 2011 Nissan Leaf to work as our secondary car for a number of years and an old Prius for longer trips. We really need a new car to replace the Leaf so that I can drive more than 35 miles. Toyota’s bullshit statements on electric cars turned me off to ever buy one again. I’ve been in a search for months and have noticed that traditional manufacturer dealerships just don’t care about electric cars for the reasons you state. I’ve decided to go with companies that have at least 2 released electric cars. That shows a level of choice and commitment.
I’d look at in terms of compliance car, or all in.
VW, Hyundai/Kia, GM, Ford and Volvo are all doing good work with EVs. They’re selling a lot of vehicles, have multiple well received models with medium to great reviews, and they’re building vehicles from the ground up to take advantage of EV perks.
Compare that to Toyota, who created one pure EV, the bz4x, that has a crappy charging speed and range and a high price, and for the first several years, received no promotion or ads. For some reason, they’re advertising it a lot now, but it’s still a shit car compared to what else you can get for the same price. I would throw fiat, Audi, BMW, Honda all in that boat too. You’re much better off going with someone that created a vehicle they actually want to sell lots of.
Seriously looking at the Polestar 4. They are sort of Volvo but now 100% electric at this point.
Prices were too high for me, personally. It helps to create your own spreadsheet so you can see the specs you care about at a glance. And to test drive so you can see which (like kia ev6) have itsy bitsy windows you can’t see shit out of
Service plans are too cheap for EVs so really low commission, plus people know they don’t need any real servicing, it’s a major selling point.
If people didn’t make good decisions they’d let the salesperson talk them into a nice commission rich hybrid.
The guy who told me about Hydrogen cars taking over soon sold my dad his car 25 years earlier, so a career salesman.
I’m calling ahead and telling them the car I’m coming to see and the price I want to pay, if it’s not there or the price changes I’m never coming back.
Service plans for EVs are less than half the price of ICE equivalents. Half the price means probably half the commission.
Even at half the price they still offer very poor value for money, simply because EV’s don’t need as much maintenance.
Why would you think they could just jack the price up to keep their sales people happy?
My whole point here is that dealerships are going severely downhill as EVs are shifting their business model to the point where they don’t even want to help EV customers, so the customer has to do all the work of researching the right car and options, and finding it themselves.
Gonna call Hanlon’s Razor on this one. These salespeople are generally just idiots who don’t even know the names of the cars on their lots.
I bought a new car a couple years ago and was really disappointed in my search to discover that I seemed to know more than the sales people at basically every dealership. The only person I talked to who seemed really knowledgeable was actually not a salesman but a manager at a Ford dealership.
