12 ms·
Ford F-150 Lightning reservation holders face $30k dealer markup as demand high
- ramesh31 5y agoEveryone knew the $39k Lightning was as much of a fantasy as the $30k Model 3, and this markup puts them right in line with Tesla/Rivian. But now we get to wait another 5-10 years for an actually affordable EV work truck to be a thing. Unfortunately battery prices are going to keep EV's in the realm of rich person toys and second cars for years to come still.
- jjtheblunt 5y agoUsed EVs probably will be very well equipped and seriously affordable?
- xeromal 5y agoIf used EV trucks are anything like real trucks, they don't really drop in price until it's such a piece of shit that it needs major repairs.
- thrower123 5y agoIn any place where road salt is used in the winter, they'll be just as rotten out as ICE vehicles at the end of a five or six year auto loan.
- ghaff 5y ago>at the end of a five or six year auto loan Varies by where you are and how much you drive, especially in snowy conditions. But my experience is that most vehicles are better than that these days. You should be able to get to 10 years pretty reliably--and often 5+ years beyond before you start getting into expensive rust-related repairs. My prior SUV (a Ford) I definitely held onto about a year too long with a couple of expensive repairs associated with corroded fluids lines but that was almost a 20 year old vehicle in New England.
- gpm 5y agoWhat parts usually rot out on ICE's and do they have equivalents on EV's? Getting rid of a large percentage of the moving parts seems like it might be a win (but I'm really not sure).
- ghaff 5y agoIn my experience, frame/body (though that's better than it used to be). Fluid lines (brakes, power steering), muffler, other power train components [ADDED: Not so much powertrain itself but some of the associated hardware]. So some is common. Some is not. But presumably the motors in an EV could rust out as well.
- bri3d 5y agoCorrosion usually affects the body, the suspension, the exhaust, and bolts. The only thing the EV doesn't have is an exhaust system. And compared to the Model 3, which is mostly steel, there are some ICE cars which could do better - for example, the Ford F-150 has had a majority aluminum body for a few years now. Regardless, this isn't a win for the EV column, it's not the powertrain that rots.
- thrower123 5y agoRocker panels, wheel wells, fenders, cab corners. If that bodywork is rotted out on a modern unibody vehicle, it will fail safety inspections and has to be repaired.
- seattle_spring 5y agoWhere does this myth come from? I grew up in Utah where the roads are basically made of salt for 6 months a year. There are old cars everywhere. I had two that lasted to 200k miles, and it wasn't rust that pushed them over the edge. Just wash your car and it'll be fine. I'm not saying there's no affect at all, but suggesting the car will be unusable in 5 years (less than 100k on average) is an exaggeration bordering on dishonesty.
- blackguardx 5y agoThe 5 year thing is an exaggeration, but it definitely isn't a myth. The midwest and new england area gets a lot more snow than the western US outside small mountain towns. Also, the western US tends to use more environmentally friendly road salts that also don't cause as much corrosion as rock salt (NaCl). In the east, roads are heavily salted with rock salt and it is (or was common when I lived there) for cars to to be heavily rusted out 10 years in. People still drive those cars, but parts break more frequently. When I moved to California in 2007, a local mechanic freaked out about all the rust on my 2001 car and advised me to sell it immediately. I kept that car and eventually sold it on to someone from the east coast who didn't see any issues.
- brewtide 5y agoMaine here. Not only do they sand and salt a ton, but I believe it is Calcium-Chloride that they spray down before storms are about to hit. Liquid, onto the roads. You should see cars following 10 ft behind them on the highway when this is being done... eeek. You can literally hear it eating at your car if in a quiet place. "Not too rusty" around here is... Well, you're familiar.
- rossjudson 5y agoDecades ago my Canadian family had a Volvo that made it for nearly 20 years, and was a total rust bucket at the end of that time ;) Somewhere near the end of that, a brand new Acura was bought. That made it through the next 20 years (on the same roads), and had next to no corrosion. The manufacturers really did get a lot better!
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> realm of rich person toys Unfortunately 7 year and 8 year car loans are a thing and make expensive vehicles accessible to those with more meager incomes. They are terrible ideas though (for the consumer)
- secabeen 5y agoAnother sign of the challenges of the dealer system. Ford took reservations, but then depends on dealers to close the sale, and they can increase the price. For all their faults, Tesla held to their original pricing on S, X, and 3 for early reservations, even giving them free upgrades when the production model had higher specs than the original announcements. More recently, Tesla has hit some reservation holders with modest price increases, but not at over 50% of the base price of the vehicle like we're seeing here.
- dragontamer 5y agoThe issue is that if Tesla does it, you have no recourse. If a random dealership does this to me, I walk down the street to the other dealership and buy a car from them.
- jdhn 5y agoI wonder how Ford will combat this. I know they're limited as to what they can do due to state laws, but from what I've seen they're not a fan of high markups.
- maxerickson 5y agoThey are probably reaching out to their media contacts encouraging them to write articles about dealers marking up the prices.
- emptybottle 5y agoI hope that Ford is able to build an EV that runs reliably well beyond the warranty period. The F series are popular trucks, and it would be great to see more EV adoption from truck drivers. I think that will be heavily influenced by either a) reliability or b) accessible repairs with cheap parts. Ford’s fuel trucks have essentially both today, but a botched EV rollout could leave customers with neither and price hikes aren’t a great sign.
- avelis 5y agoThere are dealers that don't do markups like this. Sad to see this happen but it's not surprising.
- sithlord 5y agoThe bigger problem is that it appears that the dealerships have just done a big bait and switch, customers already preordered and if my research was correct - they basically said F* you to the customers that already pre ordered and said if you want it now - you have to pay more - or you lose your deposit. this video sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pil6tB6MPws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pil6tB6MPws
- chmod775 5y ago> or you lose your deposit Calling that a deposit is stretching the definition - you're just paying a fee to skip ahead in line: a reservation. Suppose though it actually was a partial, non-refundable, advance payment of a yet-to-be-determined sum. Who in their right mind would sign such a contract? Those people should find someone else to manage their money for them ASAP.
- darknavi 5y ago> The bigger problem is dealerships FTFY
- brightball 5y agoAka - Sales Unions
- adventured 5y agoThe dealerships are more like a cartel because they're focused on keeping the cost of the product artificially inflated enough that they can scam their margin from inbetween the customer and the producer. Unions focus on keeping wages higher than they otherwise would be. For example health insurance companies in the US fall into the same cartel category as automobile dealerships. They scam their margin / mark-up sitting - often with regulatory protection - inbetween the patient and the care provider (hospital etc) or producer (pharma company, device maker etc).
- brightball 5y ago
- short12 5y agoWhy are things like the PS5 not being handled the same way and squeeze the scummy scalpers out of the game
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoBecause that would cause an uproar that Sony is scalping gamers. Same with Nvidia.
- short12 5y agoThey would be selling at their MSRP And those are usually not much of a surprise in price generation over generation without something being radically new
- avidiax 5y agoWhat I would like to see is PS5's sold at market price by Sony, but the overage is donated to a charity of the buyer's choice. It pushes the scalpers out of the game, which means there's less idle inventory, and the price can come down a little faster. Another alternative is to sell at MSRP, but bind it to the buyer for a year. This means that it can be only be resold as a brick within a year, which is obviously unattractive to scalpers. To prevent scalpers selling a sale-sniping service, just take orders from qualified buyers anytime, then fill them randomly in e.g. a 7 day window. Within a week you either get a PS5 bound to you or a refund and a chance to try again.
- kbenson 5y ago
- ourmandave 5y ago...at least one Ford dealership [...] informed them that an additional price adjustment of US$30,000 would be necessary in order to receive a unit from the first batches of Ford's new electric truck. An additional non-refundable US$5,000 deposit is apparently also required to place an order for the electric pickup truck. At ONE dealership, if you want a first batch its +$30K. If you wait, it isn't. If you want to reserve one now it's $5000 down. That's not extra and you don't lose it if you take delivery. I'm not a Ford fanboy, just saying. And I wouldn't buy (let alone pay extra for) any first gen vehicle.
- VWWHFSfQ 5y agowhy are people caring about this. go to a different dealer or wait 5 minutes if you want to buy it at msrp
- cinntaile 5y agoThat's not gonna help, they're all sold out. It's part of a new crypto consensus algorithm called Proof of Transport (PoT). You need a mean truck to get the most rewards.
- seattle_spring 5y agoI doubt either of those strategies will yield results. The RAV4 Prime and Ford Focus RS are 2 examples of many of cars that pretty much were never available for MSRP except from a select few dealerships. I'm sure a couple people will respond and say, "wait but I got a Prime at MSRP so that invalidates your comment!" Nope, they just got lucky or were OK calling 20 dealerships to find one that wasn't OK ripping their customers off.
- therealdrag0 5y agoIs it a rip off? Supply and demand. Charging more incentivized more production. Which we desperately need.
- 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CogitoCogito 5y agoI don’t understand business rationale of not just returning the deposit to those who don’t want to pay the extra. Seems like a good way to burn basically all potential future customers while simultaneously pulling in more money than expected. Maybe I’m kissing something? Are the dealers themselves paying more for the trucks?
- avidiax 5y agoDealer's know about the sunk-cost fallacy. Very few people are going to walk away from that new truck that they were so enthusiastic about put down $5k to reserve it. Dealerships are typically a low-margin business, and probably negative margin during the early part of the pandemic. An e-truck is probably going to last 10+ years and rarely go to the dealer service dept. (the high margin part of the business). So if you ran a dealership, and you knew that the market price for this e-truck was much higher than MSRP, and you aren't going to make anything on the back-end with dealer service, and you've been starving for many months, what would you do? Leave the money on the table? Worry that your customer won't return sometime in the next 3-10 years, long after the sting of being forced to pay market price wears off?
- CogitoCogito 5y ago> Dealer's know about the sunk-cost fallacy. Very few people are going to walk away from that new truck that they were so enthusiastic about put down $5k to reserve it. > Dealerships are typically a low-margin business, and probably negative margin during the early part of the pandemic. An e-truck is probably going to last 10+ years and rarely go to the dealer service dept. (the high margin part of the business). > So if you ran a dealership, and you knew that the market price for this e-truck was much higher than MSRP, and you aren't going to make anything on the back-end with dealer service, and you've been starving for many months, what would you do? Leave the money on the table? Worry that your customer won't return sometime in the next 3-10 years, long after the sting of being forced to pay market price wears off? Feel free to clarify, but I find your post self-contradictory. If customers don't walk away, then the dealers gain _no_ money by doing this since the money goes to the purchase. They only gain money if customers pull out and leave the reservation money with the dealer. So if dealers believe that customers will view this as a sunk cost, the only rational thing for them to do is in fact to offer to return the money.
- HelloNurse 5y agoThe article is unclear and comments seem contradictory: is it a price hike for new reservations or a bait and switch for old ones? The former would be merely sad, the latter should be illegal.
- andygrove 5y agoFWIW, my dealer is not adding any markup. Here is the email I received from them explaining the process: "We finally received an update from Ford regarding the Lightning! This will be a completely unique process from Ford and they will send a detailed guideline in January, however I wanted to let you know in advance that things are in motion. This process is going to be based on invitation to convert as demand has outweighed production capability by far. Due to demand, not all reservation holders will recieve an invitation to place an order for a 2022 model year. Ford will begin inviting reservation holders to place orders in waves starting in January. Subsequent waves will receive an invitation in two-week intervals until 2022 model year capacity is reached. Invitations are based on reservation timing, and our estimated allocation. You will be directed to an online configurator (Build and Price tool) where you will then be able to spec out your order and then submit your finalized order. At that time, we will provide you with complete pricing including MSRP, taxes, and dealer handling fee. We are not charging any dealer markup above MSRP. Once the 22MY production capacity is met, all remaining reservation holders will be notified that their next ordering opportunity will be for the next model year."
- rossjudson 5y agoSounds like you have a local dealer that's transparent and (relatively!) honest. From other posts it seems that Ford can't necessarily set the prices that the dealers charge...but what they can do is let dealers know that their allocations are at risk. In other words -- Ford can separately survey invitation receivers and find out what prices they pay. Excessive markups can be used to reduce allocations to dealers.
- sk5t 5y ago> dealer handling fee Still a bit ominous.
- chihuahua 5y ago"No dealer markup above MSRP", but the dealer handling fee could be $25,000 ...
- hourislate 5y agoI can understand someone who needs a work truck but most of these trucks will be Vanity purchases, used to drive to Walmart or Chickfilet. Ford needs to mark it up across the board and any lost sales will be offset by large profit margins. Anyone buying a vehicle like this should be able to eat an additional 30-60k in markups.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- foobiekr 5y agoIf the cellular automata theory of class and status differentiation is true, electric vehicles are about to lose their caché. It will be interesting to observe.
- dqpb 5y agoWhat do you mean?
- jmspring 5y agoMany in demand vehicles have seen dealer markups. Sprinter vans - two different dealers in the Bay Area - markups for 4x4 and high roof.
- travisporter 5y agoWhen I was looking a Honda Accord a couple decades ago I walked into a dealer who was asking 3000 above MSRP in an Atlanta suburb. I asked him are you serious, dude didn’t even flinch and said bye as I walked out. I got the same car at MSRP with leather seats thrown in about 20 miles out of the city.
- llampx 5y agoAnd this is relevant to the current situation how?
- travisporter 5y agoSome dealerships overcharge the customer because they think they can, and one should shop around because I was under the false assumption that all Honda dealers were equal. The civic was in high demand when I was buying it so inventories were low, but certainly not as low as now.
- Maarten88 5y agoSo this year they'll build around 700.000 normal F-150 trucks and only 15.000 electric ones, when they could sell many times more. It seems they are out of touch with the market. That may be understandable, as it is a bit nonsensical. 90% of the people who buy these trucks buy them as a status symbol: they are wasting resources, energy and emissions to signal they are active/outdoor types while driving to work and the mall. I read trucks do not count as part of manufacturer fuel efficiency targets, which is why they started marketing them to consumers in the first place. Buying an electric version of this still seems quite wasteful. I hope people will think again and buy something right-sized.
- abawany 5y agoFord also released the hybrid Maverick with a starting price of 20k usd, which is much more right sized and extremely practical. It is attracting a lot of non traditional buyers who would likely never have considered the monstrosities that pass as 'full sized' nowadays.
- therealdrag0 5y agoWow. 37 combined mpg, that’s great for a truck. Starting at 20k??? How…
- abawany 5y agoI found this review by Demuro to be useful: https://youtu.be/ocHFC03Wmbw https://youtu.be/ocHFC03Wmbw - it outlines the compromises they made, such as using the tried-and-true components from the Escape, focusing on function over shiny form, and making a well thought out design. I've priced one for myself a few times and the full msrp including destination charge was under 24k usd after the options that I added. The only reason I haven't ordered one yet is because of the nasty experience at dealers though there is at least one dealer in Iowa that is selling it for under invoice pricing, provided I fly there and drive it back.
- Gelob 5y agoThese dealer markups in the chip shortage are insane. Went into a Kia dealership that had two Seltos on the lot. Prepared to pay sticker price of 24k even with bullshit delivery mark-up. Then they ran our credit and told us it would be 38k because they added bullshit mark-ups. We walked out the door.
- RickJWagner 5y agoTesla shipped 1M vehicles in 2021. They are also about to open 2 more assembly lines. Ford better play it's hand carefully. The F150 could be a winner, or it could be a quick flash in the pan (largely ignored, if other EV makers provide reasonable alternatives quickly.)