The forum has been acting weird when I respond from my phone lately.
This will be fascinating to watch happen. I like the concept, but I do not think it will work. I am not sure how the Ford manufacturing plants and the dealers are gong to adapt to this. Unless the orders are coming in at a steady rate, how are they going to handle Just-In-Time parts ordering and delivery? They will have to increase the parts inventory. How are they going to handle staffing at the plant and what is the UAW going to say about it? So if one of the vehicles has a bad month for orders, do they just call the assembly line workers and tell them not to come in? Sorry guys, not enough orders this month... Then on to the dealers. Just about every dealer around Phoenix seems to like to put high markup add-ons on the vehicle. It is difficult to find a new car around here that doesn't have dealer add-ons. Desert protection Package (overpriced wax job), door edge guards, cheap alarm systems, bed liners, window tint, etc. The add-ons model will not work if people are ordering the vehicle on the Ford website. I have a hard time believing that the Ford dealers are willing to give add-ons up. Second, if the customer shows up on the dealers lot, the dealer would have a larger financial incentive to direct the buyer to a used car.
It works for Tesla, Rivian will be doing it, and it's the model the rest of the world outside of NA uses. With Ford's partnership with VW, hopefully they can learn something about just in time manufacturing (Richard Hammond did a good show about it - it's nuts). I'm sure the dealers will adapt - selling and installing accessories themselves, etc. We already see that now, dealerships that specialize in doing performance upgrades, lifts, etc. Franchise agreements and laws with Ford, GM, and whoever owns Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep this week prevent manufacturers from doing away with dealerships altogether but the days when dealerships have hundreds of new cars are the lot are numbered, if not gone already. And having worked at a mega-autogroup for several years, I can say that they love selling used cars over new because more times than not, there's more profit in it. We used new cars to draw them onto the lot and then sold them a certified used if we could.
Why would anyone actually buy a car there? If they fail because their business model sucks and they try to screw over their customers I won't shed any tears. The real problem is that customers have put up with the ridiculous new car buying process for too long, but I think change is inevitable now that it's easier for people to see that it is possible to buy a car without the bs.
out of 6 new cars I have purchased including the 2021 Ranger Only one was ordered per spec.
Of course it is. But those of us who plan ahead would like to have that option and avoid the shitshow that is the US auto dealership. And regardless, there would still be used car dealerships for the suddenly desperate, right?
Yes the majority in my area of IL (Quad Cities) on the Mississippi are locally owned. One was recently purchased by a regional multi-dealership group. This group was the first to add ADMs to the Bronco Sport. It is one of the 5 that are in a ten mile radius. Now a couple others are following suit, adding ADMs to other Ford lines as well. In fact one had an 10k ADM on the only new vehicle on their lot, an F150 Raptor.
