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Ford dealers able to add no-resale provision to 22MY F150 Lighting
- chrismcb 5y agoHow does this square with the first sale doctrine?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Ford famously slipped an anti-flip clause into the buyer agreement for its $450,000 supercar that prohibits owners from selling the car for 24 months. The owners themselves were carefully chosen through an extensive application process, with many of the cars going to celebrities and other high-visibility individuals to help publicize the car and the brand. Cena was one of those deemed worthy, likely thanks to his emergence as a YouTube car reviewer in the past year. This is fair. They didn't sell him a car. They signed him as a promoter. I cannot see any possible motivation for a dealer to add no-resale provisions to their agreements with ordinary customers.
- ipsin 5y agoI cannot see any possible motivation for a dealer to add no-resale provisions to their agreements with ordinary customers. If these vehicles are in high demand, to prevent scalping? The length of the restriction ("no resale for one year") seems aligned with that goal.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> If these vehicles are in high demand, to prevent scalping? I see the manufacturer wanting this. But not dealers. Scalpers are just outsourced distributors from a dealership's perspective.
- throwawaygh 5y ago"It would be bullshit if some guy just buys the truck from me, I can't charge because Ford told me so, and then that guy turns around and gets half of what should have been my commission!" - the no-value-add middle man that Ford is forcing me to go through to buy their truck, when asked exactly this question. I'm all for preventing scalping. It makes perfect strategic sense for Ford! The reason their approach toward the scalping issue is so uniquely idiotic is because the dealership model means they have to massage the bruised egos of useless middlemen.
- RickyRocks 5y agoShould just be 1 per customer per year. End of problem.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dahdum 5y agoFord is putting strong pressure on the dealerships to not gouge on markups, without the resale provision scalpers would eat up all the inventory and pocket the difference instead. Some dealership owners will hate this provision of course, because otherwise they could still sell near MSRP but only allocate to the themselves, family, friends, and employees who would then instantly scalp.
- mberning 5y agoThey did the same thing with the Lexus LFA. They just bought the cars in the name of a business and sold the business. Problem solved for the flippers. I think the best solution is to allow dealers to sell them at MSRP and select buyers via a lottery. Some percentage will flip it, but many wont because they legitimately wanted the vehicle.
- version_five 5y agoIf you can't resell it, you don't really own it. I wonder how this is enforced? Is there some kind of mandatory registration with Ford that is required for the car to work? Or are they threatening to sue if they find out you sold it? Any car I have owned, reselling it has nothing to do with the dealer. This is one reason I would never a vehicle that came with any kind of software subscription from the dealer / manufacturer. It's just another tool they can use to extract money from you and deny your ownership rights. In this case, it's not clear what the enforcement mechanism is though, it may not be software related.
- masklinn 5y ago> If you can't resell it, you don't really own it. The provision is for a one-year no-resale provision: > Purchaser hereby agrees that it will not sell, offer to sell, or otherwise transfer any ownership interest in the Vehicle prior to the first anniversary of the date hereof. The product is hot, it's understandable that Ford wants to prioritise users of the product over scalpers.
- dymk 5y agoAll Ford can do is take them to civil court, and it remains to be seen if any court will consider the contract enforceable.
- strofcon 5y agoIt's a slight difference, sure, but not a meaningful one. If you buy the product, and are subsequently disallowed by the original seller to do what you please with it, then you don't own it and are merely leasing it - at least for the first year.
- millzlane 5y agoThen don't buy it. I don't buy iPhones for this exact reason.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoYeah, I have a hard time seeing the courts enforcing this. There are precedents with books - publishers tried to prevent people selling used books, and the courts smacked them down. I have a slightly less hard time seeing the courts allowing Ford to use technical means to prevent resale. (Though if Ford does it without informing buyers, that would probably be a major red flag to the courts.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MarkMarine 5y agoWho care. It’s a 1 year provision on a hot product and they are trying to get the vehicle to people who will use it, not people who will scalp the price up. I see this as positive, and I can’t wait to replace my 19mpg truck with a lightning, the scalpers can get bent.
- throwawaygh 5y agoThen replace a "no sale" provision with a "no sale over $X" provision. Or require resale to the dealership and exert control over the dealerships. Or... There are hundreds of ways to deal with scalping that don't include locking people into ownership for a year. Far as I can tell, what's really going on is that the dealerships threw a fit about not being able to mark prices up and Ford responded by ensuring the dealerships that at least no one else will get what the dealerships felt should have been their extra commission. TBH, after watching this fiasco and having a single (short!) conversation with the rando middleman at the nearest dealership who I'm forced to interact with for god knows what reason... I'm probably cancelling my Lightning reservation and waiting a few more years for a Tesla or Rivian truck. The whole dealership thing is an albatross around the neck of Detriot companies. It will kill them.
- andrewxdiamond 5y agoWhat legitimate reason does a person have to sell their car before the first year ends? Seems highly wasteful to me, but maybe there is something I don’t know? Edit: friends, the downvote button is not a “I disagree with you” button. This isn’t Reddit.
- jlaporte 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
- eganist 5y ago> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://globalnews.ca/news/4283526/john-cena-ford-settle-lawsuit/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4283526/john-cena-ford-settle-law... Ford's done this before, and if a settlement is the best that John Cena's team could reach rather than disputing it on First Sale grounds, it makes me think Ford's reasonably certain it's on sound ground. Not a lawyer.
- wayoutthere 5y agoDoesn’t matter much when you’re reliant on software updates to do pretty much anything on a vehicle. Better to just acknowledge that vehicles come with an EULA these days.
- pg_bot 5y agoI don't think the first sale doctrine applies here. This isn't an issue of trademark or copyright. This would likely fall into the realm of a restrictive covenant which are much more common in real estate transactions.
- hnburnsy 5y agoPost 3 has the letter from Ford to the dealers, sorry should have linked to that post. https://www.lightningowners.com/threads/ford-warns-dealers.427/post-2550 https://www.lightningowners.com/threads/ford-warns-dealers.4...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cletus 5y agoI support this. One year seems reasonable. I can't stand scalping. I assume the dealership retains the ability to buy back the truck? That gives someone an out if they really do need to sell in the first year. I'd also like to see it with consoles and GPUs. In those cases, Consoles are easier. GPUs are harder. But I imagine for consoles you could limit the PSN account to the one who purchased it.
- brink 5y agoI do too. I'm sick to death of scalping.
- ISL 5y agoSeems like such a restriction could be subverted with an expensive sublease and a contract to sell at the first-available date. Where there's a desire, there's usually an arbitrage...
- masklinn 5y agoThat's a much more complex engagement than a simple flip, so most of the scalpers are not going to bother with such an arrangement
- mywittyname 5y agoI don't get why Ford doesn't skip this whole ordeal and make the Lightning lease-only. Ford spent a ton of time in courts enforcing this on the GTs. Alternatively, why not auction them off instead of setting an MSRP? Lastly, they could raise MSRP to like $500k and gradually lower it over time, then make owners sign a document stating that they understand that Ford will lower MSRP over time, and that owners will be subject to excessive depreciation as a result. This will prevent the situation that Dodge got into with the Viper. It's clear that the market value for these is significantly above MSRP. We are all just arguing over who is entitled to that money: the manufacture, the dealership, or the buyer.
- throwawaygh 5y agoBecause Ford goes bankrupt without the F-150 brand. They NEED to win the electric truck wars if they want to survive for another 50 years. If the only people driving the lightning are the sorts of people who can pay 500k for a truck, the damage to the Ford Truck brand would be immense.
- mywittyname 5y agoI'm not saying permanently set the MSRP to something obscene. Just for the first model year to get those Gotta Have It people with infinitely deep pockets their vehicles first, so that we can all move on. Those people are going to pay that price anyway. It's just that dealers are going to piss off customers by taking orders they know they aren't going to honor because Deep Pockets Paul and/or Scalper Sally going to come along and pay the obscene ADM and nick the order from someone who got their hopes up. The truck is worth $x but is selling for much less than $x. So, the sorts of people driving the Lighting are going to be the sort who can spend $500k (or whatever market value is) on a truck. It gets back to the fact that we are merely arguing over who is going to get this extra money: the manufacture, the dealership, or the original buyer.
- sofixa 5y agoI find the size of that thing enormous. Why is that the most sold vehicle in the US? I find it almost impossible to believe all those buyers actually need to move a few tons of stuff on a regular enough basis ( weekly?) to warrant such a monstrosity with associated externalities ( pollution, fuel use for the non-electric version, and weight destroying roads for all version and even more so for the electric one).