A decent service and warranty experience is the point a lot of people make, and this has obviously become less important with EVs which require less ongoing mai

A decent service and warranty experience is the point a lot of people make, and this has obviously become less important with EVs which require less ongoing maintenance. Beyond that dealers provide distributed and localized inventory management. Modern car plants basically have to run at full capacity year round, but sales are much more seasonal and unpredictable given effects of gas prices and other economic factors, many of which can be regional. The dealers find underused land all over the country and have huge lots that allow for cars to be delivered on a consistent year round basis which provides efficiencies in the logistics operations since the trucking, shipping, and rail contracts can have permanent workforces and long term predictable contracts. When inventories pile up for specific models the manufacturer can provide incentives and dealers can innovate and adapt to take advantage of these using local knowledge of the conditions in their community in a way that manufacturers would have a harder time doing. Dealers can finance their floorplan using independent and local sources of capital for inventory and buildings which allows the manufacturers to extend operations without taking on additional debt, or putting their own finances at risk. Some of these factors played more of a role in the past, when new car companies were building out their dealership networks and benefitted more from offloading risks to dealer partners. Tesla was able to innovate with their small showrooms in malls largely because they went for a long time with only a small handful of models, and because the buzz around the brand and vision meant that there has always been a waiting line (still the case), so they’ve never tried to compete for the “car broke down, need something new this week” market, which has had no choice but to head to well-inventoried lot.