Ford intends to sell electric cars exclusively online, without a dedicated showroom or sales partners

By copying another lesson from Tesla’s “manual”, Ford is trying to redefine its business strategy by focusing exclusively on the promotion and online sale of electric cars.

If successful, the plan could lead to significant savings for the automaker, which over time has dedicated a significant proportion of its financial resources to managing a vast network of fitness stores.

The news was given by Ford CE Jim Farley himself in a speech at an IBM conference. According to the new vision of the future, Ford dealerships will exist in very small numbers and only as locations for picking up vehicles ordered online. In other words, Ford will no longer keep inventory of vehicles at the dealership level, keeping only a general stock from which the cars will be delivered simply to the points where they are picked up by customers who have already ordered them on the online platform. Thus, the only vehicles physically available would be Ford test-drive cars, with buyers still having to order the model they want.

The recipe works very well for Tesla, with rival Ford only taking over the business model whose success has already been proven over time. But the head of Ford would like to take things further, introducing a system in which buyers will be able to negotiate / bid for the coveted car, choosing a reasonable offer, until unexpectedly good:

“We have to go at a bargain price,” Farley said. Of course, he used his speech to throw a few blows at the competitors. “I think Mach-E and Lightning customers would love to have a Mustang on the weekend. Maybe they want a Super Duty. I can do that, Farley said, they can’t.

The company has announced that it intends to become the world’s largest EV carmaker this year, hoping to beat Tesla and other companies with strong electric vehicle brands such as BMW, Nissan and Kia. Farley said Ford aims to have the capacity to produce 600,000 electric vehicles by 2023, a far smaller figure than the 936,000 deliveries Tesla made last year.

The CEO said he believes that prices for electric vehicles will drop to an average of $ 25,000 as the cost of batteries and distribution becomes cheaper.