Things are getting spicy this week as most automakers will report first-quarter financial results. The automotive world is in chaos and chaos is a ladder, but it’s a ladder attached to a diving board that stands atop a pool full of money. Everyone is trying to climb that ladder.
Let’s start with Honda and Volkswagen. Honda is teaming up with Sony to start selling cars, and I guess they aren’t thinking about using dealers because dealers are preemptively mad. The same goes for Volkswagen and Scout/Cupra.
Tesla had a rough quarter in terms of its sales and is hoping that price cuts to its assisted driving systems can perk up rates, but is it going to be enough? Investors will have tough questions for Musk this week, including queries about the price war in China, which is heating up.
And, finally, it wouldn’t be a Morning Dump without talking about Vehicle-2-Grid technology (V2G) and who deserves the money. The answer is, of course, you deserve the money, but you’re probably going to have to share it.
Dealers Publicly Tell Honda And VW To Get In Line Or Else
One of the advantages Tesla had in rolling out its cars is that it eschewed dealers. [Ed Note: Advantages in some ways, yes. But Tesla also historically has had significant issues with service. -DT]. This was a big deal and Tesla faced numerous lawsuits and other threats at the time but, by standing firm (and being the only EV game in town), Tesla managed to sell directly to customers.
Lucid and Rivian followed suit, somewhat successfully, as did VinFast and Fisker, with less success (both are going back to a dealership model/hybrid, assuming Fisker survives long enough to try).
What all those companies had in common was that none of them had an existing dealership network to deal with, which removed at least one vector of attack.
The same cannot be said for Honda and Volkswagen, two companies that rely on an extensive dealer network for all of their sales in the United States. Dealership groups and dealers themselves are extremely powerful from a political perspective as they exist in every single congressional district and give large amounts of money (in fact, car dealers collectively spend more on politics than automakers!)
I mention this because Honda has teamed up with Sony to create a new brand called Afeela, which will sell a sedan in 2026. Volkswagen, for its part, will sell vehicles from both the Scout truck brand and the Cupra EV brand in the United States.
Will they sell them through dealerships? It’s not entirely clear.
Geoffrey Pohanka, chairman of Pohanka Automotive Group in Capitol Heights, Md., and 2023 chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association told Automotive News early this year that if Afeela and Scout circumvent franchised dealers, they would be challenged by state and metro trade associations with NADA support.
“Silence speaks,” said Pohanka, whose group includes multiple Honda and VW stores. “The fact they haven’t announced that they will go through dealers indicates they may not.”
Dealers aren’t messing around here, and to prove this the Automotive Trade Association Executives group took out this ad in Automotive News:
You can click on the ad to see it closer up, but it’s giving some real O-Ren Ishii The price you pay for trying a DTC model for either Afeela or Scout is, I collect your fucking head.
Specifically:
To avoid potential legal challenges across the nation and ensure full compliance with applicable laws and regulations, the surest path to sales success is through franchised deal
Bolding not mine. What this lacks in graphic design it more than makes up for in vibes.
I’m not sure many automotive execs would ever admit it, but in their private thoughts, I assume most of them, if they could, would go back in time and get rid of the dealer model and instead sell and service cars directly. [Ed Note: I’m not sure about this. Pre-internet especially, dealerships were critical to any company’s success. And even now, being able to test-drive and also service your car near your home has value, not to mention the jobs that dealerships create in communities across the country. That said, I get that the reputation of dealerships these days isn’t so hot due to markups and the often-frustrating negotiation process and sometimes frustrating service issues and on and on. -DT].
Using new brands to try and attempt this makes sense. At the same time, it makes sense for dealers to try and stop this.
How Many Tough Questions Will Elon Musk Answer?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk will face investors on Tuesday as the company announces its Q1 financial results. We’ve already seen the company’s sales numbers and they’re not great.
Additionally, heavy discounting on the existing inventory of the Tesla Model Y likely cut into margins. How long will Tesla have to keep that up?
I have my theories about why Elon Musk might try to kill the $25,000 car, and it’ll be interesting for Musk to try and explain it (or, honestly, he could just switch directions and announce it’s happening).
You can see the most popular questions here, and they include a lot of what you’d expect (cell status, how are the robots doing) and a lot of questions about the cheap car, including:
- The recent reports that the low-cost Tesla (“Model 2”) is being put on hold in favor of the robotaxi initiative seems to be a huge/risky gamble. Could you please share thoughts on why you feel this is the right approach, to settle concerns of investors such as myself?
- What is the progress on the cheaper next-generation vehicle?
- When will Model 2 be available?
- How is babby formed?
And then there are tougher questions like:
Elon, can you please let investors know how you prioritize TESLA vs. X/Twitter vs. US immigration policy? A few years ago it seemed clear to me the ranking, but today it’s not clear to me as an investor & outsider
I want an answer to that one, too.
Can Anyone Actually Win The Chinese EV Price War?
While the Chinese EV price war is an obvious win for Chinese consumers, it is otherwise a potentially perilous exercise for both Chinese automakers and the Chinese economy.
I bring this up because Chinese automaker Li Auto doesn’t get talked about here in the same way BYD does, but the company makes China’s most popular plug-in hybrids. It’s also under pressure like everyone else and so it’s also cutting its prices by 5% on already desirable models.
Where does this end?
It’s unclear, but China’s official National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) just announced that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Via Reuters:
China’s state planner expects an intensified price war among automakers of electric cars and plug-in hybrids this year because of overhanging supply, among other issues, the government body said in a statement on Monday.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) expected more than 110 new energy vehicle models among a total of 150 new cars launched this year, intensifying competition.
China is such a fascinating market and I think the NDRC’s analysis is probably correct. Demand is slowing, there’s rampant overproduction, and now 110 new models are coming! Can China’s economy maintain this forever or are they in for a Gabon Surprise or maybe a Mongolian Thrust?
Who Deserves V2G Money?
David got his power company to pay for half of his car, because his car is a piece-of-crap Leaf (that I love, actually). He listed a number of reasons why it makes sense for power companies to do this, and a big one is that a battery full of energy that’s charged off-peak can be used to provide energy back to the grid when necessary.
Charging can also be used to balance a grid if, say, A/C use goes up then chargers can be slowed down. It all makes a ton of sense. So much so that GM has a subbrand, GM Energy, that’s going to sell bi-directional chargers that can send energy back to a home or back to the grid.
“We believe our EVs will afford customers ways to use that excess energy from their EV to power their home,” said Aseem Kapur, chief revenue officer for GM Energy. “In certain cases, such as Texas where the grid incentivizes that, they can take advantage of that and save money.”
That could be a win for consumers and for automakers, as the kits cost up to $7,300 if you want the charger ($1600 standalone) and the vehicle-to-home kit ($5,600 standalone).
But, as hinted at in this Reuters article, what if automakers want a piece of the energy trade?
Automakers’ energy units will mostly lack the scale to aggregate enough EVs locally to sell power to utilities, so emerging platforms, including Kaluza or The Mobility House, aim to act as intermediaries, aggregating EVs across multiple brands.
Those intermediaries will also need to ensure EVs do not overburden grids if everyone charges when prices are low and discharges when they are high, Timo Kern, director of energy systems and markets at Munich-based energy research institute FfE, said.
As with all things these days, rather than a direct 1:1 between an energy company and a consumer, look for intermediaries that want to act as middlemen to charge everyone a little extra with the promise of doing a little better.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
The Boygenius album came out last year and the merger of three great solo artists into one super group ain’t bad. Also, this video has monster trucks.
The Big Question
Do you think Honda/Sony and VW will be able to withstand a dealer onslaught?
Screenshot: Miramax
Props to DT for sprinkling some fair and balanced viewpoints into the author’s rant. Maybe shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds there, Matt.
Re the big question, When VW launched Cupra in Australia they did it with one specific dealer group that is present nationwide, maybe Honda/VW will try something like that to more tightly control the dealership experience
Little known fact: the North American Dealers’ Association’s acronym stands for what the association brings to the car buying experience.
COTD
> The automotive world is in chaos and chaos is a ladder, but it’s a ladder attached to a diving board that stands atop a pool full of money. Everyone is trying to climb that ladder.
Why, though. They should just jump off the diving board and grab the money from the pool.
Well either David is being fair and balanced or maybe much of the Autopian ownership is also a big car dealer.
Why not both? It’s not like David is lying.
I agree, there are good dealers and bad dealers. It just sounds like he’s being an apologist for a tainted industry because of his association. Sometimes the messenger matters as much as the message.
Honda and VW should just reply to dealers by saying “okay then stop doing “market adjustments” you degenerate fuckos.”
A dealer network that isn’t actively fucking both the manufacturers AND customers all the time wouldn’t be facing these issues.
They could also tell them : ok, but you have to use the European model of dealership.
No massive parking lot, no market adjustment price, and people gets to order the exact car they want with set prices for any options. ( and wait for said car to be built and reach the dealership )
That might work for their new brands and niche models, but overall that would be more disadvantageous for the way the manufacturer’s American operations are set up – it helps them out more to send a bunch of cars to those massive parking lots for the dealer to then move out. When inventory was short over the last few years dealers seemed fairly content to sell from order banks and take deposits.
This has always baffled me. Do people really go to a dealer expecting to walk out with their purchase on the spot? Maybe that’s why there are so many dumb emotional decisions made.
Manufacturers are in a much better position to finance inventories than smaller businesses, even with floor planning loans. Dealers should just have some key/sample demo models and save the real estate cost. Keep the inventory somewhere central so the demand spread is better served.
People seem to confuse the need for local brand service and information centers with an independent owned franchise dealer.
Dealers buy a franchise and then operate with independent motivation from the brand. They don’t want to sell more of the brand’s cars, or to do what’s good for the long term health of the brand. They are motivated to make money, and in what is their long term interest. Maybe selling less cars, but with a $20k markup is better for them? Sure it may sabotage the brand’s sales, and it’s image, but as we’ve seen, that’s not their immediate concern. Why should they market and sell EVs or hybrids when they make money on oil changes and marked up service?
Every positive that anyone has listed could be provided by a Brand-owned sales/service center.
I’ll say that there is one thing brand-owned couldn’t do, and that’s sell a variety of brands. Sadly, most dealership chains I know make sure to spread their brands around, making it harder to comparison shop, so this isn’t even a very real benefit.
The other potential benefit is competition between dealerships, which you do see a little, but not that much.
So, yeah, I agree with you.
Usually I align with just about everything that the wise and wonderful David Tracy has to say, but as a veteran the automotive marketing and sales training space I’m going to have to firmly disagree about his stance regarding dealerships… Regarding -new car sales- specifically.
Yes, dealerships have their space for service. How else are you going to access a manufacturer certified technician or get something covered under warranty.
But due to the impossibly combustible combination of turnover, low standards for training and immensely wide product portfolio / constantly changing trims / equipment / model year over model year changes, the industry has been asking car sales professionals to rise to an occasion they cannot and will not rise to.
With the rise of the informed consumer, resources online and even the layman’s understanding of modern automotive tech, I can’t tell you the number of times I have asked a salesperson a question and they have just flat out lied about a car or disparage another manufacturer to try and net a sale instead of being an expert about the vehicle that they’re trying to sell me or a friend / family member.
The problem is the industry is teaching these professionals how to sell based off of tactics used 50 years ago on cars with far different profit margins for everyone involved even at a lower price point. It’s time to retire the dealership sales model because today, it is literally ruining customers impressions, trust, belief and faith in brands all because we’ve been asking a salesperson to do a product specialists job.
And that’s all without even touching on the idea of pricing… Don’t even get me started.
Great tarnishing of an entire industry. The best salespeople are scrupulously honest, and you will usually find that they stay at the same dealership for a long time as most of their business will be repeat customers. The Mongol horde version (constantly moving from dealer to dealer looting and pillaging as they go) you refer to should easily be identified by a discerning buyer and avoided.
I have found most auto salespeople to be significantly more honest than any real estate person I have run into. But that does not abslove me from due diligence when purchasing something.
If the Scout is going to get sold through dealers, It should be International Truck dealers- They have a better reputation and there better located for a vehicle with supposed rural road ability.
Let them sue. It’s a new brand. Their argument is that since they represent one brand from a company they are entitled to sell any hypothetical brand from a company. Which is pure uncut hyperbole. It would be like Best Buy and Walmart suing Apple to prevent Apple selling DTC. Nope, don’t have time for that noise.
Right, if the new, manufacturer-owned outlets aren’t directly infringing on an established franchise agreement, there shouldn’t be any issue. Someone has the exclusive rights to sell Hondas within a certain territory? Fine, they still have it, but Afeelas aren’t Hondas, they’re not even wholly owned by Honda Motor Co, not like there’s any existing Afeela franchises to step on.
Honestly, yeah: I want to see Elon’s answer to this. The man seems to have a weird breeding kink, and I don’t know if he knows how it works. I am a messy ‘lump who lives for drama. Give us this answer. Show us exactly how little you understand the body parts you don’t have. Go on. Elaborate. Stammer and hum-haw. Serve the human equivalent of a Mac stuck on a spinning pinwheel. The facial version of the Blue Screen of Death. I crave the world’s most awkward investor presentation. I yearn for this level of pure mess. Do it. I dare you. Answer the question. No Googling, no looking it up, no quoting Yahoo! Answers, no stupid props — just put on the spot. In the hot seat. Give us this one stupid distraction, please.
Currently actively shopping for a new vehicle and it has been a miserable experience. I do not have the time or patience to spend haggling on a vehicle advertised as a no haggle price. I don’t want to fight over fees and services buried in the cost. Don’t tell me an out the door price is one price online but when I show up in person the paperwork is completely different. Yes, I do walk out and no I’m not returning phone calls or emails to work out the “issue”
“But, Mr./Ms. Fucknugget, your name implied…”
Did you think that before, DT was distilling his own gasoline out of garbage? In our society, you’re going to get screwed by big corporate entities no matter what you do. Cali’s problem at the moment is that they’re generating too much solar electricity, they don’t have any place to stash it.
Are dealers good or are they bad? Do they add value to the car ownership experience?
I would say, some dealers are good and some are bad. Just like some add value and others are a net loss. Neither the manufacturers nor the dealers are charities. The manufacturers suggest a price to the public that is higher than what they charge the dealers – MSRP. If product doesn’t move, the dealer may offer concessions, or the manufacturer may offer incentives. If demand exceeds supply, the dealers ask for more profit – ADM. As we see with direct to market examples, the price is still subject to market conditions and fluctuates the same way, just without the dealer. This isn’t good or bad, it’s ECON 101.
A dealer that adds value to the process is one that educates you about the car, assesses your wants and needs and works with you to provide the vehicle you want. The Mercedes dealer I went to was like this. We established the budget, features and etc., and they showed me options that fit. When I started to look at an expensive model, the salesperson simply said that it fell outside the budget I had indicated I wanted to work with. He didn’t try to upsell me or promise that we could get the payment down with a longer loan. When I settled on a vehicle, we negotiated price and went to financing, where the finance guy said he had to offer me the extended warranties, etc., but he was fine if I said “no”. The whole process took a couple of hours from the time I arrived at the dealership.
The opposite was when I was helping my mother buy a car. The dealer website advertised a new car at $21,500. We got there and they wanted $25k. I showed them their ad and they dropped about $1000 off the price (so $24K). I said no berated them for deceptive advertising and wasting our time and we walked.
I’ve been amazed at how much it takes for some people to walk away. The first thing I tell any friend shopping for a car is that they need to be prepared to walk if the deal isn’t there. Make sure they need the sale more than you need that car.
It’s just too bad the dealerships can get away with deceptive practices and high pressure sales. If everyone just walked away from those ones, they’d adapt or go out of business, but it clearly works. Those places never seem to hurt too badly.
If the first interaction with the dealership is a lie, don’t walk away, run!
dealers don’t know dick about their cars half the time, they aren’t educating anyone, its way worse since covid too.
Make them service centers only and they will still rake in money. Some service places are sleezy, but the ones around me have good guys managing the places that keep them in line.
The problem is that salespeople who are no longer selling cars will still be around for us to interact with.
Well, the problem with “make them service centers” is they also suck balls at providing said “service”.
With a single exception, every time I’ve brought a car to a dealership for some warranty issue I got it back either not fixed or more broken than it went in. There was also that time where I diagnosed the problem for them, then first they told me there is no problem, then that it was caused by something unrelated not covered by warranty, then after I complained to the OEM I was told to take it to a different dealer.
And this is what happens to a gearhead who can wrench, I have much worse stories from non-car people who got screwed by dealer service departments.
Yeah screw dealerships.
Historically, maybe? — but they have the lowest maintenance and repair costs of any brand, fwiw, according to Consumer Reports.
Um – that appears to be contrary to just about every other story in the media these days. Herts getting rid of Tesla (most EV) cars because of extremely high maintenance and repair costs (I read that mostly as repair); insurers not wanting to insure EV’s or charging very high premiums because common repairs following low speed accidents are orders of magnitude greater than the other vehicles.
I thinks it’s a “doesn’t need to be repaired as much, but when they do, hoo-boy!” situation.
My Model3 has needed two repairs in 3.5 years. And I just book it on the app and a guy comes around to fix my car in my driveway. I suppose if it was a bigger repair, I’d be at the service center, and probably waiting 6 months for parts.
It’s in CR’s new report — just in today’s news, I think. (My own feelings: I’ve been driving a Model 3 for six years and haven’t felt like maintenance and repair costs have been terrible at all. I’m in SoCal, though, so can’t comment on how things might be elsewhere.)
Yep – for Hertz, it was also low resale values due to oversupply and Tesla lowering prices
Honestly, I think a good chunk of Hertz’s problem was also just bad timing. In the pandemic they dumped a ton of inventory at low prices and had to replace it aggressively. They bought at the peak and sold after prices collapsed, and Tesla’s fluctuated even more than everyone else’s. They got absolutely crushed on depreciation and picking Tesla made it worse.
On the repair side, I suspect it’s mostly body repairs rather than mechanical. Which probably only happen via Tesla-approved shops, with high costs and long wait times for body parts.
Then they can suck it. Unless it’s a lease, you bought the car and so it’s now yours, not theirs anymore.
Yeah, I’m not installing any vehicle-to-grid hardware. 240V plug with a charging cable will get you pretty close to the same charging speed as the dedicated level 2 chargers and won’t pull power back to the grid. Plus it’s cheaper and more versatile.
Don’t want to even give them the opportunity to screw with me on this.
If my utility wants to offer me discounts and rebates for borrowing my battery capacity now and again, I don’t personally have a problem with that.
I don’t see how/why the manufacturers would need to get involved though – that feels pretty weird to me.
That’s fair and reasonable. I just hope that it remains between the owner and utility company.
Sounds good in theory but I’d have to look at what they’re offering. The occasional use in emergency situations in exchange for a modest discount is fine.
Making a habit of giving my battery extra cycles just because they can is a non-starter.
Overall I think I’d rather an independent setup with a wall battery (can be a recycled car battery as many of them are) and leave the car alone.
Yeah – the details matter but if it’s just cycling between 50 and 80 percent state of charge or something like that then I’m not sure that the degradation would be something I’d notice over any realistic timeline.
If the offer is “nothing” then yeah, no thanks but if it’s a significant rebate then sure, I probably won’t keep the car long enough to notice the impact.
Doesn’t he have like 11 kids?
That was a question from Tesla investors, and conventional wisdom suggests many of them may never have engaged in the formation of a babby. 😉
DT has either been in Cali too long or not long enough:
In the scenario presented in this article, the big OEMs absolutely DO NOT CARE about community jobs, other than having a population which makes enough money to buy the crap they’re selling. As others have said, the dealership model probably won’t be totally replaced, but I could see the balance of power being different.
NADA: eliminating dealers is anticompetitive and will result in higher prices for the consumer
Everyone: points to ADM / “market adjustments”
NADA: local politician’s bank accounts go BRRRRR
This discussion about dealerships versus direct sales reminds me so much of Cable TV versus cord cutters and streaming services, and I’m going to say right now the outcome is probably going to be very similar to where cable v streamers is most likely to end up, which is still not in the consumers’ best interest. It may be less expensive in the short term, but the manufacturers aren’t going to leave money on the table. It will suck, just in different ways.
Dealerships suck even when you know a lot about cars. The last car I bought at a dealer took over 4 hours to do and I picked the car before I got there and drove it and then just wanted to buy it. The car before that I had financing done, had the car picked out, used a friends and family code from corporate and it took 8 hours still to deal with them. I bought a Tesla. I ordered it online and chose any changes and paid a deposit. I setup financing online. They scheduled a pickup, I went in and got my car, inspected it, signed and left and it took less than a half an hour.
Maybe Tesla is not the best example for cars that people want anymore, and we can criticize them for a lot but buying one is a lot better experience. They did not try to charge me $400 for nitrogen in the tires which is a price I have actually seen for that. They did not charge me for a preinstalled PPF or anything else. Buying a car should not take me all day to negotiate away the garbage add ons. You say anyone with half a brain can do it, but I don’t want to spend all day buying a car.
No matter what the consumer is going to get screwed.
It was more than $30k but why should it take all day when I know what I want, have the car selected by the VIN that they have on the lot?
You just want to be argumentative. I am an informed buyer; I don’t need to have my time wasted.
Sounds like he did too?…
My house cost considerably more than any car I have ever owned, yet the one car I bought at a dealer took about 4 hours to purchase as well. The house took about 45 minutes to close on. I realize that the two transactions aren’t the same, but my point is that the size of the transaction shouldn’t correlate to the amount of time it takes to complete.
But all of that portion is taken care of here. Jared said he knew what he wanted, so he wasn’t going to test drive a bunch of cars, just to buy. So the apples-to-apples comparison is closing on a house, not the house shopping experience.
Totally. Just like the effort I put into finding a car I want to purchase. Since, I have already put in all of that time to find the car (or house) I want, why does the dealer need to make it take 4 hours to complete the sale? My assumption is that it is just to wear you down so that you will agree to the extended warranty or other added costs. Even if you know you aren’t going to let them sell you on that stuff, you can’t speed up the process.
LOL. Same here. Last house I bought was done 99.9% remote/online. I showed up for closing at the office and signed the papers before I ever stepped foot in the home. Same with my last new car. I stopped in the dealership, signed the papers and told them to drop it off at the house when they were done. My time is worth something, so I really don’t tolerate dealers dragging things out.
I’m reliably informed that you just didn’t approach the situation with enough “confidence” and that you should “grow a pair”.
I have had the exact opposite dealership experiences. Last 3 cars, 2 used, one new, did everything except signatures online/by telephone. Showed up, signed, and left. The one I did have to wait almost 30 minutes for the finance guy, drank 3 complimentary caramel macchiatos. And took 2 bottles of water with me.
That sounds fantastic.
That’s exactly what I’d like to see dealerships do–just give you all the info and let you set up the deal without all the hassle. That’s the dream.
Was it really 30 minutes or did the 3 coffees just alter your perception of time? lol – my last purchase was much the same though. The dealer that got the sale was 2 hours away and managed to be lower in price on the exact spec I wanted. Sure I got the routine “what time can you be here” in the online negotiations but he always answered my questions too. It took me longer to drive there one way than the time I spent at the dealer. And I knew of a similar spec model at another dealer in the area as a backup in case they did pull some funny business while I was there.
Last car took me 1.5 hours and most of that was the test drive. They did go through the list of dealer junk they need to ask, but I told him from the offset that I’m a loner, a rebel, and I don’t need extra insurances, but he said he needed to ask, so he read them off with no inflection. It was funny in that Gen-X way. They also didn’t drill for the front plate or add dealer tags even though I forgot to tell them not to. Also, no markup on an in-demand car in ’22!
Would they go back in time and get rid of the franchise system? For VW and Honda, I think not. Post WW2, neither brand had the financial strength or experience to establish itself in the U.S. without a dealer network of local businesses. The franchise system and direct-to-consumer model both have their pros and cons; either way car ownership expenses are out of control.
Here’s Why Dealers Are Sending Threats To Honda And Volkswagen”
Greed, that’s why.
“Franchised dealers are aligned with consumer interests”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha what complete and utter fucking bullshit.
If dealers really were “aligned with consumer interests” there would not be “market adjustments” of tens of thousands of dollars, like this story from just a few days ago :
https://www.theautopian.com/dealers-are-already-charging-21000-over-sticker-for-a-2024-toyota-land-cruiser/
Or this one :
https://www.theautopian.com/this-dealers-20000-markup-on-a-2023-toyota-gr-corolla-equals-an-entire-base-corolla/
Or this one :
https://www.theautopian.com/dealers-who-marked-up-honda-motocompacto-prices-as-high-as-50-tell-us-its-all-a-mistake/
There is nobody aligned with consumer interests anymore, but Auto Dealerships are some of the worst.
What society wants:
What society gets:
Neither manufacturers nor dealers are aligned with consumer interests. Their modus operandi is maximum extraction from the buyer. Modern cars are designed with this philosophy in mind, and planned obsolescence has been the paradigm for over a century now, pioneered by GM. Try going to a dealership ready to buy a car outright with cash, and they will treat you as if you’re some kind of criminal or terrorist. Both manufacturer and dealership want everyone paying interest, which is one of the reasons we don’t have cars that are both cheap and good anymore. The Chinese offerings need to be let in to restore some balance, especially regarding EVs.