LH NorthEast region not EV friendly?

There is already known trend across country (even pre COVID/shortage era) that a lot of dealers are not “EV friendly”, and this ultimately seems has impact on brokers (at the end they work with dealers). I understand that currently market is bad for buyers, shortages, etc. but even in this situation there is still a lot of “deals” for ICE cars, some are orders with discount from MSRP (less then price COVID, but completely understandable). But for EV cars there is literally no single offer in NorhEast region, except of really crappy Andy “deals”, but I would like to give him a credit for at least trying to promote EV :slight_smile: And again even pre COVID, there was only nice i3 deals from Dan and e-Tron worked out only because of that Costco huge help. NorhEast states are pretty EV friendly with various rebates and NJ is probably best EV leasing state in whole country with no tax and current 2000-5000 rebate. So if there would be “deals” at least on par with ICE cars, this extra incentives would help to make payment reasonable. Comments and thoughts welcome. Don’t judge me hard, not sure if I was able to formulate my point properly.

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You are correct that NJ is well-positioned to become the best EV leasing state in the country.

You are also correct that there is this notion of “EV friendliness” as it pertains to dealerships. Only about 2% of the cars on the road in the US are EVs, and it’s no secret that dealerships have a habit of continuing to do business the same way they have for 50+ years, so for a lot of dealerships it’s as simple as “it’s not worth such a small percentage of our business to cater to these niche cars that we don’t understand”.

So you get into this cycle, which is, I think, a lot of the same reason why you don’t see bright “skittles rainbow” of cars on dealer lots. Dealers tend to order black/white/silver/grey and a few red, as that’s what historically sells, so that’s what dealers order, so that’s what manufacturers build.

With the EVs, the cycle is more like:

  • Dealer has very few EVs on lot, prices are high, advertising is low, they don’t sell
  • Manufacturer starts upping incentives to move old inventory
  • “Crazy good” lease deal on EVs become popular
  • Dealers get flooded with calls for the sub-$100 car payment with a $39k sticker that they couldn’t move at all last month
  • Dealers react to the “demand” too late, because now all the dealers at once wish they had a few more cars on order, but the factory/port/dealer trades run dry quickly.
  • Dealers eventually get more cars, but programs could expire, leaving them stuck with undesirable inventory again

So, you really do need dealers to “see the light” at scale and realize that they need to sit on more EV inventory. My businss model as a broker is built around this concept; I’ve been operating for 1 year and I’ve successfully convinced a few dealerships to see that EVs are a worthwhile investment for their growth. It’s not easy to convince dealer inventory managers to tie up a million dollars worth of floor plan or capital for every 30 EVs they stock. But slowly, the dominos will start to fall, as a few of the higher-volume dealerships get more aggressive with the percentage of their inventory that’s devoted to being EV.

You mention e-tron and other deals, but during November December 2020, my model was demonstrated to work, and a few dealers did really go in on EV inventory, which enabled competition between them, which enabled the $92/month Ioniq EV deal. Unfortunately market conditions did not get us there again in 2021, but I do think that deal will eventually start to become commonplace as EV competition heats up here in NJ!

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  1. Pre pandemic NJ was very EV friendly with the first phase of the rebate. @ElectricEliminator @Falcon01 and several others got excellent deals. My buddy got a $55k Tesla for $50k OTD considering zero tax and $5k rebate at the time.

  2. What can brokers offer beyond what their brand makes? What did BMW brokers have to offer as a pure EV other than the i3? Or Nissan brokers beyond the Leaf? Chevy and Bolt?

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Of course not beyond that, but where is Bolt, Leaf, Kona, Niro “deals” ? A lot of people here hate to deal with dealer bs and gladly pay broker to arrange it. I spend considerable time today for example to validate Leaf deal and while it is not 89 bucks, it is still reasonable amount in current market situation

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I signed for a Niro EV EX for 36m/10k $258/month $968 DAS. The salesperson I dealt with originally worked up a great deal that that included the lease cash and NJ rebate until just manager came in and tried to up the MSRP by $5k. Got them to come down $2500. I shoppee around a lot. Most dealers in NJ I dealt with were trying to pocket the rebate either by marking up the price or claiming the lease cash deal from the manufacturer included the rebate even though it actually doesn’t, it factors in the federal tax credit.

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As an EV lessee and local EV advocate, I’m apart of my local EV Auto Association, and at one of our previous meetings, we wanted to start a program to “judge” NJ dealers and rank them on their EV “friendliness” from things like inventory, knowledgeable sales people, dealer charging stations, and I suggested even how “honest” their deals were (from marks-up to hoarding the rebates etc.)

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Exactly things like this, that’s why I’m upset that brokers don’t provide much EV deals here without this bs “manager came by”

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I feel special to have been called out by name by @max_g! Guess I’m memorable!

EV deals are like any other deals, you have to be patient, do research and be ready to do the deal as soon as it pops up. No hemming or hawing allowed. For my Bolt, I took a day off of work and spent the day driving to different Chevy dealers telling them what I wanted. Not the hackr way, but chevy dealers laugh when they see an email asking for a $43/mo car. I eventually got one on the hook and we agreed to numbers. $1543 one pay lease for a 36/10 on a Bolt LT.

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No doubt there was possibility to find it, but point of this post is about brokers/dealers being more EV friendly. And ask is even not about unicorn deals, just decent once without all regular dealer bs

Giving dealers in NJ the ability to apply state rebate funds directly to their “deals” was a catastrophic mistake from a consumer perspective. Even without inventory issues at the moment I strongly doubt that I would be able to repeat the Bolt deals I got now. It’s just one more point that they can manipulate to pad profit. If it’s not markup it will be warranties, paint protection, something else. If NJ was serious about EV adoption they would have left it as a post consumer incentive. Business lobbies are powerful though so I’m sure theirs did everything in their power to turn these rebates into welfare for their dealerships.

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There is also the fact that dealers need to invest about $600k to $1 million in charging infrastructure in order to be able to sell EVs at scale. A dealer physically can’t sell more than 30-40 EVs in a month without installing DC Fast Charging at their dealer site.

Most dealers have only 1 level 2 charger, which charges one EV in roughly 8-10 hours. Most of the cars (at least in Hyundai world) come “nearly dead” from sitting at the port. So every car needs a full charge before delivery. So you figure, someone has to remember to put an EV on the charger every day at the beginning of work, and leave another EV on the charger every day before going home.

Now what happens if one dealer employee gets a lease deal on an electric car, and that employee lives an hour away from the dealership? Now you have an employee commuting every day, using the one charger at the dealership every day, leaving the salesman to scramble to plug in EVs for deliveries when the charger is free.

This is not just a theoretical problem, but it’s already a reality. We had to get really creative last year, packing EVs into showrooms, dragging extension cords all over the place.

The smartest dealers will leverage extra money they make from the NJ rebates and put that money into a fund to pay for charger installation. Once they’ve made that initial investment in a 50kW or faster charger, they’ll be well positioned to get back to their usual competitive nature. I know that we like to talk about the rebate being a consumer incentive, but it is lobbied for by dealerships, and there is benefit for consumers and dealers alike if this incentive goes towards building out fast chargers at dealerships.
Of course… there are still plenty of “bad” dealers out there that will just pocket the money without wanting to install chargers… and those guys will not survive long term.

The dealers that can’t be convinced to drop half a million on a fast charger, will never be able to become high-volume EV dealers. Not enough hours in the day to get more than 30-40 a month out the door.

Here’s more information about the 3-phase power needed, which is what makes it so expensive for dealers to upgrade their chargers to charge a car in less than an hour. And also, here’s an article about Cadillac dealers that are shutting down instead of upgrading when faced with this problem.

Completely true - I started doing leafs after chargeup expired.

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Are you trying to suggest that a single 50kw DC fast charger with an appropriate 3 phase run/transformer is a $500k investment?

Most of that cost goes to your electric utility. And then $40-80k for the charge unit, and possibly more for a big transformer at your site to hook it up. It depends on where you need to run it. But yes, the CEO of EVGO has cited that this is roughly what it costs. It’s a lot more than the average person expects.

If you can find a cheaper way to install 480V 50kW DC fast chargers in New Jersey strip malls and parking lots, text me ASAP because I want to start a DCFC charge network!

It is also reality that at some point you need to invest in business improvement/expansion and not only play shenanigans and mark up everything. When Taycan was introduced, I talked to our local Porsche dealer and they said that Porsche required them to install chargers and make other remodeling or they will not allow them to sell them and sure enough dealership is being rebuilt completely, because honestly it was quite outdated already

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You’re off by about an order of magnitude based on the US department of energy reports

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/evse_cost_report_2015.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiR4qi_janyAhXcl2oFHXYsA2AQFnoECCcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3PRzgML0WmK5siIK4ByAQh

3 phase isn’t that big of a deal. Yah, it costs some money, especially if you’re trying to run it to an area away from infrastructure (like off the middle of a highway, not in an industrial area already feeding power to a service center).

If we are talking about installing a single 350 kW charger at a rest area in the middle of BFE, I could maybe understand.

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This is definitely an obstacle, although a dealer is most likely paying a lot attendant of some sort. It shouldn’t be tough to have somebody assigned to rotating EVs for charging purposes through the available chargers. I’ll have to turn on my Bolt LT when I get home, it’s been dormant too long to check range on my phone but it’s sat virtually unmoved for almost four months now and I don’t believe I’ve lost much range, if any. Perhaps there’s a concern or policy regarding shipping these vehicles charged? If the boat is an issue, maybe the truck isn’t? If that’s the case then maybe installing chargers at the port could be a solution.

This one is pretty easy to solve. “Hey Slappy, we’ve got new inventory that needs charging, move your car. You can plug it in later.”

All dealers should explore the myriad of charging grants that governments offer to businesses to increase EV adoption, not siphon rebate money from customers.

The LAW is written as a consumer incentive, simple as. If dealerships wanted to lobby for something they should have lobbied for a dealer incentive to push adoption instead of acting in bad faith via markups and hard adds.

The issue with the Cadillac dealers is one that’s purely volume driven. Cadillac has made it clear that their very near future is entirely EV based. The charging infrastructure is one thing which is mitigated in many cases by government money. It’s the requirements GM has announced regarding service department upgrades that will be very costly for smaller dealers. If you are a Cadillac dealer that sells a few cars a month it’s not worth making those investments. That half a million dollars or so that GM is offering to go away is pretty tempting if you’re not a big dealer.

Dude… if you can help me get a 480V 3-phase with 200 amps of service into a commercial building for less than $200k… we should talk more seriously. I’ve been trying to talk to as many electricians and linemen as possible to figure out how to get it done for cheaper.

I know they have it in warehouses and really industrial areas, but I need it in strip malls and car dealerships along major NJ highways. I have been trying to get it quoted out… and searching for someone that knows more about this than me… so I can start building some stations!!!

Thus is such an easy problem to solve for a very minor cost. Any dealer using this an excuse is just broadcasting their lack of foresight.

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