Ford Wants To Move To Online-Only Sales For EVs

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [B]uying a Ford electric vehicle might be a lot less painful in the future, if Ford CEO Jim Farley gets his way. On Wednesday, Farley said that he wants the company's EVs to be sold online-only, with no dealer markups or other price negotiations, according to the Detroit Free Press. 'We've got to go to non-negotiated price. We've got to go to 100 percent online. There's no inventory (at dealerships), it goes directly to the customer. And 100 percent remote pickup and delivery,' Farley said while speaking at a conference in New York.

One of Tesla's most popular innovations was to eschew traditional dealerships and sell its products directly to customers. But traditional manufacturers like Ford are usually prohibited from selling their products directly to customers, a legacy of fears over vertical integration written into state laws during the early 20th century. As such, Ford's franchised dealers will almost certainly still have a role to play. 'Then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence to outperform [competitors]. I think our dealers can do it. But the standards are going to be brutal. They're going to be very different than they are today,' he said.

The move away from dealerships carrying extensive inventories of cars should save Ford money; the company says that its current distribution model adds around $2,000 in extra costs per car compared to Tesla. A third of that cost is tied up in inventory, and another third is spent on advertising.

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