Ford is demanding its dealers get serious about EVs

[Brad]

Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley said that 1,920 of America's roughly 3,000 Ford retailers have agreed to sign up for the company's EV certification program, which involves investing heavily in public fast chargers, employee training, and no-haggle sales programs.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/6/23496960/ford-ev-dealer-investment-certification-charging

[rcjordan]

Recalling that auto dealers are well represented in many/most state legislatures....

Ford's EV Requirements for Dealers Are Totally Unacceptable, Say Connecticut Legislators | The Truth About Cars

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cars/news-blog/fords-ev-requirements-for-dealers-are-totally-unacceptable-say-connecticut-44497834

[ergophobe]

Just went to the Ford dealer yesterday to look at what they had for EVs.

Basically, the only one you could buy today was a full-loaded F150 Lightning for $112,000. They had a Mach-E for $78,000, but it was already sold. The salesman said that when one comes in that is not already claimed, it goes within 2 hours.

So though Ford may want the dealers to get serious about EVs, the fact is that Ford is not close to being able to supply dealers with all the EVs they could sell if they could just order them and have them in within the month.

Hyundai was better. Only a $5000 "market adjustment fee" on the Ioniq 5 (as opposed to the $10,000 fee on the F150) and you can get one in just 1-3 months. No guarantees of delivery date.

[Brad]

>1,920 of America's roughly 3,000 Ford retailers

I'm wondering if the dealers holding out:

1. Aren't looking for a better deal from some other EV manufacturer. (ie. just read a Vietnamese EV maker is looking to expand to US.)
2. Are waiting to see how those quick charge unit installations work out.  If the local power company can't support them at their location why muck about?
3. A dealer at one location might be able to sell a lot of street legal EV's that are one step above a golf cart but would have a hard time selling swanky Mach-E's or sporty Tesla's to their customer base. 
4. Ford, GM, Toyota, all of them, could barely supply dealers with new ICE cars during the pandemic so dealers want to actually see a timely supply of EV's first before they sign on to Fantasy Ford EV Sales Schemes.