The Dealership Experience
I tried to give non-Tesla electric vehicles a chance by going for test drives today. Long story short, the traditional dealership experience is so fucking outdated, clunky, slimy, and unnecessary.
First, I went to a Carmax to try the Ioniq 5 and Mach-E. They told me to sit in their “waiting room” (what is this, a doctor’s appointment? Just give me the ****** keys for the test drive). I waited 30 minutes….no salesperson, no nothing….so I just walked out.
Then, I went to a bmw dealership to test drive a bmw i4. This might have been the most horrid dealership experience of my life. First, the salesperson insisted on me coming on the drive with me (I don’t need to hear your sales pitch or have you breathing down my neck the whole time; have you heard of this company called Tesla that lets you go on hour-long self-service test drives), he proceeded to rattle off at least three inaccurate statements about the car during the drive, with it being maybe a 10-minute drive as the car was at 11% charge.
After the drive, he asks me the classic, “so, what monthly payment would work for you?”, and when I tell him I’m still early in my car search and not deciding today, he completely disregards what I say and goes to run the numbers. At this point, I should’ve just walked out. He comes back with a price that is $20k over a brand-new Tesla Model 3 which I obviously am not even going to consider. After politely saying I’ll take some time to review the offer and get back to him, he says “what will it take you to go home happy this 4th of July weekend” like a fucking robot, obviously not picking up on the cues that I am not buying today.
He then proceeds to get his finance manager, who tries to lecture me on why it might be a great idea to just sign off on a lease today. This all probably took about 90 minutes of my time when I should’ve just walked out. I’m partly mad at myself for even going and also extremely disappointed that this dealership model still exists. Model 3 here I come.