Rumor: dealers reluctant to sell plug-ins?

some here with pips have said the salesmen tried to talk them into a lift back. claimed the pip won't pay for itself in savings. sage and i were discussing it in another thread. i thought they might be making less on the pip, but he disagreed. the article is correct, and you can read about a lot of personal experiences in the pip forum. no question that most aren't unto speed on technical aspects. but the same can be said for hybrids in general.

 

I've seen the opposite in CA. Toyota recently offered $4000 off as a factory rebate and it wasn't too hard talking a dealer under MSRP by ~$3000.

 

I haven't found any automotive sales person that is a gear head. They usually know nothing about automobiles. When I first test drove a Prius locally the sales person pointed to the inverter and said it was the battery. Last week we were checking out some vehicles for work and the sales person didn't know the trim levels and which options are available at each trim level. At one of the dealerships the sales person said I should sell cars since I knew all the answers about the vehicle, that my coworker asked. In reality I don't think I have met any sales person that takes a genuine interest in their product(s) and is completely knowledgeable.

 

From anecdotal evidence this seems very true with plugins although it is probably less of an issue with the PiP (although still present).

The more unique or different the car is, and the less education the sales rep is the more they will try suggesting a different car.

Car sales reps get paid on commission*. If they can sell someone a car in 15 minutes vs 75 minutes they have a shot of making more sales. More sales equals more money.
In addition, EVs have been politicized, more so in some areas of the country than others. As an example, look at Mike Kelly and his tirades against the Volt. Chevy-Dealing Congressman: “There Is No Market” For The Volt | The Truth About Cars

This is changing slowly as people get a chance to see the cars and talk with owners.

Now the PiP is less different than most other plugins which frankly, in terms of dealer acceptance, is a good thing.
Also, from the dealers I saw in CA, there is much less resistance to selling plugins.

I don't suspect this is the reason for the slow roll out. If it were, Toyota would be selling in states such as Texas and not slower plugin states.

* Except for Tesla who's Product Specialists are paid hourly. Possibly BMW as well who appear to have Specialists on staff that specifically are there to educate shoppers about the i3 and are not paid on commission.

 

Virginia is a Prius Plug In state. You'd never know it here in central Virginia. In the last year and a half, I've only seen one used and one new 2013 Prius plug in (March 2014) at three of the local area dealers. Hard to sell what you don't have. Northern Virginia and southern Maryland have great selections.

Here's a related subject.
State of the market - MSRP? And is Tech a bad thing? | PriusChat

 

My friend went to a Toyota dealer to buy a used Prius. The salesguy was talking up a 2012 Prius 2 with 16,000 miles for $21k. For whatever reason, my friend happened to text me while he was sitting down with the saleguy: "about to trade in my tacoma for a prius". We got to talking and when I found out it was a used Prius for $21k, I told him he could get a new 2014 PiP Base at a net cost of about $21k (not including TTL). When I told him to talk to the salesguy about it, here are some of the odd things that came out of the salesguy's mouth:

1. You need to buy an expensive charger for it, around $2000 and it requires permits from the city, you don't want that

2. There is no Toyota rebate for the Plug-in Prius (yes, there clearly was since Dianne was advertising it here)

3. After my friend showed him the rebate on Toyota's website, he tried to tell my friend it was for lease only (no, it wasnt)

4. When he finally agreed to show my friend some Plug-in Priuses, he showed him the Advanced models and tried to tell him there is no model of Plug-in Prius that would net out at $21k (net was dependent on a selling price of about $29k, like Dianne was advertising). My friend called me and said all the PiPs he saw were in the $35-36k range. I told him to ask for a Base model.

In the end, he drove home in a 2014 PiP Base, but there was a lot of back and forth between the salesguy, my friend, and me on the phone. I kept telling him to leave and go to Dianne, but he said he was getting a good trade-in on his Tacoma and it was 9PM and he lives kind of far from Carson Toyota.

But, I think in this case, the salesguy probably stood to make a boatload of commission selling a 2 year old Prius 2 for $21k. So this was an extreme case I think.

This was a Toyota dealer in Thousand Oaks, CA

 

Regarding the dealer profit, Edmunds shows invoice and MSRP. It looks to me like a 6% margin on a regular hatchback ($2510 MSRP) and 4% on a PiP with an MSRP OF $30,800. This is before any factory-to-dealer incentives or rebates, spiffs to sales people, etc. so the case could be made that a sales person in it just for the bucks, rather than giving good customer service, would try to put a buyer into a hatchback over a PiP. It seems reasonable to assume that the commission on a sale will be more where the margin is higher.

 

NO excuse for the misinformation, misconceptions, and out right lies by the sales person or dealer. We live in a wonderful age for access to most of the information we need. Your friend is fortunate to have your knowledge base on the Prius line. A couple of days looking around PriusChat prior to his dealer visit and and he would have been better prepared. Fortunate for him, he fared well because of you.

 

track, that is an amazing story. is that current or some time in the past?

 

At our local dealer I drove in with my Prius 3 to trade up to a PiP. The sales guy said "There are 4 different models". I told him to get someone who knew about the PiP, I had to start walking out the door before he got the expert. And he really was an expert. I wonder what would have happened if someone had stayed with the original sales person.

 

they would have had 4 models to choose from.

 

It was about 3 weeks ago.

What really blew me away was the whole thing with the charger being $2000 and needing a permit. Thats just inexcusable. How can these types of people look their customer in the face ever again knowing they are spewing outright lies.. do not know how they can sleep at night.

 

Well.... We did need a permit for the install of our new meter. However, it was the standard city permit pulled when windows or other construction is done.
In most cases, I like to think this is willful ignorance.

Of course, with a PiP I see no need for anyone to not simply use a 110 V plug.

 

Yes, the salesman was (incorrectly) implying that one needed a 240 EVSE, which would cost a bit to install, and likely require some sort of city permit.

 

I'm looking forward to someone trying that line of reasoning on me.
My response will simply be, "no I don't, I already have one".

 

That's not surprising at all.

I think it's finally gotten a little better but years back when I first started looking at "Prius" and hybrids, most salesmen were totally unknowledgeable, and reluctant to promote the Prius.

Infact, when I first went to look at a Prius, I had a salesman tell me to just get a Yaris. He almost refused to show me a Prius and certainly was not promoting it as a purchase I should make.

So the fact that evidently the same lack of knowledge, and reluctance to promote EV's and Plug In's exists today, color me unsurprised.

It's a shame. Sales people should be totally versed in all the products they sell, and their #1 concern should be uniting the customer with the product they most want. And with all the knowledge so easily available today, a tenured sales person who isn't up to speed on their products is IMO unforgivable.

 

if you hire salespeople who are versed in the product, you'll lose sales to the salespeople versed in sales.

 

It's funny that people here think that car dealers are there to sell you the car YOU want. LOL

Selling cars is a cutthroat business. If you're in it, you can either make sales on a regular basis or you can make it for the door. Period. You're there to move metal, and fast. So the vignette described here is perfectly understandable in that context.

While it's alarming to some that sales staff don't know more about the products they sell, that's where the buyer can always prevail. In places where the sales staff is all about sales and knows nothing about the product, you have not just one, but two ways to express your distaste for such practice - a right way and a left way. (And don't let the door hit you on the way out, either. They won't be there to help.)

So I don't think that dealers are "reluctant" to sell sell plug-ins at all. They just have more profitable metal to move, and little volume from PHEV traffic. I bet if you asked Dianne, you'd find that she continues to move plenty of PHEV metal at Carson Toyota, long after the introduction. 100s of units seem to keep rolling through there. It's all about volume and profit. In most areas, the PHEV offers neither.

So Cal and the Bay Area in California provide the perfect storm for selling these cars. With gas holding over $4/gal, traffic backed up to the horizon, and climate friendly conditions, a carefully priced PHEV with a Diamond Lane Sticker can sell itself. It's probably not the car for all occasions, however. This isn't so much a gas/electric decision as it is an economic decision.

When fuel costs here hit current european standards, we'll see plenty more PHEVs rolling off the lots in other parts of the country. By then, though, there will likely be other alternatives and more competition. And sales staff across the country will still recommend that their customers buy the vehicles that brings the dealership the greatest profit.

 

I see no reason that people can't be versed in both.