Ford dealers secured a big win at a conference this week. Dealerships that don’t want to make the investments required to sell EVs won’t be forced to make them, as long as they’re alright with only selling internal combustion vehicles.
Ford previously outlined plans to update dealerships for EV sales. Now, though, a compromise has been struck that will allow rural dealers and others who don’t believe they will sell many EVs in the coming years to opt out of selling them altogether, Automotive News reports.
That could save them up to seven figures in renovations. For dealers who do want to sell EVs, there will be two options. Model e Certified dealers will need to invest $500,000 into their locations, most of which will go towards installing a public-facing fast charger.
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They will, however, be limited to selling no more than 25 EVs per year and won’t be allowed to carry any inventory or have demo vehicles. In order to sell more and have EVs on the lot, dealers will have to spend a lot more.
Model e Certified Elite dealerships will have to install two fast charging stations, one of which will be public-facing. They will also have to install a third fast charger by 2026, all of which is likely to cost around $1.2 million.
Dealers who don’t want to spend any money, though, will be allowed to continue selling ICE vehicles. All dealers will be asked to decide what level of investment they want to make by October 31 of this year. They will have another chance to update their dealerships in 2027.
Chevrolet also announced that it will not force its dealers to sell EVs, unlike other GM brands, like Buick and Cadillac. Unlike GM, though, Ford is priding itself on its continued investment in internal combustion engines, even as it invests in EVs.
“With everybody else I look at, it’s a trade-off,” Tim Hovik, chairman of Ford’s National Dealer Council, told reporters in Las Vegas. “If you’re going to build more of one, you’ll build less of the other. To my knowledge, we’re the only company that’s come out in a position to grow our ICE engines as well as our BEVs at the same time.”
Indeed, the company recently unveiled the new 2024 Mustang, which features a V8 engine and a manual transmission, as this decision was being reached.
“People are leaving the segment, like Dodge, so we have a chance to really present something new about Mustang, and we want to do that at the start; we don’t want to roll it out over time,” said Ford CEO Jim Farley. “We’re going to keep investing, keep our ICE products really exciting.”
