<story><title>Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price</title><url>https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/06/01/ev-online-sales-ford-uber-lyft/7474822001/?gnt-cfr=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>medler</author><text>This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it IMO. He wasn’t saying dealerships are going away; he was actually saying the opposite. The point he was making was that Ford is going to adopt some of Tesla’s practices while using the dealership network to compete with them.&lt;p&gt;Here’s the quote with more context:
“I believe for retail, we have to -- it&amp;#x27;s kind of like what happened between Amazon and Target. Target could have gone away, but they didn&amp;#x27;t. They bolted on an e-commerce platform and then they used their physical store to add groceries and return -- make returns really much easier than Amazon. They used their expertise as a physical retailer to their advantage, but they modernized the e-commerce piece. So it would be really easy to do business with them. It&amp;#x27;s exactly what we have to do on the retail side. We got to go to non-negotiated price. We&amp;#x27;ve got to go to a 100% online, the vehicle there is no inventory goes directly to the customer, 100% remote pickup and delivery, but then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence, they outperform them. Like, I believe some Mach-E and Lightning customers would love to have a Mustang for the weekend. Maybe they want a Super Duty. I can do that, they can&amp;#x27;t do that, unless they ran a Ford.”&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-f-ceo-james-farley-presents-bernstein-38th-annual-strategic-decisions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spikels</author><text>Ford reorganized back in March so that their EV business (Model e) is separate from the legacy ICE business (Ford Blue). There was speculation at the time that this was in part free itself of the dealership sales model. The dealers would keep the dying ICE business while the fast growing EV business would start with clean slate. Farley was quoted describing the EV sales model as:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s going to be much more efficient, a lot more online. It&amp;#x27;s going to be a really different model.&amp;quot;[1]&lt;p&gt;Obviously this will be very controversial and subject to interference by state legislators who have often protected dealerships. Will be interesting to see this transition.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;insideevs.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;571959&amp;#x2F;ford-dealerships-impacted-ev-ice-split&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;insideevs.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;571959&amp;#x2F;ford-dealerships-impacted-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price</title><url>https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/06/01/ev-online-sales-ford-uber-lyft/7474822001/?gnt-cfr=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>medler</author><text>This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it IMO. He wasn’t saying dealerships are going away; he was actually saying the opposite. The point he was making was that Ford is going to adopt some of Tesla’s practices while using the dealership network to compete with them.&lt;p&gt;Here’s the quote with more context:
“I believe for retail, we have to -- it&amp;#x27;s kind of like what happened between Amazon and Target. Target could have gone away, but they didn&amp;#x27;t. They bolted on an e-commerce platform and then they used their physical store to add groceries and return -- make returns really much easier than Amazon. They used their expertise as a physical retailer to their advantage, but they modernized the e-commerce piece. So it would be really easy to do business with them. It&amp;#x27;s exactly what we have to do on the retail side. We got to go to non-negotiated price. We&amp;#x27;ve got to go to a 100% online, the vehicle there is no inventory goes directly to the customer, 100% remote pickup and delivery, but then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence, they outperform them. Like, I believe some Mach-E and Lightning customers would love to have a Mustang for the weekend. Maybe they want a Super Duty. I can do that, they can&amp;#x27;t do that, unless they ran a Ford.”&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-f-ceo-james-farley-presents-bernstein-38th-annual-strategic-decisions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;seekingalpha.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>user3939382</author><text>&amp;gt; This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it&lt;p&gt;Ford announced 3 months ago that they were forming a new corporation, Ford Blue, whose purpose is to skirt state dealership laws in order to lawfully sell these EVs direct to consumers. So this is definitely not just a comment.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.freep.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;cars&amp;#x2F;ford&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;ford-ceo-jim-farley-unveils-plan-ev-model-e&amp;#x2F;6981544001&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.freep.com&amp;#x2F;story&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;cars&amp;#x2F;ford&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;ford-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>