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Why Car Salesmen Don't Want To Sell Electric Cars
HughPickens.com writes: Matt Richtel writes in the NYT that one big reason there are only about 330,000 electric vehicles on the road is that car dealers show little enthusiasm for putting consumers into electric cars. Industry insiders say that electric vehicles do not offer dealers the same profits as gas-powered cars, they take more time to sell because of the explaining required, and electric vehicles may require less maintenance, undermining the biggest source of dealer profits — their service departments. Some electric car buyers have said they felt as if they were the ones doing the selling. Chelsea Dell made an appointment to test-drive a used Volt but when she arrived, she said, a salesman told her that the car hadn't been washed, and that he had instead readied a less expensive, gas-powered car. "I was ready to pull the trigger, and they were trying to muscle me into a Chevy Sonic," says Dell. "The thing I was baffled at was that the Volt was a lot more expensive." Marc Deutsch, Nissan's business development manager for electric vehicles says some salespeople just can't rationalize the time it takes to sell the cars. A salesperson "can sell two gas burners in less than it takes to sell a Leaf," Deutsch says. "It's a lot of work for a little pay."
Jared Allen says that service is crucial to dealer profits and that dealers didn't want to push consumers into electric cars that might make them less inclined to return for service. Maybe that helps explains the experience of Robert Kast, who last year leased a Volkswagen e-Golf from a local dealer. He said the salesman offered him a $15-per-month maintenance package that included service for oil changes, belt repair and water pumps. "I said: 'You know it doesn't have any of those things,'" Mr. Kast recalled. He said the salesman excused himself to go confirm this with his manager. Of the whole experience, Mr. Kast, 61, said: "I knew a whole lot more about the car than anyone in the building." "Until selling a plug-in electric car is as quick and easy as selling any other vehicle that nets the dealer the same profit, many dealers will avoid them, for very logical and understandable reasons," says John Voelker. "That means that the appropriate question should be directed to makers of electric cars: What are you doing to make selling electric cars as profitable and painless for your dealers as selling gasoline or diesel vehicles?"
Jared Allen says that service is crucial to dealer profits and that dealers didn't want to push consumers into electric cars that might make them less inclined to return for service. Maybe that helps explains the experience of Robert Kast, who last year leased a Volkswagen e-Golf from a local dealer. He said the salesman offered him a $15-per-month maintenance package that included service for oil changes, belt repair and water pumps. "I said: 'You know it doesn't have any of those things,'" Mr. Kast recalled. He said the salesman excused himself to go confirm this with his manager. Of the whole experience, Mr. Kast, 61, said: "I knew a whole lot more about the car than anyone in the building." "Until selling a plug-in electric car is as quick and easy as selling any other vehicle that nets the dealer the same profit, many dealers will avoid them, for very logical and understandable reasons," says John Voelker. "That means that the appropriate question should be directed to makers of electric cars: What are you doing to make selling electric cars as profitable and painless for your dealers as selling gasoline or diesel vehicles?"
If dealers don't want to sell them, let manufacturers sell direct to the customers.
Tell em what you want, they tell you how much it costs and when and where you can pick it up.
The takeway I get is that Tesla's attempts to sell directly and avoid dealers makes complete sense because dealers have a clear conflict of interest here. Heck, it makes it seem like we should get rid of dealers altogether since they won't in general want to sell any cars that are very novel or that require substantially less maintenance.
I find dealerships very annoying because they don't want to sell you the car you want, they want to sell you one of the cars they have on the lot that day! Apparently their goal with every customer is to have them buy something the same day, not come back later to pick up the actual vehicle they wanted. Why can't I order a vehicle with everything I want from the manufacturer, and go pick it up at the plant or port of entry myself, saving the $800 in "destination fees"?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Except they do. They have less moving parts and the ones that are there don't burn their own lubricant, are closed to outside contaminates, and are not subject to nearly the same amount of heat and pressure.
Fossil fuels will increase in price again and eventually run out. This may take a long time but first the vast majority of cars will be electric hybrids and then fully electric. The one thing limiting the transition to plug in electric cars is the infrastructure of charging stations or battery exchange locations allowing long distance travel. Then again, long distance travel may done when most towns are connected by electricity powered trains and cars are only for local transportation.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
If you were to ask me what I like most about electric cars (and Tesla in particular), it wouldn't be the economic or environmental benefits, or even the technology.
It's the way they are taking a long stagnant and mostly non-innovative industry and dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century. If the people who constantly preach about the free market truly appreciated the concept, they would know that in a legitimately free market, you either change with the times or you get kicked to the curb to make room for those who are actually innovating.
The more they resist, the more I'm going to enjoy watching them weep and wail as they slowly become irrelevant.
This is Slashdot. Any discussion of electric cars must include these obligatory posts -
"My daily commute is 762 miles. Therefore, electric cars are useless to anyone and everyone."
(Variation also acceptable: "Twice a year I drive 600 miles to Phoenix. Therefore, electric cars are useless to anyone and everyone.")
"My electric power comes from coal, therefore all electric cars are more polluting than my Grandpa's 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass."
Costco has a terrible car sales model.
They "shop around" to local dealerships by getting them to give a quote for the requested model. Then they sell it to you at the lowest first-quote price of any local dealership, plus a little markup for Costco, of course. Lowest first-quote price. That's pants-on-head retarded. You at least should get a second round of quotes.
Oh, and the best part is that they won't even bother to get a price for you unless you first commit to completing the sale with them! So you can't even go back and say "no, sorry, that's too much, try again or I'm gone". You have to buy a car from them if you get even a single quote on any car from them. I will never use Costco "services". They're shady as fuck and aren't a good price.
A better question. Just why is it so profitable to sell gas powered cars?
You totally misunderstand the value of forcing all oil to be sold in dollars. Since the world runs on oil, and countries must purchase oil in dollars, the countries of the world must keep a large reserve of dollars. This increases the value of the dollar, allowing us to offset by printing more without inflation. Fighting wars over oil is a very real thing. You just don't understand the mechanism of how this works obviously.
you think Kia wants to open up their own showrooms at malls across america? I assure you not.
Hey, if Kia doesn't want to sell directly to me - Tesla does. I have no problem with both business models competing with one another.
I do, however, have a problem with needing to deal with middle-men because of protectionist laws that forbid companies like Tesla from selling directly to me. But hey, YMMV, right?
Oh, please. You could be in Kentucky or West Virginia, where the Koch brothers are experimenting with the laws.
Yeah, I would hate to live somewhere where jobs are plentiful, where the government is running a surplus ... wait, what economic problems?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
We don't force oil to be sold in anything at all.
It's that the sellers of oil prefer to be paid in dollars, because then they can do something with that money which is relatively safe and secure.
In any case, the bond market is much bigger than the petroleum market, and that is the source of dollar, and euro, dominance.
Wow, that's an interesting reading of this thread. I thought I was responding to the hypothetical idea that nobody would repair cars if we didn't have a state-mandated dealer system. Apparently not.
I think that's somewhat true, but I also think that what the dealers will look like will be somewhat different. They'll end up competing with the few OEMs (like Tesla) that control their buying experience, and frankly, the buying experience through those operations is superior. There's not a human on earth who enjoys dealing with car dealers, so as soon as any cracks in the system show, they'll have to change their ways. They definitely won't go away (for reasons you mentioned), but they'll probably start looking more like retailers and less like the hellscapes they currently are. Toyota will be saying, "We have to compete with Tesla on price and quality, but we also have to deal with the hit that comes from a miserable buying experience." The threat that Toyota will start selling directly will definitely put pressure on Toyota dealers to up their game.
I think this will be the game changer. I bought 2 of my last 3 cars through CarsDirect. Reasonable straightforward price that's easy to check, no negotiation or games. My last car was delivered to me at my office with the paperwork. If I had to guess, I'd say we're going to move more and more toward that model and the only people who haggle at the dealer are going to be the real sharks who aren't profitable to haggle with. Once that starts to happen, the incentive for having a staff of professional hagglers goes away. Eventually, I expect prices will normalize and dealers will have to differentiate on other factors.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Every car I've ever owned has had more than $4k in maintenance costs by the time it's 10 years old. The water pump, the timing belt, flushing the transmission, flushing the radiator, etc... amount to a pretty penny. But the oil changes alone are going to net you more than $1000 in that timeframe. You get one major part going out on a combustion car that requires the engine to be disassembled and you'll drop $1k before they even know what's wrong. Yea if you do all your own maintenance you can save money on stuff but mechanical engines break down over time.
And from what I've seen of battery replacement information the only batteries failing at 8-10 years are the NiMH batteries in the Prius. The lithium-ion in the more advanced vehicles have not exhibited the same failure rate and currently have a very poorly understood failure rate because not many have failed.