Stocks of electric cars are piling up on dealer lots this year as companies ramp up production of electric vehicles, leading some retailers to believe that enough is enough. Some tell automakers they don’t want any more of them until they can sell what they have in stock.
– We have given up on the purchase of electric vehicles said Scott Kunes, chief operating officer of Kunes Auto and RV Group, which sells the Detroit brands as well as Nissan and Mitsubishi in the Midwest. “We have to make sure we have a good turnaround,” he added.
“Automakers are asking us to make a big investment, and we just want to see a return on that investment,” he added.
The availability of plug-in vehicles is growing rapidly, a sign that the growth curve for electric vehicles is about to slow down significantly. The shift from enthusiastic and affluent early adopters to more prudent and budget-minded car buyers throws a loop into the electric car transformation, forcing automotive companies to change their outlook and backtrack on ambitious electric vehicle production goals.
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“It’s not just that these vehicles are expensive, although they are. We are talking about a much more nuanced lifestyle change said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. He pointed to differences in EV ownership experiences, including charging and range anxiety, as holding back many buyers.
“It’s hard for the average customer to make that leap by spending an extra $10,000. hole. Fiori said.
Electric vehicles went from scarcity to almost oversupply
Car buyers can find plenty of electric options at dealerships, although dealership stocks lasted around 54 days at the start of summer and nearly doubled at the same time.
This is a change from the last few years, when it was often difficult to even find an electric vehicle to test drive, let alone take home and buy one.
Automakers were yet to produce electric vehicles on a large scale, which meant supply was limited and customers waited on long waiting lists to get their hands on one.
All these challenges have created a lot of hype and an apparent crisis of supply and demand. While the overall share of electric vehicles in the U.S. market is low at around 6%, it has grown exponentially over the past few years due to the hype around these vehicles, with brands like Tesla making electric cars a status symbol.
Currently, the stock of electric vehicles is not a problem. Automakers are strengthening their factories to produce more of these vehicles. But demand is not growing at the same pace.
Even with record sales of electric vehicles month after month, sales figures are declining as automakers try to reach buyers beyond the first-mover group, i.e. more mainstream consumers.
As a result, one East Coast Ford dealership previously told Insider that it was reducing its quota of electric cars from the manufacturer. Another in the Midwest said Lightning orders are piling up, leaving those customers time to choose another electric vehicle. One West Coast Hyundai dealership said it was also ditching its EV-specific allocation, while another Hyundai dealer told Insider it expects to ditch electric vehicles soon.
Adam Lee, chairman of the board of Lee Auto Malls in Maine, said he still takes all the electric vehicles he can get, but his electric Toyotas are selling slowest.
“The only Toyotas I don’t have for pre-order are the electric ones, the bZ4X, and that’s a bit of a challenge,” Lee said.
Dealers are left out in the cold
While problems are mounting in the electric car market, retailers are most likely to face difficulties. Car companies will likely continue to produce the electric vehicles they promised investors, leaving dealers to figure out how to sell them to a new set of customers.
But analysts say the most experienced managers will heed the first warning from retailers about where the demand pendulum is swinging.
“Dealers get real-time feedback on what’s happening in the market,” Karl Brauer, automotive analyst at iSeeCars, said earlier. “They’ve always been the first beacons in the automotive industry,” he added.
The above text is a reprint from the US edition of Insider, prepared entirely by the local editorial staff.
Translation: Mateusz Albin
2023-08-24 12:35:47
#electricians #sellers #dont #anymore
