I see a lot of this stuff on car forums - people griping about the dealers and how hard it is to get a good deal......so the alternative is you buy it from the mfr for whatever price they want to charge and THAT'S a good deal? Ford makes $15K on Exploders and big trucks, dealers are lucky if they can make a thousand - most people are convinced they should be able to buy the car for less than the dealer pays for it because the dealer gets all sorts of secret money from the mfr......this attitude is why you're paying $200/hr for service and all the add-ons in finance - they have to make it somewhere, to keep the doors open.
How would your dealership experience go if you just walked in, picked one out and paid sticker for it? Cause that's what you're talking about doing once the dealership model goes away....
I used to hear guys all the time talk about how they'll NEVER pay sticker for a car, to do so is just stupid etc, but that seems to be what you guys are advocating?
I worked in high line car dealerships most of my adult life, did everything from service thru sales and upper management - Porsche+Audi, Jaguar Range Rover, and finally Lexus. There were a few times where a customer came in and said this is what I'll pay for that car, take it or leave it, and if we took their deal they were extremely disappointed - like somehow they'd left money on the table. They would beat us down to the last penny, then go across the street and pay huge money for rims or stereos or phones.
And when there are no car dealerships, what will you do with your current car? Sell it on Craigslist? FB Marketplace? What's it worth to you to clean your car, fix all the crap someone will complain about so you can sell it and then finance it for them?
And you all will be going where for warranty work?
Tesla's model is OK for their market, but they don't sell to Joe Sixpack so he can go to work on Monday - and Joe still needs to buy a car and there are WAY more of him than there are Tesla buyers.
I don't think the dealerships are going away anytime soon, there are millions of people employed by car dealers, where will those people be working if the dealership goes away?