I'm hearing dealerships are planning as much as $30K markups. If this the case, I'm probably going to sell my reservation to the highest bidder

 

For the last dozen years, nearly all new Ford releases have been rattled by numerous recalls and defects. I wonder how much the Lightning will go down that road...

 

Ford is explicitly warning dealers with high markups will not get allocation. Hoping this is true, even though I didn't get a ping to order for my reservation.

 

If that's true, hats off to Ford, though I doubt they'll be able to enforce it when dealers have the upper hand in the U.S. and can just take it to court.

 

That's why the dealership model needs to go away. Cut the fat (middleman) out. PoleStar, Tesla, Hyundai (for it's Ioniq 5) Lucid and other start-ups are going the direct sell route where they setup spaces where you can view and kick the tires, and startup's like PoleStar bring the vehicle to you for test drives, then deliver to your house or office

 

In the US legacy companies have to sell through dealers, even what appears direct, isn't.

 

I see. Dealerships are so inefficient, they end up wasting hours of your time...and money. My last new car I bought before the PoleStar was a 2018 Honda Civic Si, I did most of the negotiations between phone and email, and even financed through their online portal, but still ended up wasting 2 hours signing documents and telling the finance guy I wasn't interested in the add-on's they were trying to sell me. With the PoleStar, the guy was in and out in 20 minutes, most of the docs were signed through Docusign

 

Unfortunately those "direct sales" models haven't worked for anyone but Tesla. Even those claiming to be "direct sales" like Genesis really are just sold at the back of another dealership. And even Tesla is dealing with issues of not having enough centers to service their vehicles.

 

I get that part, legacy automakers are probably stuck in contracts they are in and the legal entanglements of getting out would be costly. They could technically create seperate companies and move their EV divisions into those companies, they would not be answerable to dealerships

 

If Ford can't even separate their Lincoln dealerships from their Ford ones then they'll have even less success with a new EV brand.

 

Its not that they can't do this, it just doesn't make any sense for them to do it. Lincoln/Mercury used to have stand alone dealers.

 

No, the Ford dealerships sued them into not separating the two. Ford corporate does want Lincoln to have separate showrooms.

https://www.autonews.com/dealers/nj-...-store-program

Same story with Hyundai dealers and Genesis.

https://motorillustrated.com/genesis...owrooms/55958/

 

looks like the dealer (orlando) won (pending appeal)... dealers suck.

https://autobala.com/florida-dealers...points/210480/

 

Florida's state laws give a ridiculous upper hand to dealerships unfortunately...

 

Nothing wrong with Ford eelling a Ford EV in a Ford dealership. Lincoln is a different story.