EV-Only Dealerships

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garygid

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
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Location
Laguna Hills, Orange Co, CA
What would it take to open an EV-only Dealership?

Would you buy your LEAF from one, even if it was "further away"?

Sales and service ONLY for EVs, no ICEs supported, sold, or serviced.

I would take my business there, if I could get there.
 
garygid said:
What would it take to open an EV-only Dealership?

Money - lots of it ?

And it would be difficult to get franchises from various manufacturers and keep all the EVs. in 2011, that would be Tesla, Nissan, GM, Ford, Think, Code, Mitsu ...
 
evnow said:
garygid said:
What would it take to open an EV-only Dealership?

Money - lots of it ?

And it would be difficult to get franchises from various manufacturers and keep all the EVs. in 2011, that would be Tesla, Nissan, GM, Ford, Think, Code, Mitsu ...

Correct. They are really stingy about handing them out, compliance on looks, location, if they're shared with anybody else, proximity to freeways and other dealers...

It would be a total PITA to try and only get one model from an OEM. Generally speaking they make you take the red headed step children if you want the hot models. For instance, 4 years ago when we were fighting to get all of the V10 TDI Touaregs we could, we had to take 2 base model V6's for each V10. That got really annoying as we were flooded with V6's for quite some time.
 
BrendanDolan said:
For instance, 4 years ago when we were fighting to get all of the V10 TDI Touaregs we could, we had to take 2 base model V6's for each V10. That got really annoying as we were flooded with V6's for quite some time.

That would simply seem to be failure on the part of projections & production planning. Why make things people don't want - that is a waste of money for both manufacturer & dealers.
 
I agree, it's a total waste on everyone's end. Not only did some guys in Bratislava make a truck nobody wanted it, we had to sell them so far back of cost to make them attractive, that we about broke even on the sales of the hot model. Like most things in the car world though, there are plenty of mis-steps from the OEM, as there are always too many cooks in the kitchen.

If more companies like Tesla came out with only EV's, then a dealership like this might make sense, but then again, Telsa wouldn't want someone to sit in a model S and then see that the Leaf is that much cheaper, and lose the deal. OEM's are really picky about auto centers carrying competing cars for that reason...
 
I figure a business like this would be viable, but you've have to wait a few years so you could start buying up used EV's and refurbishing them for sale. I seriously doubt you'd ever be able to buy new vehicles from a manufacturer if they knew you were selling competing models on the same lot. Not sure why, really, after all you can go into a computer store and look at models from Sony, Dell, HP, and Apple all in the same store. But car dealers have historically not worked that way.
 
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