A year ago, I went with my car-enthusiast uncle to a Kia dealer looking to test drive an EV-6. The model had just come out and was getting rave reviews.
They had only two on the lot. We asked to test drive one. The sales guy said management wasn’t letting them do test drives and put miles on the car. Hmm, OK. How about we just sit in one?
Nope. Doors are locked. But here’s a different model that has a similar ‘look and feel,’ they said.
What about the price? $10K dealer markup was non-negotiable, they said.
We totally walked away. My uncle said it’s the craziest car purchasing interaction he had ever had.
Dealerships are purposely not selling EVs. They make most of their money on service. EVs have so many fewer parts there are less points of failure.
The manufacturers are mad enough about this some have been buying out and closing dealerships. GM has been doing it a lot with Cadillac and Buick in particular so far.
Yep, EVs mean the death of service centers which is how the stealerships make money.
actually they are structured such that the service center pays the bills and car sales are profit.
The dealers tried really hard not to sell the soul ev back when it came out. I would have bought one when I had money if they weren’t so adamant that I would actually want the gas one which made me just walk out.
I suppose the dealer knows an EV would result in them earning a lower profit from the lack of servicing required.
Thwy should skip the dealers and pass the savings on to the consumers by selling direct like Tesla does.
I shopped the dealers, it was annoying, so I went online and ordered my car there exactly how I wanted.
They can’t. There’s a long history of entrenched law protecting dealers from unfair competition by manufacturers. Once you have dealers, there’s no way back
Tesla worked around it by
- not having dealers
- making deals with native reservations not subject to state laws
- clearly distinguishing “service centers” and “showrooms” from places where cars could actually be bought and sold
Ford is trying by splitting out the EV half of the company, but I don’t think you get to wave your magic wand and say “this half the company is now something new that doesn’t have dealers”
I’m planning on getting an EV at the end of the year. I hate Musk as much as the next person with common sense, but I’m probably going to get a Tesla because the dealer markups and “We don’t have what we told you to build on our site, but here’s something that’s the same model at least” are just obnoxious.
BYD or Rivian are direct sale EVs without Musk.
Hyundai is trying to sell cars on Amazon.
While that might be convenient for some, that is still selling vehicles through a 3rd party.
I don’t understand why Hyundai even has a “build your own car” feature on their website as you can’t actually order that way directly from them nor can you just waltz down to the dealership and have them order it for you as they’re only allocated whatever Hyundai decides to build and send them (at least with the new EVs).
This is where I figured I’ll end up getting a Tesla. I built the Ioniq 5 and it has no option to order. Just “We don’t have anything matching that. Here’s something that’s ‘close enough’ you can spend $65k on.”
Same (though I’ll probably just keep driving my Camry)! I want a RWD Limited Ioniq 5 with matte paint but they’ve been pretty impossible to find out in the wild and definitely impossible to order. I suppose I’ll just wait a few years and maybe get an EV when Toyota finally releases a real one and not just some compliance car.
It’s a step in the right direction. Another example of legacy auto copying Tesla. It is a good thing.
Keep in mind that some people buy private party to not go through a dealership.
Kia’s new logo redesign is so stupid.
I refuse to buy one based off the riduliculous logo.
I refuse to buy one due to the lack of immobilizers in their previous models.
What is that?
In simple terms, it protects your car from getting stolen.
Oh are these the idiots that made their ignitions work with any random USB drive? LOL yeah smart to avoid them.
Correct!
