As Ford Authority reported earlier this week, The Blue Oval recently asked Ford dealers to pause any investments they were making as part of requirements revolving around the Model e Certified program, which was expected to be required for Ford dealers that wanted to sell all-electric vehicles moving forward. According to Andrew Frick, president of Ford Blue, this was done because the automaker was going to make changes to the program based on dealer feedback, and now, it has done precisely that.
“What we’re finding is more dealers want to be involved in it and we don’t want to be exclusive to just a handful, and so we’re making a change where we’re opening up that and not requiring as many certifications or investments for a dealer to participate in the EV revolution,” Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV programs and energy supply chain, said at the Leading Women Conference this week, hosted by Automotive News. “We’ll be more ubiquitous with our training and make sure essentially all of our dealers are equipped to sell them.”
Nothing will apparently be finalized until Ford meets with its dealer council in early June, but it seems as if the automaker is indeed poised to allow all Ford dealers to sell EVs moving forward, rather than reserve that privilege for stores that make significant investments in infrastructure and training. Additionally, Ford is expected to tweak the financial requirements for selling EVs, too.
The Model e Certified program has faced its fair share of opposition from the start, as well as multiple legal challenges that resulted in a win for dealers in New York last fall. Since then, Ford has continued to tweak the program, even amid strong interest, pushing back deadlines in the process. Ford has said that it will continue to make changes based on dealer feedback, with CEO Jim Farley attending the aforementioned meetings with dealers as well.
We’ll have more on the Ford Model e Certified program soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.
Comments
Sounds like a whole lot of headaches to sell EV’s at a $100k loss each.
Operators are standing by……………………………crickets
LOL!
Easier to just order a Tesla online than walk into Ford dealerships.
Jeff, you are wrong. I can buy a Mach-E in less than two hours. Tesla has no dealers so how can they ship a car in two hours?
My Ford dealer is selling every Mustang Mach-E and every F-150 Lightning they get. I see many of them on the streets here, including a blue Mach-E at a neighbor’s home. Ford is successful!
I don’t think they should be allowed to sell anything they can’t service. I drive 30 minutes out of my way to have tires rotated on my MachE because the dealership in my hometown doesn’t have the lift to perform the service.