Dealerships need to go away.
Amazon should get into car sales and become a national dealer for every major brand with two day Prime delivery.
I bet they could pull it off with an acquisition or two of existing on-line used car sellers for the necessary infrastructure.
Well if use dealerships knowledge for your auto choice, that was your first mistake.
Some dealerships are truly horrible scum-of-the-earth enterprises. Some dealerships are ethical and transparent. Many are somewhere in the middle.
Lumping them all together under one label is probably not wise. There are tens of thousands of independent franchised dealerships in the US alone. They run the spectrum.
Bad dealerships deserve to be run out of business. Should we run the good ones out of business as well? Or reward them with our dollars to starve out the rest?
The role dealerships play in the retail distribution chain in the US isn’t going away. It needs to change, but the change simply is not going to be that automakers burn it to the ground and start over by taking on the risk and expense themselves.
Choose to do business with non-negotiating best-price-forward transparent dealerships. There are thousands of them in the US. Let the rest starve.
Should we run the good ones out of business as well?
Yes.
The role dealerships play in the retail distribution chain in the US isn’t going away
And what role would that be? There’s nothing qualitatively different today about the automotive (and farm equipment) market from others that demands a middleman.
It made sense back in the day before the internet. Not anymore.
Dealers don’t need to go away so much as states need to remove laws forcing automakers to use them.
Woah! A sensible article!
Unfortunately she failed to make a critical connection…a big reason EVs are piling up on DEALER lots (but NOT Tesla storage) is because DEALERS hate selling EVs and the EVs made by legacy automakers are not as good as Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, and other pure EV makers.
They won’t derail the EV switch. They are a toxic stain on the world, but they equally make it a nightmare to buy ICE cars too, so it doesn’t really effect anything in the end.
All they’ll do is ensure companies like Tesla have a permanent advantage.
Dealers will sell whatever the customer wants to buy. If customers want to buy EVs, they will sell EVs. They’re not here to determine the fate of the car market, they’re here to turn a profit on whatever people want to buy.
Better title might have been “How writers can make money selling worthless personal anecdotes”.
An anonymous “car salesman” is reported to have said something foolish about EV’s to someone the author talked to.
Doesn’t even rise to 3rd string recovered memory.
Car dealers sell whatever is on their lot at the highest price possible. EV or not doesn’t matter.
Part of why Tesla sells so well is the people in the showrooms actually know the cars.
“Free” Dc fast charging is already destroying the EV boom, why incentivize people to charge at a fast charger over charging at home? ???