They're laying off workers whose skillsets are specific to making vehicles with combustion engines and hiring workers specific to making vehicles with electric motors.
I wonder how the switch to electric is going to impact Ford dealers? From what I've read they need to (re)train their mechanics and buy a bunch of new equipment and then also deal with the fact that electric vehicles require less maintenance.
Well, their primary income seems to come from deceiving people, I'm sure they'll either invent new forms of 'maintenance' work or grossly exaggerate the required frequency of some other task.
In my circles, dealers would always be the absolute last resort option for having any maintenance done due to their reputation of inflating prices and doing crappy work. Not sure if EV manufacturers are attempting to force consumers to have all their work done by dealers. If so, I’ll keep waiting.
Dealers typically get a monopoly on software fixes/firmware updates.
In EV's, more and more issues will be fixed by reconfiguring/patching software.
I would guess that over time, car software will get more and more locked down - even today, real cryptography is typically used to stop you flashing new firmware onto your ECU. Those checks are only going to get tighter. There are no opensource ECU's.
Therefore, I don't see the dealer going anywhere. But they might get rid of the workshop and replace it with desks of people able to hit buttons on a computer...
The funny thing is there’s nothing inherently more digital about an EV that requires over the air updates. Tesla just simply proved out that the model works so all EV makers have been following suit.
Over the air updates pay for themselves immediately if there is a recall that can be fixed with software. And thats ignoring any other possible benefits for the user, like upgraded features or bugfixes post-sale.
In my experience, both EVs and (many/most) smaller volume high efficiency vehicles are not easy for 3rd parties to do service on. An inline-6/V6/V8 is relatively straightforward and there are great 3rd party mechanics everywhere. Going to a dealer for these kinds of vehicles is just asking to get ripped off. When you get into EVs, or even complex fuel efficient 4-cylinders, the complexity and proprietary nature of many parts makes independent service difficult, specialized, and expensive.
With something like a Prius, you have such wide adoption that everyone knows how to work on them. When you have something like a Tesla, let alone a lesser known EV, independent shops can burn a dozen hours just getting up to speed on the car. And they literally may not be able to get the part, either because of some rights/IP/vendor lock in or because the part just stopped being made.
In some ways, the cars made from 1980 to 2010 are the easiest to service. You've got a lot of simple engine designs. Well understood, high parts availability. Not a lot of screens or software that isn't 100% critical for car functionality. I don't think you are going to see too many cars made today that are still running in 10-20 years honestly. Even with the greater increase in overall reliability for electric cars, the failures are often catastrophic or nearly so because everything is so integrated. It's like a MacBook Pro—almost any failure is going to run you at least 1/3rd the value of the machine.
I have some bias based on my age, but I feel like the most reliable cars were the well built vehicles in the late 90s, early 2000s. Hondas, Toyotas, the Crown Vic, and various other Ford trucks. The "simple" V6/V8 BMWs and Mercedes from this era were also incredibly well/over engineered. I don't see anyone making EVs today even attempting to do something like that anymore.
My vehicles are an '03, '04 and '68 bronco and I really couldn't be happier with them. Maintenance is simple and if I'm too busy to do something myself, I can get it done almost anywhere for pretty cheap. I'm not going to start being some dealer/mfrs bitch until I have literally no other options, which is likely to be never in my lifetime.
So, part of the reason why EVs have struggled to gain a market is specifically because the dealers can't make as much money on the maintenance side. All the stuff about "range anxiety" and "charging infrastructure" was a sideshow. You already have a garage that can deliver 120VAC at 15A to your car and that is enough charging infrastructure for everything but road trips. Dealers wanted to sell cars with Sony timers[0] in them, and internal combustion means a lot of metal parts and tiny explosions that can go wear out and go wrong. EVs do not have those kinds of problems.
Tesla doesn't have dealers, but they've been the vanguard of bringing Apple-style "serialized for your safety[1]" parts to the automotive market. Almost every part is paired or calibrated to the ECU and the car won't start or won't run well without their proprietary software and signing key involved. And since Musk embarrassed the rest of the car industry into making EVs, they're copying everything about Tesla, including the bad bits[2]. As a result, repair-hostile design is ubiquitous in EVs.
Actually, I've heard it might be back-contaminating ICE cars, too - you might just never buy a new vehicle ever again at this rate.
[0] Japanese urban legend / slang term for "thing in an electronic device designed to break when the warranty ends"
[1] against unauthorized repair shops
[2] Most established firms tend to be vertically disintegrated channel traders - i.e. they buy other people's components, put it together, and sell it on as a finished product. Any major product change is a process of herding cats, dogs, and guinea pigs all to the same spot and hoping they don't harm each other in the process. This results in an extremely conservative design discipline. For example:
- GM tried selling electric vehicles in the 90s and shitcanned them because dealers weren't going to sell them.
- PC vendors weren't going to bother selling laptops with SSDs in them until people started switching to Apple because "it's so fast because it boots in like 5 seconds."
Of course, once a Tesla or an Apple changes market expectations, then it's easy to copy them, because they've already de-risked the project.
I’ve had a Nissan LEAF for 8.5 years. Everything the Nissan dealer has done has been free (service bulletins and a warranty repair [maybe a second for airbag, I forget).
Everything else has been an easy DIY, meaning a corner/independent mechanic could have done it just as easily.
I'm not sure much changes. High voltage systems are fairly complex and basically impossible to work on at home in a safe manner. This will direct pretty much all repairs that require disabling the high voltage system to mechanics / dealerships. We have a living example of this sort of transition with GM and their Volt / Bolt. Mechanics working on EVs today have be specially trained on high voltage procedures, which are fairly cumbersome in the shop to perform. Even things that seem simple, like the heat pump, end up with a fair amount of complexity due to stuff like special procedures, special oils, more valves with addition of a battery loop, etc.
Dealerships do lose the oil change up-sell loop, but my gut feeling is they can make up the cost with big margins on high-voltage repairs. Check out the workshop service manuals for some existing EVs today -- its staggering how much more complex a battery cell replacement is compared to say, an ICE engine swap. Dealer prices on these two procedures are priced accordingly, with procedures that involve HV components regularly costing more than the depreciated value of the EV itself! The Toyota Prius seems to be the first and last model with any kind of easy repair kept in mind for high-voltage components on cars.
Dealers will slowly fade away as online car shopping becomes more common. Volvo for example is aiming at 2030 as the year they turn 100% online. It's reasonable to assume all other car makers will do the same. There's absolutely no reason to buy from a dealer in today's world, that's like when in the 80s and early 90s you needed a middleman to buy a computer.
If they follow the Tesla/Rivian/Lucid model they'd have "galleries" which might have a few cars on hand to show off, see paint and fabric samples, hopefully have someone knowledgeable on hand to answer questions, and test drive but you then go place an order for a new one.
There are a few Tesla galleries near me despite not being legal to be sold in my state.
This model makes so much more sense than needing dealerships with hundreds of cars filling a massive parking lot.
You could have a showroom with a couple of your best looking models, then outside just have one of each model ready for a test drive. You decide you like one? You place an order and have it there in a couple weeks.
A showroom can exist and not be an independently-owned dealership. In fact such showrooms could stock multiple brands, like any other brick-and-mortar store we frequent.
If Tesla is any indication, they'll be chock full of unnecessary complex gimmicks that will constantly break and need servicing.
I once helped someone with a flat tire in a Model S who had zip ties dangling from every door handle. The "present mechanism" had failed in every door, look it up, it's a known problem of wire fatigue caused by the present mechanism's repetitive movement breaking the door handle.
Imagine owning a Model X at 150,000 miles. I watched kids have to crawl under the rear "gullwing" door of a fresh one last month. It refused to open beyond a small gap, despite there being no obstructions. Impatient parent in the driver's seat just shouted in frustration for them to crawl in after throwing his hands up at the steering wheel.
Trash needs lots of maintenance to keep on the road... those things are like Homer Simpson mobiles.
- the door panels have been opened so many times, now they are perpetually loose and the door closes with a weird sound.
- driver floor mats came loose multiple times.
- one rear drive motor failure. (note that apart from tesla claims, two drive motors does NOT mean you can continue the trip on the remaining one)
- 4 flat tires - no spare, so each one ended up requiring a flatbed. Tesla's roadside assistance is rarely timely. Actually any roadside assitance. (I'm ordering a cheater spare)
- rear defrost wires most don't heat.
- touchscreen developed bubbles
- front spoiler broke
- rear ultrasonic sensor fell inside bumper
now the warranty expired, and of course a third door handle broke.
Also, be careful of what you wish for. they seem to minimize "unnecessary complex gimmicks" by removing controls. That means everything goes on the touchscreen and you become a terrible driver because you cannot control your car easily.
Really, tesla needs decent dedicated controls with honda attention to detail and reliability.
Yes a Tesla takes more maintenance then a stock Honda Civic. But if you actually compare like for like in terms of vehicle size and price, its quite different.
People hear act like Tesla are full of gimmicks and the cars it competes with are cars from the 1970s.
But also you are just mostly wrong, actual data simply says something different. I don't have the links, but there have been studies on the this and Tesla comes out looking pretty good.
Two decades ago I had a 2004 subaru that needed nothing first years.
Then We got a 2015 Toyota rav 4 and every maintenance there was some up sell. Change a filter check the brakes resurface rotors change the atf or differential oil etc. We actually got into a dispute with dealer after third consecutive $300brakes maintenance.
Thought maybe that was lemon car or bad dealer but now we have a honda odyssey and same thing. My bill last week was $900 for a car that nothing was wrong with, just "regular maintenance".
Due to our schedules my wife usually takes the car in ; I can see the bill is inflated in terms of labour and parts but I already know they'll tell me that's the book value.
So for today's ice cars, they do get a lot of revenue from regular maintenance and may even be more profitable for them than actual fixes.
I wonder about Ev - do they not have brakes, Cv joints, bearings, differentials (I know there's no transmission), et cetera?
Most likely, you're being swindled by your dealership.
Your rotors should never need resurfacing unless you're doing a lot of HARD braking. Stop-and-go traffic doesn't count, here. We're talking something that causes your brakes to frequently get hot and begin warping. If your braking feels fine, there's no reason to get them resurfaced.
Check your manual for fluid change intervals. Don't let the dealer convince you to replace any of the fluids that aren't part of the schedule.
> I wonder about Ev - do they not have brakes, Cv joints, bearings, differentials (I know there's no transmission), et cetera?
Brakes will last the life of the car since regen braking means the pads/rotors are never used at more than 10 mph except in an emergency.
As for the others...yeah, they don't require nearly as much maintenance as your dealer is telling you. The 2003 Suzuki Esteem I owned in the past did 150,000 miles and I never did any maintenance on the differential, CV joints, or bearings.
My brakes are serviced on a time interval. Brake fluid is hydrophilic. You replace it based on age to prevent corrosion of brake components. If brakes are used less and don't get as hot I would expect EV brakes to need more preventative maintenance, not less. Pads and rotors may last longer, but fluid will be the same or worse.
Using the brakes is what removes rust from them. The friction of the brake pads rubs off the surface oxidation. I would expect Teslas to have very rusty brake rotors unless they have something like BMW's brake drying to cycle the brakes regularly to remove rust.
I have no idea what it means to "lube" brakes, I guess you mean where the calipers mount? I have never heard of that being a maintenance item. But please do not apply any lubricant to your braking system unless you know exactly what you are doing and why.
I am speaking about water vapor getting inside the braking system, which is unavoidable. Eventually moisture will get in there and it will settle at the bottom of the system where it will begin to rust components from the inside.
I just ready their maintenance page about brakes, if you live in a place that salts the roads, you need to check (clean?) and lube them every year. I don’t live in a place that uses salt, and I have a BMW anyways. And yes, they suggest to use the brakes sometimes to get the rust off.
Electric cars do a lot of regenerative breaking so the brake pads last for thousands and thousands of miles. Even on hybrids it was pretty common for Priuses with 100,000 miles to still be on their factory pads.
EVs have brakes, but due to regenerative braking, they wear out much more slowly than they do on an ICE. However, EVs see, to go through tires much faster than an ICE…way too many people enjoying their acceleration boost on a heavier car.
While Teslas are required to have a 12v due to federal regulation they do not to my knowledge require any checking or maintenance. They’re basically unused in the car, you can’t even get to them without removing stuff.
Tesla uses a lithium 12V now due to problems with the leas acid one they used previously. So they are definitely used, most of the electronics outside of the power train are 12V.
Brake fluid also needs serviced. And EVs still have suspension so you'll eventually need new shocks. You also have power steering. And Air conditioning, including the condenser. (Some?) EVs also have radiators for heat management of the battery which includes a water pump.
I could be mistaken, but I think they're mostly not counting a procedure that basically amounts to loosening up a bolt that makes oil come out the bottom, tightening it back up again, and then adding new oil from the top side. I think the kind of maintenance they're thinking of is more like "replace the serpentine belt."
Timing belt is a big one for ICEs, valve adjustment if it's something racy.
There's also just so many moving parts there's far more opportunity for engine failures, especially in the face of neglect/deferred maintenance. I don't think there's an EV equivalent for needing an engine rebuild/replace because you ignored the timing belt for too long on an interference motor.
It's worse on newer ICEs that have to meet modern fuel economy and emissions standards too. Very high compression-ratios have become commonplace, making the consequences for neglect much more severe. You'd be hard-pressed to find a non-interference design in something modern. And turbo motors are much harder on their oil... Newer ICEs are tantamount to yesteryears high-strung race engines, too bad the chassis are so heavy.
Many serpentine belts are a sub-10-minute job. Put a wrench on the tensioner, take the tension off it, slip old belt off, put the new belt on, release the wrench tension. It’s literally faster than any oil change (engine, diff, or transfer case).
I change out my Honda's oil once a year (10k miles per year), so what, $60?
Heh, in my case, I would go bankrupt owning a EV because of tires. My god roads are so fucking bad in NYS that I replaced 3 tires this year alone due to massive gashes in the sidewalls. EVs being so fucking overweight do not have cheap tires, RIP.
Are you even reading what I'm replying to?
> how much maintenance does a honda ice car really require? Most of them run flawlessly for years and years, almost without opening the hood at all.
GM has no love lost on its dealer networks, just constant litigation costs. Dealerships are middle men, and like all middlemen, you make money holding your ground by force.
The thing is: Combustion motors are amazingly complex and highly optimized beasts, while electric motors are dead simple. There isn't much to improve. So there are not many people working on electric motors.
electric motors are dead simple. There isn't much to improve.
But the entire system of the vehicle, and the way we use vehicles, and the way those form factors affect society and people's lives are very, very complex. So basically, the shift in technology is going to enable changes and improvements in all of those ways.
Also, look at what Tesla, Lucid, and even Volkswagen have been able to achieve in terms of innovations just to date. Tesla has found ways to let electric motors spin faster, drive vehicles more efficiently, get built cheaper, and without rare earths. Lucid has Tesla beat in terms of comparable capacity in smaller packaging. Even Volkswagen has impressed Munroe and associates with some of their design around motors.
I'd bet you can find people mistakenly saying, "there isn't much to improve," in internal combustion engines over their long history. Even now, this isn't correct. I suspect 21st century innovation in vehicles is just beginning!
I think you will find that there is a certain tolerance for complex systems, and when one part of the system gets simpler, you have to scramble as a user to claw back that reduction for yourself. Only some companies pay that dividend entirely to the user. Some keep it for themselves, and others split it with you.
Which is to say, if the drivetrain gets simpler, the rest of the car will become more complex. Some of that could be good, like more/better heat pumps, but some of it will be complecting other parts of the car.
> But the entire system of the vehicle, and the way we use vehicles, and the way those form factors affect society and people's lives are very, very complex.
But that's no different from combustion cars. What matters is that the motor (by far the most complex part of a combustion car) is now a simple part in an electric car. The rest stays about the same in terms of complexity. So the overall complexity has gone down!
Say a combustion car had 100 complexity units, of which the motor has 50, the rest has also 50.
For a electric vehicle the complexity of the motor is say, 5 units. The rest is the same. So the overall complexity is 55.
You may ask why electric cars are so much more expensive when they are less complex. The obvious answer is that the batteries are expensive.
That’s a feature for the end customer, not a bug. I honestly think it’s the biggest reason Toyota is so anti-EV. It’s a lot easier to make a reliable EV than an ICE car.
Yep, very much so. I intended it as such! (Expanded version: "Nor will there be much demand for people servicing the electric motors in after sales").
My first service after getting an EV was for tyre rotation, an air cabin filter and retrofitting a Pedestrian Warning System that wasn't available in Australia when I bought the car - 15 months into the ownership! Sure the cars are more expensive up front, but you're saving a bucket down the line. (I intend to have mine for 15 years or so.)
Toyota is actively blocking moves to improve fuel quality standards in Australia, as an honourable mention (for the hall of shame). I'm absolutely disgusted by their behaviour.
I'm guessing it's mostly people with deep specialization (and interest) in combustion drive trains (e.g., engineers). I don't think it's feasible to take a combustion drive train engineer with a decade of experience and make them reasonably productive as a battery engineer in a short timeframe. No doubt many of those engineers are capable of making the pivot, but most are likely not particularly interested.
> Ford has previously said it is also hiring in some areas, so it’s not clear if these layoffs will result in an overall reduction in Ford’s workforce in the United States or Canada.
This might mean that they are eliminating positions, but are possibly filling new ones with the laid off employees where appropriate.
Sometimes, I wish headlines would be a bit more specific.
"Workers" to me implies assembly line workers, whereas the actual layoffs are mostly engineers. I have never really heard anyone call engineers, "Workers"...
I was speaking with the owner of an auto shop a few months back and he made an interesting point I hadn’t heard re Ford: whereas Tesla is eating new customers, Ford and other legacy automakers are having to eat their own customers…which can lead to some serious business complexity!
Yep, and there is always a business case for trying to suppress/ignore the new technology and stick with what you know and what has been profitable for many years. This is how once mighty businesses fail. Look at Sears, who was Amazon before anybody knew what the Internet was, but then the Internet appeared and they couldn't move on because they had invested too much in their old business model. Moving a catalog mail order business online should be an incredibly easy transition, but decade after decade they dawdled until it was too late because it would have hurt the stores and the quarterly profits.
It's interesting that while other companies are doubling down on electric vehicles, Toyota has come out and said the opposite after being one of the first companies to start.
Toyota and Honda are both pushing more into electric cars these days. The main reason they are behind is that the Japanese government pushed hard to develop fuel cell cars and gave out big incentives for companies to put fuel cell vehicles on the road. This big push is why Honda and Toyota both have fuel cell options for customers to use on the road today, but they are both pretty behind on battery electric vehicles.
To be fair the Toyota CEO was also actively hostile to BEVs, sparing no opportunity to belittle them. But yeah, the years wasted on dead end fuel cell technology definitely hurt them.
Electric cars becoming dominant seems like an inevitability to me, and it looks like many auto makers agree. It’s “just” a matter of battery costs, battery density, energy costs, and volume.
What does Toyota see that we’re missing?
I ask this as someone who just bought an ICE vehicle, but only because there were no electric vehicles in my market segment.
I would have said that Japan was not great for solar but surprisingly (to me) they have almost 20X more solar energy produced than wind.
Renewable sources of electricity would seem to be solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, and nuclear. According to https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/japan-can-achieve-90... 24% of their energy is renewable today and they're planning on significantly boosting nuclear.
76% of their energy comes from gas and oil from other countries. Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers seemed to focus on their domestic market, meaning hybrids or ICE vehicles instead of EVs. Electric vehicles are becoming drastically more popular in the US and Europe.
Toyota talks about how the battery requirements of 1 EV could be used for a dozen hybrids. And they're right. But it's also besides the point.
As someone who isn't sold on EVs (as they exist today), I just don't how EVs will wind up being better economically. Energy costs will wind up going up as demand on the grid strains our infrastructure's ability to supply enough electricity as most folks switches over to EVs. Worse, costs for all electricity (home, industry, etc) will go up as demand surges. My ICE vehicle won't lose range like an EV's will over time. Nor, will it need an expensive battery to be replaced.
From a practical perspective, I can store 100+ miles of range in a $30 plastic container that I can store in the yard. If there's an extended power outage and I have an EV - I have to wait for the grid to come back up in order to drive my EV. Backup home batteries are still very expensive. Even at half their current prices they're prohibitive (compared to say an emergency gas generator).
Will these problems be solved? Probably, just not in the next few years. My wife just got a new car and we chose an ICE. I will probably replace my 2016 ICE vehicle in the next 5-10 years and I think I'll wind up with another ICE.
Will still be cheaper then gas. Total cost of living will still be less.
> Nor, will it need an expensive battery to be replaced.
Overall live-cycle cost are already higher.
And many batteries can go for a very, very long time. Even if you reach the 80% mark, they can often continue after that. Many EV batters survive the car and then go on to do other stuff for a long time. And those were first generation packs.
> I can store 100+ miles of range in a $30 plastic container that I can store in the yard
> Energy costs will wind up going up as demand on the grid strains our infrastructure's ability to supply enough electricity as most folks switches over to EVs.
Be careful to not think inside a bubble. There are a LOT of cars on the road that are over 20 years old. ICE cars being bought today are going to be on the road 20+ years from now. It's going to be a long time before the majority of cars sold are electric, and even longer before most cars on the road are.
In that time, electric companies have plenty of time to ramp of electrical production.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the time most people will be charging is in the evening, when electricity usage is declining anyways. With time-of-use pricing, we could heavily incentivize charging to only occur in the dead of night when electricity usage is minimal.
The grid can handle it (Unless you're in Texas).
> Worse, costs for all electricity (home, industry, etc) will go up as demand surges.
Most people charging at home are using a 220 volt, 40-amp circuit, and charging at 32 amps. That's 7 kW. Most EV users will only need to charge for 0-3 hours/day. Overall, it doesn't represent a very large increase in electricity usage. Back when I was driving 300 miles/week, my car charging was only ~15% of my electric bill.
> My ICE vehicle won't lose range like an EV's will over time. Nor, will it need an expensive battery to be replaced.
Unless you bought one of those shitty first-gen Leafs with the sub-90-mile battery that didn't have cooling, battery degradation isn't a concern. Yes, it happens, but it's VERY slow. About 15% after 150,000 miles. If I've gone that far, I'm more likely to be interested in buying a new car than replacing just the battery.
Besides, isn't it common for ICE vehicles to lose fuel economy over time as some parts wear out?
> [...power outage...]
Yeah, there's a fair point about being able to store "range" in a can. But...meh. Not worried about it. In the over 20 years I've been driving, it's only been an issue once, and it was because I was stupid.
Is it even most ev owners that are on 240V? We’ve been on a normal 120V 15 amp the entire time we’ve had one, and it’s been fine, because it sits there for 14-16 hours most days. We actually have a Tesla wall charger just sitting on the ground, never installed, because we haven’t really needed it.
I haven't done any research on this, but I want to say yes.
120V 15 amp would not have been enough to maintain my 60-mile (round trip) commute when I got my Model 3. I'd leave home at around 9 AM, get home at around 7 PM. Giving me about 14 hours to charge. That 14 hours would only give ~45 miles of charge, less in the winter.
Likely a ploy to lay off more expensive older workers in favor of newer younger/cheaper ones. I can imagine them saying, "It has nothing to do with their age, we just need 'EV experience.'" Give me a break.
The idea that auto maker employees can't adapt to building EV's is pretty absurd. Interesting that upper management/execs are not being tossed out as well. You would assume they would be the group with the most outdated knowledge in a changing market. I know this did happen with Toyota, but you don't hear much with the likes of Ford. They seem as backwards as ever when it comes to selling cars.
I wouldn't say it's on purpose. Ford has always been a marginal (financially) automaker, and while the US gov is providing substantial support (>$10B) via battery and vehicle subsidies, it will be a painful transition based on the financials and balance sheet. Too much financial and institutional debt considering the swiftness at which they must transform. Tesla has a lot of room in their margin (and also generous subsidies due to US component content) to eat price reductions due to rising interest rates, Ford does not while also trying to retool their entire manufacturing supply chain.
TLDR Efficient, nimble innovators can kick the can, laggard incumbents cannot.
Ford Credit (loans to purchasers of their vehicles) is on Ford's balance sheet while the others had to spin off those businesses in '08. So the debt situation is a bit misleading if you just compare the top level numbers to industry peers.
Ford Credit is what sells Ford vehicles, but it’s also where the profit is (roughly half of profits). Take away the credit biz, and that’s a material impact to both profits and volume.
As the below article notes, it’s a balance and pushing risk around.
Ford probably isn't selling you the vehicle for a loss, but you are contributing far less to the profit margin. In normal times dealers operate on fairly thin margins, which is why they're always looking for ways to extract extra cash from the customer. Financing is an amazing vehicle for this. But it's also why dealers are so interested in the window tint, undercoating, racing stripe, nitrogen filled tires, etc... add ons. Those are almost pure profit to the dealer and can account for the lion's share of what the dealer actually takes home.
I think that creating money always raises prices, so you're probably merely being screwed less, rather than being subsidized.
(I count loans as "creating money" because buyers look at how much X to buy based on how costly it is to borrow money. People are seeing this in the housing market now; when loans were 2.5%, sellers raised their price to fit the monthly payment budget. Now at 7%, it's harder to sell at those prices. If everyone had to pay cash for everything, everything would probably be cheaper, because money would be intrinsically more valuable.)
yes, but it was more circumstantial. by lucky happenstance they had arrange a significant loan facility almost directly before the financial crisis. they leveraged this heavily but because the financing had been arranged ahead of time it left them more sound. Ultimately, the other vehicle makers just got loans from the government post-hoc.
The Ford family are significant shareholders. The “No dividends” clause of the bailouts would have hit them hard. If they hadn’t timed it well with the pre-GFC loan, it’s likely they would have tried harder not to take the bailout regardless.
