Yes, Ford did the same same with their dealers on the Bronco. Hasn’t stopped them from marking them up $20-50K anyway. 😡
Ford knows they totally botched the Bronco reservations…. They won’t admit it, but have being handling the Lightning much differently. Even once invited to order, people can still move their Lightning order to a different dealership and keep their allocation, order status. With the exception of some weighted distribution for ZEV states and the few orders dealerships were allowed to prioritize, orders are being invited off time stamp. Regardless of how many reservations a dealership may have. Dealerships can enter all their pricing online for the customer to configure and place the order. Any orders placed online are considered a contract price as in they can’t add further markups or other such nonsense later. Some of the real shady dealers have opted to only take orders in person and the general consensus on related forums is not to walk, but to run quickly away from those dealerships.
GM dealerships who bought into the Hummer EV and Lyriq programs already agreed to abide by new pricing structures that mostly eliminate mark-ups. If you have a dealership trying to mark-up your Hummer EV when you go to order it, just call up GM’s concierge and ask to move to a new dealership and they will move you. The allocation is tied to the customer/order on these, just like Ford is doing with he Lightning. GM’s message to dealers is pretty simple — make a fair sale and earn a happy customer or we’ll let the customer move their order to a dealership that will.
Too many laws in effect that protect the dealership’s ability to set and control pricing. But the big automakers know they have to get this under control as insane markups are hurting their brand reputations. Good dealerships are out there. I’m getting MSRP with no additional fees on my Hummer EV and knowing the guys at the dealership, they’ll probably have everything ready for me when I come in so paperwork and whatnot takes no more than 15 minutes and they’ll probably buy me lunch too. Assuming I follow through with the Hummer EV... I’m probably tapping out unless enough people cancel so I can buy Edition 1 this year. Otherwise I’ll wait for the next revision and hope for some more range and better onboard power options and a few other things. Can get my Rivian R1T this summer. Not sure about Ford Lightning…. Not wild about pricing and not sure which wave I’ll be in, if I get an invite at all. I have an early reservation but so do 25K other people. I did not reserve a Silverado EV. Going to take the R1T or Lightning and enjoy for a while and revisit the EV truck thing in a few years with the next generation of batteries and tech.
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