Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

EDIT: Mods please change title thread to: Best Buy considering EV sales? - not sure why, might of copied wrong txt to paste lol

Best Buy considering EV sales?

According to Automotive News, Best Buy has its eyes on jumping into EV sales and service. The consumer electronics giant has been peddling Brammo electric motorcycles for years now and has recently parleyed that experience into garnering contracts to be a distributor and installer of EV chargers for the likes of the Ford Focus Electric and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Now the suits in charge apparently want to take the next step by offering full electric vehicles alongside Blu-Ray players and big-screen TVs.

The chain has over 1,000 stores that could effectively educate buyers on the products and service them should anything go awry. Right now, Best Buy is said to be in talks with a few EV startup companies, though the retailer hopes to expand those discussions to larger automakers, as well. The idea is that some dealers would rather outsource the hassle of instructing buyers on the intricacies of EV ownership rather than go through the trouble of educating their entire sales process on tasks such as pairing a smart phone.

Is this just another step in the inevitable march of the vehicle from transportation to appliance? Maybe, but it could also be a move toward a genuinely educated and capable sales staff that's invested in your comprehension of the product.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/05/09/b...ring-ev-sales/

spwolf

Only in PR's is Best Buy stuff educated.

It is considerably less paid than dealers, stuffed with younger people with higher turnover...

LexFather

I thought they said 50,000 or so Volts were gonna be sold...the math so far is really funny....

Also Nissan hasn't sold many Leaf's either.

Very confusing.

mmarshall

Many vehicles of this type are leased, rather than bought, because the charger and outlet/plug-in hardware are included either in the lease deal or for a small extra charge (no pun intended). The ill-fated electric GM Impact, for example, was available only as a lease, and then only in the warm, dry Southwestern states which wouldn't tax its cruising-range.

Even over and above that, though, I think, is that simple pricing, whether for a purchase or lease, is what is keeping a lot of buyers away. 41K (to start) for a Volt and 33K for a Leaf, even with Federal tax-credits and HOV-priviledges, is a lot of money to fork over for a compact or sub-compact car, even with a lot of technology. And then, of course, you have the inevitable dealer-greed/price mark-ups (the Volt I saw at the Chevy shop where I reviewed the Cruze was marked up $3500 over the factory-list). So, comparing the price of a Volt or Leaf with a lower-line Cruze, Aveo, Sentra, or Versa, you could buy the conventional-compact or subcompact instead and, for that price difference, buy a lot of gasoline for it, even at $4 a gallon. Chevy, in addition, is about to introduce another new small car.....the Spark, which will replace the unimpressive Aveo, and, of course, vastly undercut the Volt's pricing.

LexFather

If its leased it still counts as a sale. Again I'm trying to understand the disconnect between what was SAID was going to be sold vs what is actually being sold.

I understand they needed to ramp up production but this is not 6 months in....

rdgdawg

GE ordered 50K for its sales force.... part of the master plan... I predict GE will one day own GM.... you heard it here first...

spwolf

25k in 2011, 60k in 2012 and 130,000 in 2013...