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This is the only way they can compete with Tesla and other direct-to-consumer EV manufacturers. Glad to see Ford doing this. As a Tesla owner, I’d be open to bu

This is the only way they can compete with Tesla and other direct-to-consumer EV manufacturers. Glad to see Ford doing this. As a Tesla owner, I’d be open to buying a Ford EV but have no interest in dealer markup or the dealer buying scenario.

thenewwazoo 5y ago
If you're willing to wait, ordering a Ford EV online isn't much like buying from a dealer. They're involved, but it feels only incidentally. Of course, if you're not willing to wait, the "price" is dealer markup and the usual experience.
- dangrossman 5y ago
  Ordering online doesn't guarantee you a non-dealership experience. There's no stopping them from adding a $5,000 "market adjustment" to the price of the car you ordered online 9 months prior when you go to pick it up. You cannot force them to sell it at MSRP. This has happened to people that ordered Mach-E's, multiple times.
  - istorical 5y ago
    If they change the price last minute can you renege on your side of the deal and get your money back and cancel?
    - amir734jj 5y ago
      Good question. I'm interested to know the answer as well.
    - enragedcacti 5y ago
      yeah but you go to the back of the line for another one at a different dealership who hopefully won't screw you.
    - dangrossman 5y ago
      You'd have only put down a refundable deposit with Ford, which the dealership can apply to your purchase, or you can get it refunded by Ford. You have no contractual relationship with the dealer, nor any ownership interest in the car, which is why the dealership that does now own the freshly delivered car is able to demand more money for it.
    - wlesieutre 5y ago
      Yes, the deposits are generally refundable. The dealer will take your car and sell it to someone else at $10k over MSRP. Someday when supply is less tight they won't have that leverage, but it's a seller's market right now. Some dealers won't do this, but you'll need to put in some work to find them.
    - greggman3 5y ago
      yes but then you're out time. So they lost nothing because they can sell the car but you lost time. This is sort point for me. I once custom ordered a BMW with the exact options I wanted. Made a downpayment. Waited 3 months for it to arrive taking the bus to work and getting rides home from friends. It arrived at the dealer and they sold it someone else and then told me I could order another if I wanted. You can probably imagine the rage I felt.
  - snow_mac 5y ago
    sounds like enough of a reason just to buy a Tesla.
    - MBCook 5y ago
      Not all dealers are doing that.
    - dangrossman 5y ago
      Buying a Tesla comes with its own set of problems, like the inability to test drive the car before paying for it, and some of the worst initial quality in the industry -- which means you really should want to test drive it before buying it. Once it's yours, the complete absence of an independent dealer network means you're fully at Tesla's whim for repairing those defects. They will often say "it's within spec" and refuse. Plus, "just buy a Tesla" comes with a price premium that's more than any "market adjustment" at even the shadiest dealer for most other EVs. What buyers of EVs from traditional makes are doing is keeping tabs of what dealerships are applying those underhanded markups and simply not sending their online orders there.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - IgorPartola 5y ago
        This was my thought as well. Tesla doesn’t have a truck. When they have a truck equivalent to the Ford Lightning it’ll be 2x as much and lack fundamental features. That alone cuts Tesla out of a huge market segment. Their sedans are barely price competitive on the low end and quality seems worse than early Hyundais. They have cool features but also seem to not be ideal vehicles by any means.
    - datavirtue 5y ago
      Unless Tesla has no appealing or useful options for you. If I need a little goofy sedan I might take a look at Tesla. I need trucks and real vehicles though. Right now Tesla is coasting on VC and IPO and being early entrant innovator. The bitch slap of truth that is automotive manufacturing and marketing is about to land it's hand. Ford understands that bitch slap better than anyone.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Ford came down hard on dealers who "market adjusted" preorders, and that practice should have been halted for a while now. I think it even made HN.
- zippergz 5y ago
  This was not my experience. I put a reservation down on a F150 Lightning, and a few hours later I got a phone call on my cell phone from a pushy sales person at the dealership, trying to convince me to choose something that's available now rather than waiting. I ended up canceling my reservation.
gameswithgo 5y ago
You still get the markup, Tesla just does it directly.
- qwerpy 5y ago
  That’s a good thing. Buyers are able to know the exact price without having to waste hours driving to a dealership and haggling.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    >> You still get the markup, Tesla just does it directly. > That’s a good thing. Buyers are able to know the exact price without having to waste hours driving to a dealership and haggling. Your comment doesn't address the point about markup at all. Knowing an "exact" with a higher markup doesn't seem live much of a good thing to me.
    - runnerup 5y ago
      At the very least, its better if the excess markup goes to the entity which can reinvest that into additional production to eventually saturate demand, rather than a middleman who adds no value but collects rent on regulatory capture (see: Texas laws banning non-dealerships like Tesla from selling cars unless they allow local rich families in the state to collect their rent)
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > At the very least, its better if the excess markup goes to the entity which can reinvest that into additional production to eventually saturate demand, rather than a middleman who adds no value but collects rent on regulatory capture (see: Texas laws banning non-dealerships like Tesla from selling cars unless they allow local rich families in the state to collect their rent) I'm not so sure. You're giving a rather tendentious account of the practice, and I'm pretty skeptical of handwaving "regulatory capture" as justification to get rid of regulation some corporation dislikes. As far as I understand, the dealership system was meant to engineer more competition into the auto market [1], and frankly I prefer something like that than giving more control to larger companies. [1] And that passes the smell test, at least. A dealership is buying in bulk and can probably be assumed to be more savvy in negotiating with the manufacturer than a private consumer. And putting those dealerships in competition with each other should put downward pressure on prices.
adfgadfgaery 5y ago
Tesla's no-dealership model has been an unmitigated disaster. I have never heard of any other company making people wait months for repairs, nor have I heard of any other company repeatedly making delivery estimates that are wrong by months, nor have I heard of any other company delivering cars over a year after they were paid for.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Alternatively, you don't have a listing on Tesla's site saying that a car costs $40k, and then when you call them up to buy it, they say they are adding a "$25k dealer premium", so you can have it for $65k. That's what actually happened to me when I was about to buy a rav4 prime a year ago. So instead I just went and bought a model Y for $50k, and am extremely happy with it. And also blacklisted Larry H Miller from ever getting my business again. But I guess I haven't had to deal with repairs, so maybe things will get worse.
- agent86 5y ago
  Is the model a disaster, or is Tesla's implementation of it a disaster? Or is Tesla's implementation of it given the confines they were working under a disaster? If you look at Rivian and Lucid, their performance in this space hasn't exactly been stellar either. You are absolutely correct that these things typically do not happen with the major car manufacturers, and that Tesla needs to get its act together. But it is worth considering the other car manufacturers have been doing it at scale for a much longer time often with better understood materials and technology. People often ask "What are the other carmakers going to do to compete?" and this is exactly one of those things that they'll bring to the table.
- kaczordon 5y ago
  Weird I got my Tesla within a month delivered to my place. Looks great and drives great no issues so far. Definitely prefer this to going into a dealership.
- ajross 5y ago
  Everyone is different, I guess. I loved the experience. Placed the order, got an email, set up the bank transfer, they called me exactly one time to confirm the delivery time, then dropped off the car. I spent less time[1] buying my Model Y than I have on some products from Amazon. The opinion and memery about this brand is just unbelievable. Cars are big and complicated devices and selling them is equally complicated, and I'm sure there are people who have bad experience buying them, as is basically inevitable. But the overwhelming majority of owners think it's great. [1] If you don't count the incessant, obsessive checking to see what the current delivery estimate is, of course.
dpweb 5y ago
This seems good for Ford not necessarily good for prices. A customer order is lower cost to the manufacturer and dealer as the vehicle doesn't need to be in inventory. Thus, you can sometimes get a lower price by ordering from the factory (dealer is passing along this savings) than buying from inventory. Not to mention this also eliminates price competition amongst dealers. Some dealers take a loss on sales to earn manufacturer incentives. Service however is where they make money, and as time progresses and cars are more software based and self-repair becomes impossible - total cost of ownership goes up.
- Gareth321 5y ago
  This is a good point. Service costs for Teslas are outrageous. Though, to be fair, Teslas appear to require far less servicing. Because of this, I've seen estimates that they actually end up costing around the same as gas cars, annualised. People are going to have to think very hard about the servicing costs when they purchase cars in future, because that cost is often extremely opaque. I don't have much faith that the average consumer will consider this at all. If so, it's very easy to imagine a future in which the upfront cost of EVs is below manufacturing cost, but the ongoing subscriptions and servicing are where manufacturers make their profit.

thenewwazoo 5y ago

If you're willing to wait, ordering a Ford EV online isn't much like buying from a dealer. They're involved, but it feels only incidentally. Of course, if you're not willing to wait, the "price" is dealer markup and the usual experience.

dangrossman 5y ago
Ordering online doesn't guarantee you a non-dealership experience. There's no stopping them from adding a $5,000 "market adjustment" to the price of the car you ordered online 9 months prior when you go to pick it up. You cannot force them to sell it at MSRP. This has happened to people that ordered Mach-E's, multiple times.
- istorical 5y ago
  If they change the price last minute can you renege on your side of the deal and get your money back and cancel?
  - amir734jj 5y ago
    Good question. I'm interested to know the answer as well.
  - enragedcacti 5y ago
    yeah but you go to the back of the line for another one at a different dealership who hopefully won't screw you.
  - dangrossman 5y ago
    You'd have only put down a refundable deposit with Ford, which the dealership can apply to your purchase, or you can get it refunded by Ford. You have no contractual relationship with the dealer, nor any ownership interest in the car, which is why the dealership that does now own the freshly delivered car is able to demand more money for it.
  - wlesieutre 5y ago
    Yes, the deposits are generally refundable. The dealer will take your car and sell it to someone else at $10k over MSRP. Someday when supply is less tight they won't have that leverage, but it's a seller's market right now. Some dealers won't do this, but you'll need to put in some work to find them.
  - greggman3 5y ago
    yes but then you're out time. So they lost nothing because they can sell the car but you lost time. This is sort point for me. I once custom ordered a BMW with the exact options I wanted. Made a downpayment. Waited 3 months for it to arrive taking the bus to work and getting rides home from friends. It arrived at the dealer and they sold it someone else and then told me I could order another if I wanted. You can probably imagine the rage I felt.
- snow_mac 5y ago
  sounds like enough of a reason just to buy a Tesla.
  - MBCook 5y ago
    Not all dealers are doing that.
  - dangrossman 5y ago
    Buying a Tesla comes with its own set of problems, like the inability to test drive the car before paying for it, and some of the worst initial quality in the industry -- which means you really should want to test drive it before buying it. Once it's yours, the complete absence of an independent dealer network means you're fully at Tesla's whim for repairing those defects. They will often say "it's within spec" and refuse. Plus, "just buy a Tesla" comes with a price premium that's more than any "market adjustment" at even the shadiest dealer for most other EVs. What buyers of EVs from traditional makes are doing is keeping tabs of what dealerships are applying those underhanded markups and simply not sending their online orders there.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - IgorPartola 5y ago
      This was my thought as well. Tesla doesn’t have a truck. When they have a truck equivalent to the Ford Lightning it’ll be 2x as much and lack fundamental features. That alone cuts Tesla out of a huge market segment. Their sedans are barely price competitive on the low end and quality seems worse than early Hyundais. They have cool features but also seem to not be ideal vehicles by any means.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    Unless Tesla has no appealing or useful options for you. If I need a little goofy sedan I might take a look at Tesla. I need trucks and real vehicles though. Right now Tesla is coasting on VC and IPO and being early entrant innovator. The bitch slap of truth that is automotive manufacturing and marketing is about to land it's hand. Ford understands that bitch slap better than anyone.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Ford came down hard on dealers who "market adjusted" preorders, and that practice should have been halted for a while now. I think it even made HN.
zippergz 5y ago
This was not my experience. I put a reservation down on a F150 Lightning, and a few hours later I got a phone call on my cell phone from a pushy sales person at the dealership, trying to convince me to choose something that's available now rather than waiting. I ended up canceling my reservation.

gameswithgo 5y ago

You still get the markup, Tesla just does it directly.

qwerpy 5y ago
That’s a good thing. Buyers are able to know the exact price without having to waste hours driving to a dealership and haggling.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  >> You still get the markup, Tesla just does it directly. > That’s a good thing. Buyers are able to know the exact price without having to waste hours driving to a dealership and haggling. Your comment doesn't address the point about markup at all. Knowing an "exact" with a higher markup doesn't seem live much of a good thing to me.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    At the very least, its better if the excess markup goes to the entity which can reinvest that into additional production to eventually saturate demand, rather than a middleman who adds no value but collects rent on regulatory capture (see: Texas laws banning non-dealerships like Tesla from selling cars unless they allow local rich families in the state to collect their rent)
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > At the very least, its better if the excess markup goes to the entity which can reinvest that into additional production to eventually saturate demand, rather than a middleman who adds no value but collects rent on regulatory capture (see: Texas laws banning non-dealerships like Tesla from selling cars unless they allow local rich families in the state to collect their rent) I'm not so sure. You're giving a rather tendentious account of the practice, and I'm pretty skeptical of handwaving "regulatory capture" as justification to get rid of regulation some corporation dislikes. As far as I understand, the dealership system was meant to engineer more competition into the auto market [1], and frankly I prefer something like that than giving more control to larger companies. [1] And that passes the smell test, at least. A dealership is buying in bulk and can probably be assumed to be more savvy in negotiating with the manufacturer than a private consumer. And putting those dealerships in competition with each other should put downward pressure on prices.

adfgadfgaery 5y ago

Tesla's no-dealership model has been an unmitigated disaster. I have never heard of any other company making people wait months for repairs, nor have I heard of any other company repeatedly making delivery estimates that are wrong by months, nor have I heard of any other company delivering cars over a year after they were paid for.

oh_sigh 5y ago
Alternatively, you don't have a listing on Tesla's site saying that a car costs $40k, and then when you call them up to buy it, they say they are adding a "$25k dealer premium", so you can have it for $65k. That's what actually happened to me when I was about to buy a rav4 prime a year ago. So instead I just went and bought a model Y for $50k, and am extremely happy with it. And also blacklisted Larry H Miller from ever getting my business again. But I guess I haven't had to deal with repairs, so maybe things will get worse.
agent86 5y ago
Is the model a disaster, or is Tesla's implementation of it a disaster? Or is Tesla's implementation of it given the confines they were working under a disaster? If you look at Rivian and Lucid, their performance in this space hasn't exactly been stellar either. You are absolutely correct that these things typically do not happen with the major car manufacturers, and that Tesla needs to get its act together. But it is worth considering the other car manufacturers have been doing it at scale for a much longer time often with better understood materials and technology. People often ask "What are the other carmakers going to do to compete?" and this is exactly one of those things that they'll bring to the table.
kaczordon 5y ago
Weird I got my Tesla within a month delivered to my place. Looks great and drives great no issues so far. Definitely prefer this to going into a dealership.
ajross 5y ago
Everyone is different, I guess. I loved the experience. Placed the order, got an email, set up the bank transfer, they called me exactly one time to confirm the delivery time, then dropped off the car. I spent less time[1] buying my Model Y than I have on some products from Amazon. The opinion and memery about this brand is just unbelievable. Cars are big and complicated devices and selling them is equally complicated, and I'm sure there are people who have bad experience buying them, as is basically inevitable. But the overwhelming majority of owners think it's great. [1] If you don't count the incessant, obsessive checking to see what the current delivery estimate is, of course.

dpweb 5y ago

This seems good for Ford not necessarily good for prices. A customer order is lower cost to the manufacturer and dealer as the vehicle doesn't need to be in inventory. Thus, you can sometimes get a lower price by ordering from the factory (dealer is passing along this savings) than buying from inventory. Not to mention this also eliminates price competition amongst dealers. Some dealers take a loss on sales to earn manufacturer incentives. Service however is where they make money, and as time progresses and cars are more software based and self-repair becomes impossible - total cost of ownership goes up.

Gareth321 5y ago
This is a good point. Service costs for Teslas are outrageous. Though, to be fair, Teslas appear to require far less servicing. Because of this, I've seen estimates that they actually end up costing around the same as gas cars, annualised. People are going to have to think very hard about the servicing costs when they purchase cars in future, because that cost is often extremely opaque. I don't have much faith that the average consumer will consider this at all. If so, it's very easy to imagine a future in which the upfront cost of EVs is below manufacturing cost, but the ongoing subscriptions and servicing are where manufacturers make their profit.