Ford continues to back off EV mandates - cut 'em slack?

A couple years ago in the peak of EV overhype, Ford was giving their dealerships a strong & mega-costly EV ultimatum. You can find that initial story here & the follow-ups & pushback here & here (or just keep reading for the Cliff’s Notes). Now – it’s playing-out exactly how we knew it would…

Ford was forcing their dealers…

To makes huge investments in EV charging infrastructure. In some cases upwards of a million dollars per dealership OR ELSE… said dealership would not be permitted to sell Ford’s (highly coveted???) electric vehicles. Cutting through the BS, Ford’s strategy was to make their dealerships foot-the-bill for Ford’s national charging network. Ford’s scheme was to catchup to Tesla’s superior charging infrastructure, and use the dealerships’ money & real estate to do it. And for the Ford EV customer, he/she would theoretically be able to stop at any one of Ford’s nationwide dealers to conveniently charge-up. It was a clever plan, but it came across like mafia-style strong-arming…

It felt a lot like Ford was alienating their dealerships…

Dealerships aren’t squeaky clean either. They’ve been nobody’s friend in recent years with arrogant markups and ‘holding desirable cars hostage’. Nevertheless, it felt wrong to watch Ford force their dealerships into some kind of costly EV submission. The result was: Dealers were pissed, the relationship between Ford & their dealers fell to an all time low. Of course on top of that, Ford’s lofty EV projections backfired. And 46% of their dealers lost all trust in Ford’s direction.

The reason we keep dragging this story through the dirt…

Is because Ford has lost billions on EVs. So you need not forget: When Ford (and their competitors) point the finger at ‘inflation’ for the absurd price of new cars & subsequent loss of value… it IS that. But it’s ALSO them rolling all their EV-failures into the cost of their cars that actually do sell. So in conclusion, a year & a half later…

Ford had now backed-off their EV ultimatum for dealerships…

Realizing they’re no longer (and never were) in the position to be making ultimatums in the first place. The good news here: Is that it seems like Ford has finally started to wake up from the fog… and finally started to align with their dealers & customers again. It’s as if electric vehicles should be introduced at a common-sense pace… and not rushed & forced to market recklessly & politically. Gee – if only people had said that all along lol.

You know what though? For the sake of good spirits, maybe it’s time to start getting this behind us. Let bygones be bygones, and start letting the natural exciting energy come back to the automotive industry. At the end of the day, we’re either gonna all win or lose together here. I vote win. What say you?