http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1097512_you-shouldnt-want-to-buy-a-kia-soul-ev-says-kia-dealer You Shouldn't Want To Buy A Kia Soul EV, Says Kia Dealer By John Voelcker Mar 30, 2015 ht2 Cody Osborne, Matthew Moreno
[images http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2015-kia-soul-ev_100489684_l.jpg 2015 Kia Soul EV First Drive - Portland - November 2014 http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2015-kia-soul-ev_100489669_l.jpg http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2015-kia-soul-ev-and-2014-nissan-leaf-at-blink-dc-fast-charger--fife-wa_100493778_l.jpg http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/dc-fast-charging-2015-kia-soul-ev_100493783_l.jpg DC fast charging 2015 Kia Soul EV ] It's often said that one of the bigger impediments to sales of electric cars is car dealerships. Among plug-in car shoppers, stories abound of salespeople who know little or nothing about electric vehicles, misrepresent their abilities, and aggressively steer shoppers away from them toward gasoline alternatives. Rarely, however, is this kind of behavior documented for the world to see. Which leads us to the case of the buyer who contacted Kia of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, to ask about the Kia Soul EV. As covered last week by InsideEVs, an Internet sales manager at the dealership, Phil Curtin, responded with a remarkable letter explaining why the buyer shouldn't be interested in the Soul EV--or indeed in any electric car. Curtin wrote, Thank you for your interest in the Soul EV. Are you interested because you think an EV will save you money, or because you believe it will be good for the environment? Because realistically, it will do neither. The Carbon footprint of making the electric battery is equivalent to driving the gas powered luxury Soul for 5 years, and the extra 8-10000 $ you will pay for an EV, would pay for gas in a 2.0 l GDI four cylinder for 7 years. So again, whatever your buying motivation, savings or environment, at this point in time, the EV is a social / political statement and is good neither for your pocketbook, nor the environment. The startled buyer posted the letter online, and a small firestorm ensued. In due course, that led to a sort-of-apology from Jason Wong, saying Curtin's e-mail was "not a good sounding tone" [sic]. Wong then reiterated the point that a conventional Soul tops out at roughly C$30,000, while the Soul EV is priced at C$40,000. He did note, however, that the provincial government had just reinstated its Clean Energy Vehicle incentive program (which will take effect April 1). The Kia Soul EV will then be eligible for a point-of-purchase rebate of up to C$5,000 (US $4,000). Wong then criticized electric cars, using talking points about environmental issues--nickel mining and the fuel burned by ships carrying cars from other countries. Then his note effectively shrugs, saying, "There is no point getting into this as it boils down to perspective with strong points on both ends." He went on to say Unfortunately, the tone of my salesman was very very poor. The exact same thing could have been said in a much more appropriate manner with less of a tone of “you shouldn’t buy an EV because blah blah blah blah”. And he ends by noting that Kia of Vancouver is not authorized to sell the Soul EV in the first place. In other words, rather than pointing the buyer to another Kia dealer that carried the Soul EV, Curtin deprecated the buyer's reasons for wanting one, selectively chose a few facts to use in talking down the car, and sneered at electric cars as a "social/political statement" rather than practical transportation. And then his sales manager did pretty much the same thing, in the guise of an apology. And dealerships wonder why the data shows most buyers dislike and feel taken advantage of during the car-buying experience? While their lobbyists work to make any other alternatives (direct online sales) illegal? [© 2015 Green Car Reports] ... http://insideevs.com/kia-dealer-lies-anti-sell-soul-ev-dealership-manager-writes-apology-letter/ Kia Dealer Anti-Sells Soul EV, Bad Mouths Product – Manager Writes “Apology” Letter ... http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1090281_many-car-dealers-dont-want-to-sell-electric-cars-heres-why Many Car Dealers Don't Want To Sell Electric Cars: Here's Why ... http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1094991_electric-car-buyers-slam-dealer-experience-dealers-dont-like-em-either Electric Car Buyers Slam Dealer Experience; Dealers Don't Like 'Em Either https://transportevolved.com/2015/03/30/a-few-bad-eggs-or-a-continuing-epidemic-how-some-dealerships-still-cant-or-wont-sell-electric-cars/ A Few Bad Eggs or a Continuing Epidemic: How Some Dealerships Still Can’t (or Won’t) Sell Electric Cars March 30, 2015 By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield [images https://d290b3p3ki7y5s.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IMG_3279-580x386.jpg?dc6b84 Tesla stores: the way electric cars should be sold? https://d290b3p3ki7y5s.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kia-soul-ev-charging-580x386.jpg?dc6b84 One Canadian customer was told by email not to bother with a Kia Soul EV by a salesman https://d290b3p3ki7y5s.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/paul-scott-dealership-580x241.png?dc6b84 Of course, not all car sales people are bad. EV advocate and former LEAF salesman Paul Scott was praised for his sales and service before he retired. ] Think back four years, and the majority of car dealerships around the world had little or no interest in electric, plug-in hybrid, or even hybrid vehicles. Walk into a dealership back then to try and buy a greener car, and you’d be more likely to find yourself being upsold on a larger, less efficient model with a roaring V8 than you would be finding a dealer who really wanted to help you on your quest to use less oil. Thankfully, a lot has changed in the past four years, with a far larger choice of hybrid and plug-in cars to choose from and more and more dealerships embracing environmentally-conscious vehicles. And to be fair, some must be doing a good job, with more than 115,800 plug-in vehicles sold in the U.S. alone last year. But if we were writing the plug-in sales report card for the auto dealer industry right now, two recent stories that have come to our attention mean that we’d be writing “Must try harder” right about now. Despite rising sales and a market share that’s expanding far quicker than the hybrid market of the early noughties, it seems some auto dealers still can’t bring themselves to sell you a plug-in car. Or rather, they won’t. Tesla:light. Chevy: night. Our first story comes from Brooke Crothers, a contributor with Forbes, who recently took a trip with his father to two dealerships in the town of Devon, PA. One, a combined Tesla store and service centre. The other, a Chevy dealership. Interested to see what the two sales experiences would be like, he visited one after another with his father to compare and contrast the two. The difference was like night and day. [image] Are dealerships switched on to selling electric cars, or still reluctant and misinformed? “Tesla offers a glimpse of the future while the Chevy dealer is more like a drive down memory lane,” he wrote. As our friends at GreenCarReports note, Crothers’ original article is required reading, but we’ll paraphrase it for you here. The Tesla store — dedicated not only to selling the world’s fastest production electric sedan but also to revolutionise the car buying experience — was clean, tidy, and airy. The epitome of Tesla’s sales experience, even the service area could have beaten a conventional auto dealer showroom. “I buttonholed a guy in service,” he wrote.”He sounded more like an engineer than a service guy. He described maintenance like he was fine tuning a corporate server, not a car.” The dealership for Chevy was completely different. As a volt owner himself, Crothers already knew plenty about the car, but arrived to find a Chevy dealer stocked to the brim with pickup trucks, a few sedans and a Corvette. With the pickup trucks front and centre and the Corvette serving as eye candy, a lone Chevy Volt was hidden out of sight in the corner of the lot, without any sales literature or even a show model within the showroom itself. While the salesman argued that the outgoing Volt isn’t getting any marketing right now thanks to the upcoming 2016 model year car, Crothers says this isn’t the first Chevy dealer he’s seen set up that way. To keep things fair however, we should note that Crothers points out his own Chevy dealership — one in Los Angeles, California — is the antithesis of his Pennsylvania experience. There, Volts adorn the lot and sales volumes are high. But his local dealership also happens to be one of the biggest Volt dealers in the U.S., so comparisons aren’t exactly fair. The passive aggressive letter But perhaps the most shocking sales practice we’ve seen to date comes from Phil Curtin, an Internet sales manager at a Canadian Kia dealership just north of the border in Vancouver, who — as InsideEVs explained last week — wrote a disparaging reply criticising a potential customer who had enquired about buying Kia’s all-electric Soul EV. The buyer, who had contacted the dealership specifically to ask about the Kia Soul EV, was told by Curtin that he shouldn’t be interested in the Soul EV or any other electric car, saying that the car was “good neither for your pocketbook, nor the environment.” Obviously, this particular sales person hadn’t heard of the age-old mantra of customer service which says the customer is always right. In fact, the email is so unbelievable that you can see it below. Thank you for your interest in the Soul EV. Are you interested because you think an EV will save you money, or because you believe it will be good for the environment? Because realistically, it will do neither. The Carbon footprint of making the electric battery is equivalent to driving the gas powered luxury Soul for 5 years, and the extra 8-10000 $ you will pay for an EV, would pay for gas in a 2.0 l GDI four cylinder for 7 years. So again, whatever your buying motivation, savings or environment, at this point in time, the EV is a social / political statement and is good neither for your pocketbook, nor the environment. Best Regards, Phil Curtin Internet Sales Manager Kia of Vancouver After receiving the email, the prospective customer, rightly frustrated by the rude and inconsiderate response, posted his email on a popular EV-owners forum, where it received lots of attention and eventually caused the dealership to write the following half-hearted-apology. Hi, My name is Jason and I am one of the Sales Managers here at Kia Vancouver. That email your friend received is not a good sounding tone. I do apologize to your friend that such an email was sent in the first place. If you could pass this on, that would be great. There is some truth to the email though. A top of the line Kia Soul SX-L (gasoline powered) is about $30000, where as an EV soul will run north of $40000. However, the government just released an EV incentive as of today so it may help lower the cost to consumers to get into EV powered vehicles. It is debatable how “environmental friendly” EV cars really are. Nickel is mined by big diesel powered machinery to gather materials to build batteries. Cars are shipped around the world using big ships running on fossil fuels. However, there is no point getting into this as it boils down to perspective with strong points on both ends. The one thing I do like to ask potential EV customers myself is whether they believe that driving an EV will save them money in the long term. This is not true right now because the cost of an EV car compared to its gasoline counterpart is so much more expensive at the point of sale. Taking the Soul for example, a $10000 price difference does indeed buy you a lot of gas (e.g., $2000 per year on gas will get you 5 years of driving). Then we can take into consideration that gasoline cars are known and likely more reliable, regardless of the brand. However, when it boils down to buying a car. It should only be the buyer’s views that matter. We as sales people are only here to guide and give information. Unfortunately, the tone of my salesman was very very poor. The exact same thing could have been said in a much more appropriate manner with less of a tone of “you shouldn’t buy an EV because blah blah blah blah”. Lastly, we do not carry EV souls. Only two dealers in BC have the privilege of selling them. If you have any more general questions for me George, you may email or call me anytime. Send my apologies to your friend as well. Best Regards, Jason Wong Pre-Owned & Internet Sales Manager The arguments made by Mr. Wong are ones we’ve heard before, usually from hardened gear heads than salespeople. But when they come from a dealership that represents a brand which is just about to expand its sales presence — albeit in a different country — we’re not sure quite what to say. So, we’ll open it up to the floor. Are these just two (thankfully) rare occasions where poor sales advice and dealer apathy contrast a mainstream of more thoughtful, engaged plug-in sales staff? Or is this yet more proof of a massive, endemic problem that illustrates the biggest barrier to plug-in car sales isn’t the buyers but the salespeople? [© transportevolved.com] ... http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=subject%3Aevln+subject%3Asoul+NOT+subject%3Are&days=0&sort=date Read more Soul EVLN items on evdl For EVLN posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=subject%3Aevln+NOT+subject%3Are&days=0&sort=date http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/can-you-really-afford-to-buy-an-electric-car-1.3011212 Can you really afford to not B.C. incentive buy an electric car? ... https://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/29/ev-purchase-rebates-returning-british-columbia/ Huge Electric Car Purchase Rebates Returning To British-Columbia.ca http://www.thestar.com/autos/2015/03/27/bc-brings-back-car-scrap-program.html B.C.ca brings back SCRAPIT ice-4-EV program http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/stars-fashion-designer-knocked-cyclist-off-bike-after-he-kicked-her-audi-tt-10145932.html Lamis Khamis @10mph deliberately ice-hit e-cyclist that made £300 dent http://www.chrisd.ca/2015/03/25/red-river-college-unveils-provinces-first-rapid-charger-for-electric-vehicles/ rrc.mb.ca Red River College's L3 EVSE is Manitoba’s 1st http://www.thecarillon.com/provincial/getting-a-charge-out-of-research-297619171.html + EVLN: 2015 Kia Soul EV> The nearly perfect Electric Vehicle {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Kia-Dealer-ca-Sez-You-Don-t-Want-To-Buy-A-Kia-Soul-EV-tp4674732.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
