I'm sure they will all return to the way they did things prior to covid. All it will take is GM or Ford to start stacking new vehicles on car lots, and all of them will have to follow along.
The preorder model only works with artificial scarcity. When the product is plentiful, people want it today. Nobody waits for their Tesla just because they can do it all online. They'll put up with the dealer hassle if it means getting the car today.
Now, if you can get the online order model to work with really short lead times, this might gain more traction than usual. E.g. bring me a car to test drive, and very soon -- today ideally. Then I order the car, and you deliver it to my house on a trailer within a week.
But months? No way, this is how you tell customers to go somewhere else.
> Ford leadership seems to really want to move to the Tesla preorder model
It may not be so much that they want to, but it is apparent that Ford is struggling to figure out how the dealership fits in an EV world, where your customers aren't constantly funnelling in for oil changes. The ICE model allows the dealership to make a sizeable portion of their income from the attached repair shop, but much of that shop work goes away with EVs. This will bring higher commission expectations and Ford could quickly find their cars priced out of the market from that when competitors aren't establishing dealer networks.
Oil changes are a good source of income, but there is a lot of other service. Oil changes are nice to get people into the dealer, but many people go elsewhere for them. My last new car was recalled a few times, for things unrelated to the engine. An EV still has a suspension system, tires, steering, brakes, and thousands of other components that can have recalls, break, or otherwise need work.
There is a bit less maintenance without an ICE, but not much.
This may vary by country. A large proportion, maybe even all, of the Ford dealers in the UK are owned by Ford itself. The only Ford dealers that I have had contact with in France are still separate companies.
Tesla only sells luxury cars, even the Model 3 is considered luxury ($48k). Supposedly Tesla was going to sell in the luxury segment then ramp up production for other market segments.
When exactly is Tesla going to offer an economy car? With their margins they could make the Model 3 priced like that to win market share before other automobile companies catch up. I don't follow them or their product releases but haven't seen anything in the press about that direction of the company.
>With their margins they could make the Model 3 priced like that to win market share before other automobile companies catch up.
You've answered your own question: their high gross margins have more to do with accounting differences with OEMS than actual finances. Making cars is expensive.
Car dealerships and the experience of being in one is truly like stepping into a different world/time. The only other industry that’s close is real estate. These types of businesses function as if the internet doesn’t exist. As if I can’t pull up the factory MSRP on my phone for a car, or find a house I want better than my realtor can on Redfin.
I think the sooner all car makers move DTC the better.
