lancelott

You have it mostly right… except Tesla.

You can’t lump in Tesla because they have price transparency. It’s the beauty of direct-to-consumer (and the point reminding us franchise dealers suck).

Tesla, Rivian, Lucid – you order online. The price is the price. Everyone buying the car today is paying the same base price, the same for options, etc.

Ford, Hyndai and a few others are TRYING to do something similar – but they can’t quite do it. Because they can’t control the dealers being shady last minute. You can go to Ford and "configure" the car any way you want, but at the time to click buy you need to select a local dealer and you can bet your ‘you-know-what’ they will AT A MINIMUM try to sell you a bunch of crap, and most likely simply force in a few "dealer equipped" things you cannot take out.

Yea… I mean, Pokemon Go worked also because it actually sorta fits with the general beat of the classic games: exploring the world collecting Pokemon and challenging others at gyms.

It wasn’t THAT much of a stretch, all things considered, to turn that into a gameplay loop for an AR game.

All these other attempts like Harry Potter/Walking Dead/Etc. miss the point. The whole thing doesn’t really vibe with the source material much. It feels so cash-grabby and forced.

Meh… TrueCar, which I ALWAYS use before walking to a dealer, has lost appeal too. The problem is simple: it doesn’t even guarantee best prices anymore.

My last two non-Tesla car purchases (Hyundai/Nissan) I ended up finding better prices by myself on a dealer that does not participate on TrueCar than the best "guaranteed price" TrueCar found me.

So that defeats the alleged value of TC… you actually still don’t know FOR SURE if you are getting a good price. That’s why everyone leaves dealers pissed off (unless you are clueless) because the lack of price transparency always makes it hard to know "Did I really, really get a good price?"

Also… one time years ago where the dealer "honored" the TC price, it wasn’t without a small fight. Sure, you can walk away but that’s true of any negotiation.

I know I am in the minority as a relatively savvy car person whose brother worked at a dealership for a decade – so I know the tricks well. But trust me, that little "certificate" is not getting you the best price. It may avoid negotiating because you are right, dealers respond to these buyers with their "Internet Sales Department" which is often a quicker process, but that’s because they already screwed you.

Nah, already spent all my money on that totally useful "nitro" for the tires and the absolutely vital door etching that will TOTALLY make recovering my stolen car easier…

Re: Avenger: I actually like the look… for what I think this will target (their entry-point), it looks nice to me!

Good for you…

But this is a pretty unique use case. No one will make that warranty plus most people don’t tend to keep cars that long! Also, a 30 year old car is missing so many convenience, safety and efficiency features that battery would be the least of my worries.

Same. I had the absolute worst experience with Ford dealers and I was looking in a metro area with options… Still terrible. And the story is almost always the same.

Dealers simply suck.

I don’t know if there’s data for this, but I would bet hard cash that at least some of the reasons people buy Tesla’s is the transparency/ease of purchase.

Yea that’s wishful thinking. The only legacy manufacturer who has HINTED – not even formally plan, but just suggest – to phase them out eventually (or at least, phase them out if they don’t play along) is Ford.

Then there’s the recent comments from Buick to "buy out" dealers that don’t play along nicely with EV’s but I don’t think it’s under the pretense of replacing franchise-dealers for the time being.

And like always, dealers will make the experience of actually buying one terrible.

I agree with the first part for sure. I was thinking the same thing… how many people will buy this simply because it can be a "fashion statement". Heck, I don’t need it and won’t buy it but I definitely like it. The chunky, larger size actually looks kind of nice.

On the second part, I disagree. No way this replaces the iPhone as the "focal point". In any event where the iPhone is featured, it will be the main attraction. Period. The market for these wearables, while nice, is relatively minuscule in the grand scheme. Apple knows that. It’s been 8 years of Apple Watches and they are what they are.

Imagine if people in real time could start disliking the video and new viewers would see the high dislike count and feel suspect about it… But, oh well…

Came to ask the same… No way.

Right?

Riiight?

"Cavalier attitude of the typical iMessage user…"

Do you guys even listen to yourselves? People need better hobbies to keep them from being so preoccupied with such inconsequential things.

Dude… this is the most monumentally "first-world" problem of the past couple of years. It’s wholly an American issue (rest of the world uses platform agnostic apps), it’s petty and it pits [fans of giant corporation] vs [fans of different corporation] for an insanely inane and hyper-specific issue.

Just show your mom how to download any of the dozens of messaging apps, or better yet, share the videos via something better than a message (OneDrive, GoogleDrive, iCloud, etc).

Agree. These tables are useless by now. In fact, we have been there for a while I would say…

The Apple Watch is a product for a niche (relatively) market.

One day, super-connected internet hipsters will come around to understand this. For the average person, it’s either a fitness band or a smartwatch (duh) and both of those audiences are smaller than the phone market. As such, this can’t really be a next "big" thing. (it’s been like 8 years already anyways)

It’s also why my bet on the AR headset is that it will be an Apple Watch sized category at best. I could be wrong, but until these headsets are exactly the footprint of sunglasses/eyeglasses, people won’t buy them en masse.

That’s a myth thou – the idea that we need dealerships for mechanics. Farley mentioned that as the only piece to figure out if they leave the franchise model behind, but it’s certainly a problem that can be solved. A brand new company (Tesla) figured out how to have a nationwide network of mechanics so it’s not impossible.

This sarcasm? Because, while I am sure some nice people work in franchise dealers like anything else; they are overwhelmingly predatory, shady, unscrupulous cesspools that should not be around in this day and age.