Dealerships in general are not fans of EV's. The lack of maintenance, repairs and servicing is a real concern for them. My friend tried to buy a MG EV here in Australia, the whole time the salesman tried to convince him that he should buy a hybrid.
For EV’s I feel the Tesla model of sales is a much better idea. I took the plunge a year ago and having bought all my vehicles through a dealer previously, it was an adjustment making the purchase solely online and the lack of any real person interaction. However not having to deal with all the mischievous nonsense that all my other dealership experiences was a great relief.
Bought two Teslas straight off of their website. No problems whatsoever. Had a few minor problems over the years. Mostly handled by courteous and efficient mobile mechanics who fixed the problem in our driveway. Could not be happier.
End of 2012 I was interested in buying a Fiat 500 with a 1.4 litre engine, at the time the Chrysler dealer had a showroom dedicated to Fiat but to do the actual transaction you had to go to the Chrysler dealer where the sales person was telling me such a small car wasn’t suitable for Canadian driving. Much like your electric experience. When I bought my LEAF the sales rep wasn’t particularly knowledgeable on EVs but very positive in that he said any of his customers that had bought one loved their car and wouldn’t be going back to gas powered cars.
I went out to buy a Petrol/Diesel Qashqai, the salesman was very helpful, as one would expect. I then noticed that they had a brand new LEAF in the showroom, (new to the UK). Plus an ex demo car. The salesman had driven the LEAF and liked it. I was given a full explanation and a test drive. After a second test drive with a family member the deal was signed for the ex-demo , a car was Part Exchanged, and we collected the EV a couple of days later. It seems that because the dealership was quite small the salesmen were better 'educated' . Maybe because they were on part salary/ part commission, not commission only as is common with some companies. Now , 11 years later, a couple of the salemen have LEAFs as their 'personal' company car, whilst one owns one as his family car.
That antenna blew me away! I bought a Mitsubishi 2023 phev last year and it looked like the functions in that remote are now in their app. My salesperson knew at least as much as I did and I had done a lot of research so I was happy with him. This year when I went to buy an EV all of the sales people I've encountered at the various dealerships are clueless. The "EV expert" was also clueless. I don't say this with any meanness or ill will, I actually took pleasure in educating them and hopefully they get to pass that knowledge on to other people. But it shocked me that in this day and age they had close to zero EV knowledge even though they were trying to sell them. I don't want to identify the brands or the dealerships bc I don't want to get anyone in trouble but that was my experience this past summer.
Good video. I searched out the Ford Mach-e in 2022. I wanted an EV, and was not happy with Tesla or any other make, except for the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Worked with the internet rep at the Ford dealer to pick out my Mach-e, did most of the work over the phone, then had to go in to sign the paperwork. At the dealership, they tried to nudge me towards a gas F-150. I had a Chevy Avalanche prior so wanted to stop paying $100 per week on fuel. They did tell me that I would receive free oil changes for life. 35,000 miles and haven't had one oil change.
I know I changed the gear oil on my 2011 leaf after purchase. Should probably be done every 100,000 miles or so. Was not able to find in quick searching if the Mach-e has similar oil. Came across what appeared to be an auto-generated Ford dealer website trying to sell Mach-E oil filters. "The engine oil in your Ford Mustang Mach-E contains metal shavings, soot, sediment, particles, and an assortment of other contaminants." WTF? No it doesn't! Metal shavings yes, but not soot, sediment, particles.
@@jamesphillips2285 Yes there Is fluids to change. Ford says to change it every 10 years or 150k miles and coolant every 200k miles. That is far less often than the 3,000 mile interval for ICE cars.
Yes the chevy dealers that I bought my Bolt and Equinox EV were not knowledgeable about electric vehicles. The difference between my 2022 Bolt and my 2024 Equinox EV was they were more motivated to sell me an EV in 2024 but still didn't know much.
I did over a year of online research before purchasing my first EV earlier this year. The dealership experience was not too bad, but I definitely knew way more about it than the salesperson. However, he seemed to enjoy learning about it from me 😂.
My Volt was picked up a different day than I bought it because I saw it online, test drove it, and bought it before they had had a chance to do the full cleanup for display on the lot. It had newer tires and was cleaner but wasn’t charged at all when I picked it up. Would’ve cost them $1.
As soon as you mentioned "dealership” I knew what the source of the problem was. It’s the main reason I won’t buy from anyone other than Tesla or Rivian.
I bought a Hyundai Kona EV. First dealer I went to I hated teh pushy sales guy, but he let me sit in a gas Kona so I could at least get a feel for it (this was in 2023) and he showed me (but did not let em sit in) the brand new Ioniq5, including its remote self parking. I ended up buying from a further away dealer - they had one ev specialist. he had taken some of the EVs home to live with them so he knew more, and he was really talkative on the (short) test drive we took. But obviously by then (January 2024), Hyundai had the Ioniq 5 and 6. They seemed pretty comfortable. There was a charger out front, signs to the charger from the road, and they had it at 100% when i picked it up.
Indeed, the first few years that electric cars were sold, dealers were not interested in selling them (emissions quotas did not yet exist) and most of the sellers did not have the necessary knowledge. My experience in 2014 with a Nissan Leaf was very similar to yours, i live in Spain. Regards.
We purchased a Kia Niro about 3 years ago. We found one of the salesmen at our dealership here in Roseville, California to be quite knowledgeable about the car and anxious to sell it. We have reasonable priced public power here and will almost always see one or more Teslas at a large intersection.
I've had both extremes, my first EV was a Ford Focus EV and the dealer was super excited about it and thought it was cool. When the lease ended on it, I went to check out the Bolt and the sales people spent the whole time doing what you said, trying to talk me out of it and steer me towards a gas car. I ended up leaving and buying a BMW i3 used instead (awesome car)
Even the service departments don't know how an EV works. Brought our Ioniq 5 in for the BMS update to enable battery preconditioning and the service writer kept saying...how you not know you air conditioning not working ? It's cold out it won't even run when it's below 60...Air conditioning comes on only when it's hot weather.... Had no idea what battery conditioning was even though there were several TSBs about the update. He didn't believe me and just put on the RO 'customer says battery conditioner not working says he wants it updated' Luckily the tech figured it out and updated the BMS to the correct version. The 2022 did not have it enabled when it was first sold it took a year before they released the updated software to make it work.
I had a good experience with my first EV, an EV9, about eight months ago. But my salesman, a buddy of mine, drives an EV6. That helped his knowledge base. This was in 2013, what did you really expect? There weren't many out there and it was a completely different world in every aspect of the EV community.
Back in 2015 I was shopping for a used Chevy Volt, dealerships that had them knew nothing about them. One dealership, a Chevy dealership, couldn’t let me test drive the one they had because they couldn’t figure out how to start it 😂🤣 😳
Similar experience here... was at the VW dealer getting an oil change on my gas car and talked to a sales person about their new bus coming... he didn't think it was going to sell well... then when i was asking about the id.4 he said they dont sell many and suggested I look at a gas car... Spring 2024 in Ontario Canada.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I would suggest putting some sound adsorption panels (or curtains) in the room for better sound. Any experience of ordering batteries from China and swapping them into old Leaf?
Thank you for the comment and the feedback about the acoustics. Will definitely make improvements for next time. I haven’t done any Leaf battery swaps. At least, not yet!
I have a story. When i bought the 2022 Chevy Bolt brand new i drove it home and tried to charge it but it wouldn't. The house had 1940 wiring which is two prong outlets with no ground. The 2022 evse checks for ground and if it can't find it no charge. So i have a car i can't charge. Shouldn't the dealer have talked with me about things like this.
@ziploc2000 Lol I had it rewired. We just took possession of it by the way. Considerate people would find out more before opening their uneducated mouth.
@@vinsonhelton7141 So if you had it rewired, what was the problem preventing you from charging your car? Seems like the 1940s wiring and lack of an ground wire was no longer the problem if the house was already rewired.
@ziploc2000 We moved to this house and were only here for a couple weeks when we bought the Bolt. I had talked to a few local electricians about quotes and finally found one but he took about a month after I chose him to come out because of other jobs he had to finish. The house didn't even have a service panel. It had numerous separate single disconnects. I've never seen anything like it. It was my wife's grandmother's house. We took possession after she passed.
I suspect the dealer wouldn't have had a clue. Incidentally.... The Type 1 charger for my Kia Nero will also check for proper wiring of the outlet. It wouldn't work with one of my outlets. I checked it and found that the hot and neutral were reversed.
Luckily I live in an area with many options for each manufacturer. The second they try to sell me something other than what I came in for, or clearly didn't bother learning anything about their product I leave and go elsewhere. I'm fine with not knowing EVERYTHING but jeez at least try to have a reasonable amount of knowledge.
Dealerships in general are not fans of EV's. The lack of maintenance, repairs and servicing is a real concern for them. My friend tried to buy a MG EV here in Australia, the whole time the salesman tried to convince him that he should buy a hybrid.
Major change is coming to the car market. Some people find major change difficult to handle......
@@Brian-om2hh I couldn't agree more.
For EV’s I feel the Tesla model of sales is a much better idea. I took the plunge a year ago and having bought all my vehicles through a dealer previously, it was an adjustment making the purchase solely online and the lack of any real person interaction. However not having to deal with all the mischievous nonsense that all my other dealership experiences was a great relief.
Bought two Teslas straight off of their website. No problems whatsoever. Had a few minor problems over the years. Mostly handled by courteous and efficient mobile mechanics who fixed the problem in our driveway. Could not be happier.
End of 2012 I was interested in buying a Fiat 500 with a 1.4 litre engine, at the time the Chrysler dealer had a showroom dedicated to Fiat but to do the actual transaction you had to go to the Chrysler dealer where the sales person was telling me such a small car wasn’t suitable for Canadian driving. Much like your electric experience.
When I bought my LEAF the sales rep wasn’t particularly knowledgeable on EVs but very positive in that he said any of his customers that had bought one loved their car and wouldn’t be going back to gas powered cars.
I was so excited by the Fiat 500, ended up with a Fiat 500e when they had cheap off Leaf lease deals, really love that car
I went out to buy a Petrol/Diesel Qashqai, the salesman was very helpful, as one would expect. I then noticed that they had a brand new LEAF in the showroom, (new to the UK). Plus an ex demo car. The salesman had driven the LEAF and liked it. I was given a full explanation and a test drive. After a second test drive with a family member the deal was signed for the ex-demo , a car was Part Exchanged, and we collected the EV a couple of days later.
It seems that because the dealership was quite small the salesmen were better 'educated' . Maybe because they were on part salary/ part commission, not commission only as is common with some companies.
Now , 11 years later, a couple of the salemen have LEAFs as their 'personal' company car, whilst one owns one as his family car.
That antenna blew me away! I bought a Mitsubishi 2023 phev last year and it looked like the functions in that remote are now in their app. My salesperson knew at least as much as I did and I had done a lot of research so I was happy with him. This year when I went to buy an EV all of the sales people I've encountered at the various dealerships are clueless. The "EV expert" was also clueless. I don't say this with any meanness or ill will, I actually took pleasure in educating them and hopefully they get to pass that knowledge on to other people. But it shocked me that in this day and age they had close to zero EV knowledge even though they were trying to sell them. I don't want to identify the brands or the dealerships bc I don't want to get anyone in trouble but that was my experience this past summer.
Good video. I searched out the Ford Mach-e in 2022. I wanted an EV, and was not happy with Tesla or any other make, except for the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Worked with the internet rep at the Ford dealer to pick out my Mach-e, did most of the work over the phone, then had to go in to sign the paperwork. At the dealership, they tried to nudge me towards a gas F-150. I had a Chevy Avalanche prior so wanted to stop paying $100 per week on fuel. They did tell me that I would receive free oil changes for life. 35,000 miles and haven't had one oil change.
I know I changed the gear oil on my 2011 leaf after purchase.
Should probably be done every 100,000 miles or so.
Was not able to find in quick searching if the Mach-e has similar oil.
Came across what appeared to be an auto-generated Ford dealer website trying to sell Mach-E oil filters.
"The engine oil in your Ford Mustang Mach-E contains metal shavings, soot, sediment, particles, and an assortment of other contaminants." WTF? No it doesn't!
Metal shavings yes, but not soot, sediment, particles.
@@jamesphillips2285 Yes there Is fluids to change. Ford says to change it every 10 years or 150k miles and coolant every 200k miles. That is far less often than the 3,000 mile interval for ICE cars.
@@KaiPonte My 2011 Leaf is due for it's first coolant replacement next year!
(200,000km or 15years, whichever comes first)
I bought a 2023 Volkswagen ID 4 from Lustine in Rockville, Md and the salesman knew everything about everything. A sweet experience.
Battlin' Burt Lustine!
Yes the chevy dealers that I bought my Bolt and Equinox EV were not knowledgeable about electric vehicles. The difference between my 2022 Bolt and my 2024 Equinox EV was they were more motivated to sell me an EV in 2024 but still didn't know much.
I did over a year of online research before purchasing my first EV earlier this year. The dealership experience was not too bad, but I definitely knew way more about it than the salesperson. However, he seemed to enjoy learning about it from me 😂.
My Volt was picked up a different day than I bought it because I saw it online, test drove it, and bought it before they had had a chance to do the full cleanup for display on the lot. It had newer tires and was cleaner but wasn’t charged at all when I picked it up. Would’ve cost them $1.
I'm happy to get no misinformation, I probably knew more about the bolt than any of the sales people
As soon as you mentioned "dealership” I knew what the source of the problem was. It’s the main reason I won’t buy from anyone other than Tesla or Rivian.
I bought a Hyundai Kona EV. First dealer I went to I hated teh pushy sales guy, but he let me sit in a gas Kona so I could at least get a feel for it (this was in 2023) and he showed me (but did not let em sit in) the brand new Ioniq5, including its remote self parking. I ended up buying from a further away dealer - they had one ev specialist. he had taken some of the EVs home to live with them so he knew more, and he was really talkative on the (short) test drive we took. But obviously by then (January 2024), Hyundai had the Ioniq 5 and 6. They seemed pretty comfortable. There was a charger out front, signs to the charger from the road, and they had it at 100% when i picked it up.
Indeed, the first few years that electric cars were sold, dealers were not interested in selling them (emissions quotas did not yet exist) and most of the sellers did not have the necessary knowledge. My experience in 2014 with a Nissan Leaf was very similar to yours, i live in Spain. Regards.
We purchased a Kia Niro about 3 years ago. We found one of the salesmen at our dealership here in Roseville, California to be quite knowledgeable about the car and anxious to sell it. We have reasonable priced public power here and will almost always see one or more Teslas at a large intersection.
I hate the dealership experience. Buying a gas powered vehicle was bad enough. I wouldn't want to rely on a salesman for info about anything.
Yes, dealerships are just learning how to deal with EVs. Bet'cha horse breeders had a hard time when decades ago folks asked about… a Model T.
I've had both extremes, my first EV was a Ford Focus EV and the dealer was super excited about it and thought it was cool. When the lease ended on it, I went to check out the Bolt and the sales people spent the whole time doing what you said, trying to talk me out of it and steer me towards a gas car. I ended up leaving and buying a BMW i3 used instead (awesome car)
Even the service departments don't know how an EV works. Brought our Ioniq 5 in for the BMS update to enable battery preconditioning and the service writer kept saying...how you not know you air conditioning not working ? It's cold out it won't even run when it's below 60...Air conditioning comes on only when it's hot weather.... Had no idea what battery conditioning was even though there were several TSBs about the update. He didn't believe me and just put on the RO 'customer says battery conditioner not working says he wants it updated' Luckily the tech figured it out and updated the BMS to the correct version. The 2022 did not have it enabled when it was first sold it took a year before they released the updated software to make it work.
*Opens the bonnet*
"Hey there's no engine in this!"
"So there isn't, you can have it for £10"
I had a good experience with my first EV, an EV9, about eight months ago. But my salesman, a buddy of mine, drives an EV6. That helped his knowledge base. This was in 2013, what did you really expect? There weren't many out there and it was a completely different world in every aspect of the EV community.
Back in 2015 I was shopping for a used Chevy Volt, dealerships that had them knew nothing about them. One dealership, a Chevy dealership, couldn’t let me test drive the one they had because they couldn’t figure out how to start it 😂🤣 😳
Similar experience here... was at the VW dealer getting an oil change on my gas car and talked to a sales person about their new bus coming... he didn't think it was going to sell well... then when i was asking about the id.4 he said they dont sell many and suggested I look at a gas car... Spring 2024 in Ontario Canada.
I had the same experience in Italy, now. Italy iso te cautry with less electric cars in europe....
Thank you for sharing your experience. I would suggest putting some sound adsorption panels (or curtains) in the room for better sound. Any experience of ordering batteries from China and swapping them into old Leaf?
Thank you for the comment and the feedback about the acoustics. Will definitely make improvements for next time. I haven’t done any Leaf battery swaps. At least, not yet!
I have a story. When i bought the 2022 Chevy Bolt brand new i drove it home and tried to charge it but it wouldn't. The house had 1940 wiring which is two prong outlets with no ground. The 2022 evse checks for ground and if it can't find it no charge. So i have a car i can't charge. Shouldn't the dealer have talked with me about things like this.
I guess not many people live in 80 year old houses, and most that do have had them rewired for safety.
@ziploc2000
Lol
I had it rewired. We just took possession of it by the way. Considerate people would find out more before opening their uneducated mouth.
@@vinsonhelton7141 So if you had it rewired, what was the problem preventing you from charging your car? Seems like the 1940s wiring and lack of an ground wire was no longer the problem if the house was already rewired.
@ziploc2000
We moved to this house and were only here for a couple weeks when we bought the Bolt. I had talked to a few local electricians about quotes and finally found one but he took about a month after I chose him to come out because of other jobs he had to finish. The house didn't even have a service panel. It had numerous separate single disconnects. I've never seen anything like it. It was my wife's grandmother's house. We took possession after she passed.
I suspect the dealer wouldn't have had a clue. Incidentally.... The Type 1 charger for my Kia Nero will also check for proper wiring of the outlet. It wouldn't work with one of my outlets. I checked it and found that the hot and neutral were reversed.
I dont think traditional dealers will adapt, they are a part of the old system. EV specialists, and on line sales will slowly replace them
Luckily I live in an area with many options for each manufacturer. The second they try to sell me something other than what I came in for, or clearly didn't bother learning anything about their product I leave and go elsewhere. I'm fine with not knowing EVERYTHING but jeez at least try to have a reasonable amount of knowledge.
Why would you even buy any ev from a clueless dealership?....I'd have left immediately for the nearest Tesla place
You should have asked if you could buy a gas car with 425hp that gets more than 120mpg. If not, then buy the EV that does. 😂
Hi The RCS EV, I love your content! I'm interested in discussing a potential collaboration. Could you let me know the best way to reach you? Thanks!😊