A year ago, I went with my car-enthusiast uncle to a Kia dealer looking to test drive an EV-6. The model had just come out and was getting rave reviews.
They had only two on the lot. We asked to test drive one. The sales guy said management wasn't letting them do test drives and put miles on the car. Hmm, OK. How about we just sit in one?
Nope. Doors are locked. But here's a different model that has a similar 'look and feel,' they said.
What about the price? $10K dealer markup was non-negotiable, they said.
We totally walked away. My uncle said it's the craziest car purchasing interaction he had ever had.
Dealerships are purposely not selling EVs. They make most of their money on service. EVs have so many fewer parts there are less points of failure.
The manufacturers are mad enough about this some have been buying out and closing dealerships. GM has been doing it a lot with Cadillac and Buick in particular so far.
The dealers tried really hard not to sell the soul ev back when it came out. I would have bought one when I had money if they weren't so adamant that I would actually want the gas one which made me just walk out.
They can’t. There’s a long history of entrenched law protecting dealers from unfair competition by manufacturers. Once you have dealers, there’s no way back
Tesla worked around it by
not having dealers
making deals with native reservations not subject to state laws
clearly distinguishing “service centers” and “showrooms” from places where cars could actually be bought and sold
Ford is trying by splitting out the EV half of the company, but I don’t think you get to wave your magic wand and say “this half the company is now something new that doesn’t have dealers”
I'm planning on getting an EV at the end of the year. I hate Musk as much as the next person with common sense, but I'm probably going to get a Tesla because the dealer markups and "We don't have what we told you to build on our site, but here's something that's the same model at least" are just obnoxious.
While that might be convenient for some, that is still selling vehicles through a 3rd party.
I don't understand why Hyundai even has a "build your own car" feature on their website as you can't actually order that way directly from them nor can you just waltz down to the dealership and have them order it for you as they're only allocated whatever Hyundai decides to build and send them (at least with the new EVs).