Other Good Stuff

Car companies aren’t even trying to sell electric cars

Published by

Head to a Ford dealership and ask about an F-150. You will be shown its features, invited on a test drive, and treated to a carefully practiced sales pitch detailing the truck’s strength, power and durability. Ask about an electric car, and you might have a very different experience.

Experts and advocates have consistently found dealers and manufacturers putting as little effort as possible into selling electric cars.

In 2016, the Sierra Club sent volunteers to more than 300 dealerships around the country to record their experience shopping for an electric vehicle.

The results were dismaying, to say the least. More than one in five Ford and Chevy dealers had failed to charge an EV so it could be taken for a test drive.

Only around half of salespeople explained how to fuel a plug-in vehicle, and only a third discussed the tax credits available to buyers.

“The dealership had no idea about the state and federal tax credits,” said a volunteer in California. “They said it was the policy of the company to not talk about tax incentives because they were not tax experts.”

Read the full story on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle-dedicated site, The Driven…

 

 

 

Share
Published by

Recent Posts

New renewables and batteries improve grid reliability outlook, but more needs to get built on time, AEMO says

Immediate threat to the reliability of Australia's main grid has been pushed back into the…

25 August 2026

Post-2030 contract design for new renewables takes shape as working group agrees on firming price caps

Work advances on the design for key post -2030 contracts for new renewables and firming…

24 August 2026

Hefty network fees discussed as state government reveals massive scale of data centre grid connection demands

Some of the date centre proposals being discussed for NSW are among the largest in…

24 August 2026

“A Trojan horse for communism!” More big batteries head for review as familiar long distance objectors pile in again

Two more big batteries head for independent review as familiar long distance objectors file the…

24 August 2026

Linking electricity and safeguards could make wind projects viable, and oblige gentailers to actually Do Something

Linking the electricity grid with the safeguards mechanism would send clear price signal for wind…

24 August 2026

Australia’s biggest data centre to require 4 substations, 2 power lines, some batteries and 4 days of diesel backup

The massive 800 MW data centre will need city-scale electrical infrastructure, and will install enough…

24 August 2026