Going direct would seem inevitable for all automakers since they have to combat the new gorilla in the room, Tesla. Tesla is more efficient in making cars aka gigacasting, more reliable with less maintenance aka no oils, only electrical which leads to higher margins. Plus add on top of that, that they sell direct to consumers so cutting out the expensive middle man, it's inevitable that other automakers have to follow suit.
somewhere I read that teslas profit margin is literally the dealer margin that the dealers make. it will be legally hard for legacy manufacturers to cut out those dealers.
This is why Biden administration hates Tesla/Musk. They are too efficient. All the profits go to the company. The entire auto hierarchy aka dealerships and service centers will go under. That's a lot of jobs with blue collar voters.
I think all politicians are worried about this. This is why dealer laws exist in every state: red and blue. I bet Tesla starts company owned dealerships in 10 years. Just like warby Parker and Harry’s shave.
10 years? Woah that seems like a lifetime away. Things move so fast today. Tesla did open up auto showcase stores in malls for a while pre-pandemic. Not sure what more they could do with extending that model.
there’s a proposed Tesla dealer opening in my home town. I don’t know the details. It might be a third party just selling electric cars and charging services.
Test driving the car and getting a feel of the interior are important functions of a dealership but no one likes the hard upsell of slimey salesman. Tesla should pave the way and simply have online reservation in order to test drive cars at physical Tesla locations minus the salesmen pitch.
How about slimy Elon? Many are reassessing Tesla after yet another rant. Jobs was visionary too hard to work for but he didn't shut his mouth off every other second.
Lol, you gotta take the good with bad. Let's just hope he doesn't go off on a Ted Kaczynski or Bobby Fischer tangent. Seemingly very intelligent people as they get older, going off the deep bend.
If you’ve ever ordered a Tesla it’s a surprisingly dirty feeling process, even if the prices are fixed and the options are limited. I cancelled my last order because of this. in the future I bet Tesla becomes just like every other car brand, except all the dealers are company owned. Right now they can afford to not play pricing games because they are a unique product. That will change.