I think there are pros and cons to dealerships and direct sales. Direct sales makes the purchase process much easier than dealerships, no question about that. I’ve been involved in the purchase process of 4 Teslas, and the ordering part is great. Super easy. Delivery, when Tesla doesn’t have your vehicle in stock, is _awful_ . You never know when you’re going to get your car, it basically never happens when they say it will. If you run into any issues at all, good luck getting anyone to help, especially now that Tesla has slashed their staff. Our local Tesla location went from 6 sales people on the floor at a given time to 2. Service is similar. After sales support is nonexistent. With a dealer, the purchase process sucks because, despite the fact that literally everyone hates dealing with being pressured to buy aftermarket warranties, silly paint coatings, interior coatings, etc., they still do it. Probably because there is enough profit on it that even if they can only find one sucker per day, it more than pays for itself on the dealer’s end. Dealer markups suck too, but at least they’re negotiable and you can shop around. With all of the direct sales EV manufacturers, the price is the price. Tesla marked up their vehicles at a company level _substantially_ during the post-COVID craze, just like a lot of dealers, but there is no chance to avoid that markup like you can with a dealer. I bought my Ioniq5 at MSRP at the peak of the post-COVID craze, when the cheapest Model Y cost $7k more than my Ioniq5 Limited (due to the Tesla corporate markup at that time), because I was able to shop around and find a dealer that wasn’t marking them up. Service experience is another pro-dealer thing. Tesla has gotten a lot better in that regard, but Rivian and Lucid still have nearly nonexistent local service centers unless you live in a very specific area. Dealers for “legacy” brands tend to be a lot more accessible, although admittedly the service experience can still be questionable for EVs (but has gotten much better). I think the best option would be a combination of both. Availability of online sales to buy the car, but the dealership to be able to go and see/test drive your specific car, be able to go and ask questions, get service at the same local location, etc. My local Tesla location is literally a dealership. It used to be a Pontiac/Buick dealer back in the day, and more recently a Nissan dealer. It’s sales and service in one building, and they have a bunch of inventory vehicles on the lot. It should be the ideal combination that I mentioned, but the entire building is massively understaffed as I mentioned earlier.
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I think there are pros and cons to dealerships and direct sales. Direct sales makes the purchase process much easier than dealerships, no question about that. I’ve been involved in the purchase process of 4 Teslas, and the ordering part is great. Super easy. Delivery, when Tesla doesn’t have your vehicle in stock, is _awful_ . You never know when you’re going to get your car, it basically never happens when they say it will. If you run into any issues at all, good luck getting anyone to help, especially now that Tesla has slashed their staff. Our local Tesla location went from 6 sales people on the floor at a given time to 2. Service is similar. After sales support is nonexistent. With a dealer, the purchase process sucks because, despite the fact that literally everyone hates dealing with being pressured to buy aftermarket warranties, silly paint coatings, interior coatings, etc., they still do it. Probably because there is enough profit on it that even if they can only find one sucker per day, it more than pays for itself on the dealer’s end. Dealer markups suck too, but at least they’re negotiable and you can shop around. With all of the direct sales EV manufacturers, the price is the price. Tesla marked up their vehicles at a company level _substantially_ during the post-COVID craze, just like a lot of dealers, but there is no chance to avoid that markup like you can with a dealer. I bought my Ioniq5 at MSRP at the peak of the post-COVID craze, when the cheapest Model Y cost $7k more than my Ioniq5 Limited (due to the Tesla corporate markup at that time), because I was able to shop around and find a dealer that wasn’t marking them up.
Service experience is another pro-dealer thing. Tesla has gotten a lot better in that regard, but Rivian and Lucid still have nearly nonexistent local service centers unless you live in a very specific area. Dealers for “legacy” brands tend to be a lot more accessible, although admittedly the service experience can still be questionable for EVs (but has gotten much better).
I think the best option would be a combination of both. Availability of online sales to buy the car, but the dealership to be able to go and see/test drive your specific car, be able to go and ask questions, get service at the same local location, etc.
My local Tesla location is literally a dealership. It used to be a Pontiac/Buick dealer back in the day, and more recently a Nissan dealer. It’s sales and service in one building, and they have a bunch of inventory vehicles on the lot. It should be the ideal combination that I mentioned, but the entire building is massively understaffed as I mentioned earlier.