Ford CEO says EVs will be sold 100% online with nonnegotiable price
This article takes an off-the-cuff comment from the CEO of Ford and reads too much into it IMO. He wasn’t saying dealerships are going away; he was actually saying the opposite. The point he was making was that Ford is going to adopt some of Tesla’s practices while using the dealership network to compete with them.<p>Here’s the quote with more context:
“I believe for retail, we have to -- it&#x27;s kind of like what happened between Amazon and Target. Target could have gone away, but they didn&#x27;t. They bolted on an e-commerce platform and then they used their physical store to add groceries and return -- make returns really much easier than Amazon. They used their expertise as a physical retailer to their advantage, but they modernized the e-commerce piece. So it would be really easy to do business with them. It&#x27;s exactly what we have to do on the retail side. We got to go to non-negotiated price. We&#x27;ve got to go to a 100% online, the vehicle there is no inventory goes directly to the customer, 100% remote pickup and delivery, but then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence, they outperform them. Like, I believe some Mach-E and Lightning customers would love to have a Mustang for the weekend. Maybe they want a Super Duty. I can do that, they can&#x27;t do that, unless they ran a Ford.”<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;seekingalpha.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-f-ceo-james-farley-presents-bernstein-38th-annual-strategic-decisions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;seekingalpha.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;4515793-ford-motor-company-...</a>