Featured Are Car Dealers Slowing the Adoption of Electric Vehicles?

The article should have been titled" Are a Lot of Car Dealers Slowing the Adoption of Electric Vehicles?".
In my case, when I was shopping for another Bolt, some dealers were totally enthused about them, ordering and stocking as many as they could get their hands on, even having charging stations on the property, while others had a meh attitude. If you want one, we have to order it. Guess where I bought mine.

 

actually, i would say the whole car dealer problem has greatly improved since ev's first hit the lots.
and they will continue to improve.
if you take out the things that are slowing all car sales, how much are ev sales really slowing?
and if they are slowing beyond that, i'd say it's because mfg's have loaded the lots with loaded models, and the fed credit doesn't apply to most of them.

 

Or is Toyota dragging it's heels? Not sure. All I know, our local dealership on the lot inventory is 4 tacomas, one tundra, one supra, and one BZ4X (the electric cross-over that looks like Star Wars storm trooper transport.

 

From a quick search, it looks like the car market overall is doing as well today as it did at the beginning of the year. Pretty sure these sales numbers include the EVs. The EV segment alone has slowed down, but their rate improvement is still over double the industry average.

 

must be time for another interest rate increase then

 

Is one of the attractions of buying a Tesla the "no sales jerk around" method of buying? Yes. So has that siphoned some sales away from traditional dealers? Yes.

I have bought 4 cars without ever visiting the dealer except to pick the car up, hand over the agreed upon check, and drive away in less than a half hour. I love it. Find the fleet or internet salesperson at a dealer and do it by email. Or buy online like Tesla does.

 

Maybe it is a Canadian approach , in the showroom I saw the same vehicules you described ........no corolla,no prius,no camry,no corolla cross, no sienna , no RAV4....just trucks and the BZ4X and the supra

 

nah, we don't have any here either. toyota lot was all preowned, chevy lot was a sea of new silveradoes, tahoes, suburbans and the like.

 

They've also loaded their lots with cars that have CCS charging ports. Oops, that's all they have.

Mike

 

All I can say is that EV adoption seems complicated.

It's not as easy as, "Honey, what do you think about trading in our car for an EV. Let's go down to the car lot and get one."

It's more like:
W "What about a wagon."
H "They don't make those, even for ICEV's."
W "Ok, so what about a crossover."
H "Those are $50k."
W "Ok, better go for a compact economy EV."
H "Ok, lets try a used Leaf."
30-miles later...
H "Honey, do you have that number for the tow truck handy? The gauge stopped working at 5%."
W "Ok, so what about a Bolt?"
H "Um, I've looked for the past 6 months and can't find any for under $30,000, and we don't qualify for the federal tax credit, Hon."
W "Ok, but here's a used Tesla for $15k!"
H "Yes, but insurance want's $500 a month for it, and it's 3,000 miles from where we live."

ICEV experience:

H "Hey, here's a ol' VW Golf for $600 and all it needs is a new master cylinder for the clutch."
Put clutch cyinder in in one afternoon.
10 years and 400,000 miles later...
H "Sorry Hon, but one of the injector lines broke. It costs $15 and will take a day to come in."

 

Looking at my Toyota dealership, we have 15 bZ4X's from $45k-51K....ouch. They also have some Prius and Prius Prime and it's interesting the Prime is only a few hundred dollars more.
With high inflation and high interest rates, it's not surprising cars aren't moving like they used to.

 

and so it begins...

Amazon to sell Hyundai vehicles online starting in 2024

 

I assume that they will have to create an online chat so that the Amazon sales person can negotiate the price and put you on hold so she/he can go talk to a manage and get a better price for you...if you buy today.

Mike

 

duplicate deleted

 

Dealerships will stock whatever they can sell. The longer something sits on their lot, the more money it cost them. So if they can move 15 econo-boxes a month to one Prius; It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they are going to stock and what your going to find on their lots.
Amazon buying experience is more likely going to be an equivalent to buying from TrueCar, Costco, Sams, or BJ. Hyundai has dealerships and contracts with the manufacturers. There's usually an exclusivity clause for a certain radius, buried in those contracts - which protects the dealerships for the huge outlay in capital, in starting the dealership.