3 ms·
Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an electric truck!" I think they
by rootusrootus 9mo ago
Judging from how many people seem surprised by my open frunk at the grocery store, saying things like "I had no idea Ford made an electric truck!" I think they could have done more to market it. I sometimes wonder if they really wanted to sell a lot of them.
- pas 9mo agothe dealerships did not want them, this already made it unlikely to succeed (towing range mania was the other thing)
- PNewling 9mo agoWhy did the dealerships not want them? (Honest question, I have no idea about any of this)
- testing22321 9mo agoDealerships only make money on “the back end”, which is servicing. Any vehicle that requires less servicing makes them less money, so they don’t want to sell them.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoThere is a hypothesis that dealers disincentivized salespeople from selling EVs due to a lower expected amount of service department revenue in the future. I work in the industry close enough to get a whiff of that and I never heard anything more than speculation.
- m463 9mo agoI remember when tesla was young and elon talked about selling electric cars through dealers. He said it would not work, they would not be advocates, they would prevent sales. And I think that is spot on. I also suspect internally the thinking is that the f150 lightning costs more to make than sell, which means it won't get strong advocacy. Thing is, I'm 100% certain years of tesla vehicles cost more to make than they sold for, just in the nature of developing new things.
- chung8123 9mo agoTesla made a lot of their money selling carbon credits so it is likely some of their cars didn't break even.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoI wonder who makes their decision by going to the dealer, though? Ford didn't even regularly stock Lightnings at the dealer, in fact, they basically sold them online and kept inventory at regional fulfillment centers. As soon as someone pulled the trigger, they'd ship the truck the last mile to the dealer of their choice. Maybe the dealers could have done better. In fact, they definitely could have. Most did have a demo Lightning, in my experience, but that doesn't mean salespeople were pushing customers towards them.
- namlem 9mo agoMaking it look too much like a regular F-150 was a mistake. You need the vehicle to look distinctive enough for it to market itself.
- shusaku 9mo agoI guess that’s kind of the defense of Musk on the cyber truck. If Ford can’t sell hem off their F150 platform, it means you need to make more of a splash. He just went too far…
- bombcar 9mo agoI've seen an argument that the Prius was intentionally made "ugly/noticeable" because they knew the buyers would be interested in the technology AND want to be recognizable as such. When hybrids are common, the styling reverted to more normal car-like.
- mrguyorama 9mo agoThe first gen Prius just looked like an average car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_(XW10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_(XW10)
- 725686 9mo agoI would argue against that! If anything, I hated the firs hybrids that where distinctly different, and ugly.
- bombcar 9mo agoThere's an argument that they did that intentionally - some hated it, but more bought it because they wanted to be recognized as having bought a hybrid - hence the "Toyota Pius" nickname.
- winrid 9mo agoTaking a 7k lb vehicle to the grocery store is beyond dumb. If you can afford that EV, get a small car for in the city.