Suggestion for Ford: Regional EV only service centers

[MountainAlive]

This is mainly a suggestion/observation for Ford but I’m curious to hear what Ford EV owners think of the idea.
I read this forum a lot, along with Reddit and Facebook. When someone has an issue with their Lightning or Mach-e there is a huge variance in quality of service and basic EV knowledge with the dealerships. As an example, some people with the dreaded powertrain issue are in and out at the dealership in 2 weeks with a replaced battery module. Others experience horrific wait times with their truck at their dealership for months and often results in Ford buying back a fixable Lightning. There are numerous examples like this with OTA failed updates, red ring of death on the charge port, etc. Leaving it up to each dealership to train and know how to fix these issues quickly and properly seems to be asking a lot.
Why couldn’t Ford create regional, EV only service shops that do nothing but EV specific work? Or, allow for 3rd party authorized/trained/equipped shops to open up?
You’d bring your Lightning in for something and they’d say “we’ve seen and fixed this a dozen times and will have your truck ready in a couple days”.
Maybe I live in a fantasy world and this sort of service model is something Ford would find impossible to implement, but I’m just putting it out there.

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[TaxmanHog]

IMHO, these are great ideas, I'm sure there are a lot of excuses and reasons we haven't seen this yet.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Great idea IMHO. I see two groups of problems though:

1). Someone would have to pay for all this. Dealerships get capital by sales of durable goods (vehicles) and by after-sale longer term services, i.e an imperfect yet mostly functional version of "customer capture", reinforced by the increasingly complex diagnosis equipment often out of reach for the old-school corner indie mechanic shop. Does Ford Motor Company have pockets deep enough to fund and then sustain such EV centers?

2). Zoning laws and state-level dealership-friendly business laws, built up over a century and very subject to local and highly vested-interest lobbying. The inertia of all these would have to be overcome piecemeal... look at how long it took Tesla's business model to take root.

Yet I support the OP's idea. Talk about a disrupter idea haha.

 

[Joe.....Montana]

It would also be a challenge in rural states. I have a Ford dealership in my hometown that sells EV's...the next closest one that sells EV's is 142 miles followed by 390 miles.

 

[chl]

Once EV's outnumber ICE-Vs, like in Norway, it'll be so much better in so many ways...

 

[B177y]

I am thinking along the same lines as @chl and @Joe.....Montana , there has to be enough EV's in a given area that would allow for enough business to make such an idea profitable and sustainable. If such a service center was limited to only one manufacturer, it would seem to be even more difficult to have enough business to keep such a venture afloat. I don't think that there are enough EV's on the road with enough problems to create a need for an EV only service center. The expertise of such a center would be amazing, but there would only be enough business to sustain these in large dense EV heavy areas. My guess would be mostly coastal CA from the Bay Area to So Cal.

 

[WilliamRobert]

I don’t believe ice vehicles will last much longer, as more people get the chance to drive a BEV and experience the difference, service departments will naturally make the change to BEVs. I think the bigger problem for the adoption of BEVs is that the technology is being used as a political football by politicians that get their contributions from big oil.

 

[hturnerfamily]

FORD , like most, is a manufacturer, not a seller. Therefore, they do not get into direct sales and services for their vehicle - they leave that to their DEALERS.

Any 'regional' infrastructure to support EVs would be costly, and would have to have some type of profit-center mechanism to bolster it's existence. It's likely it's not something that Ford can do since they have written dealer agreements to allow only their dealers to help customers. This is why comparing Ford and other legacy manufacturers to Tesla and Rivian and other direct EV sales companies is problematic.

Can a Ford DEALER decide to move into a more 'specialized' EV structure? SURE, and that might be very welcomed, and smart for the future, as many 'legacy' dealers are not yet even sure that they want to even be in the EV business, period.
There are certainly a few Ford dealers who support EVs, with probably a 'younger' generation ownership, and have more certified EV service techs.

 

[TaxmanHog]

It takes a special breed of people, to think outside the box, anything is possible if there is a will there is a way.

 

[Scorpio3d]

Some states require vehicles to be sold with the dealer model as manufacturers cannot sell directly to customers. EV’s generally require very little maintenance so as a business model, this would probably not work out for the EV only business. Ford does pay the dealers for the CSP‘s or recalls or repairs under warranty so a smart dealer would have their techs trained to handle these situations, however, some people out there in the world like @rugedraw genuinely care and want to help and learn and the opposite end of the spectrum are people that are just wanting their paycheck every week!

 

[Ricks Lightning]

The independent shop would have to agree to work for what Ford pays for warranty work. Which is much less than for non warranty work.
Rick

 

[RickLightning]

This is mainly a suggestion/observation for Ford but I’m curious to hear what Ford EV owners think of the idea.
I read this forum a lot, along with Reddit and Facebook. When someone has an issue with their Lightning or Mach-e there is a huge variance in quality of service and basic EV knowledge with the dealerships. As an example, some people with the dreaded powertrain issue are in and out at the dealership in 2 weeks with a replaced battery module. Others experience horrific wait times with their truck at their dealership for months and often results in Ford buying back a fixable Lightning. There are numerous examples like this with OTA failed updates, red ring of death on the charge port, etc. Leaving it up to each dealership to train and know how to fix these issues quickly and properly seems to be asking a lot.
Why couldn’t Ford create regional, EV only service shops that do nothing but EV specific work? Or, allow for 3rd party authorized/trained/equipped shops to open up?
You’d bring your Lightning in for something and they’d say “we’ve seen and fixed this a dozen times and will have your truck ready in a couple days”.
Maybe I live in a fantasy world and this sort of service model is something Ford would find impossible to implement, but I’m just putting it out there.

Yes, you do.

Multiple reasons why this would never happen (franchise model, etc.).

However, your whole premise is bad, because it makes the assumption that if there was a central point, everything would run smoother. There is a hotline they can call into for help. The response is inconsistent, slow, and sometimes doesn't resolve the situation.

In short, the many modules in our vehicles don't interface perfectly, and Ford, after 3 years (Mach-E and then Lightning) is still not close to solid in their performance in identifying and resolving issues.

 

[RocketGhost]

I'm sure Ford is well aware of the the dealer problem with its EVs. They tried the "Model E" program in the beginning because they foresaw the problem of traditional dealers selling completely different vehicles, and they were largely correct. For the most part dealer sales does not know how to sell EVs and service has been hit or miss.

In a perfect world Ford would likely have greater long-term EV success if they could ditch the traditional dealer model and go with direct sales and service. But they are stuck. Franchise laws limit what they can legally do, and dealer revolts would be bad.

I think the most likely, which is still unlikely, option is to allow independent dealers operate EV-only locations. The Model E program basically tried that and dealers weren't on board. Maybe if Ford's EV sales take off dealers might find a business case to do so. I think service-only facilities would be a great idea in large cities. You don't need as many sales locations as service locations.

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