Live Wire: What's Your Worst Experience With A Car Dealer And An EV?

Contrary to what many are saying, electric vehicle sales are rising steadily in the United States. They just still have a long way to go until they reach critical mass. The transition to electric mobility may be happening more slowly than many of us would like, but it’s certainly happening.

But one known barrier to this has been America’s network of car dealers. What happens when dealership employees have no EV knowledge or simply don’t care for electric cars? It’s been a persistent problem the past few years, and now it’s becoming a bigger headache than many automakers want.

(Welcome back to Live Wire, a new feature where we draw on the knowledge and opinions of the InsideEVs reader community. Keep it smart and keep it civil in the comments.)

In some cases, car dealership employees are obstructing EV shoppers rather than helping them. The Washington Post recently ran a story on this phenomenon, and it describes an experience you may have had too:

As news started coming out about electric cars in early 2016, Michael Young, a self-described “car guy,” knew he wanted to try one. One afternoon, he strolled into his local dealership and asked to test drive the BMW i3, a small, sporty car with a range of up to 150 miles. The salesperson stopped him. “You can’t drive that car on the highway,” Young recalls the salesperson saying, explaining that the car couldn’t go over 45 miles per hour.

Obviously, the customer knew that the BMW i3 could go faster than 45 mph – heck, someone even took one to the Nürburgring – but that’s not the point here. Imagine how many potential buyers who didn’t know anything about electric cars that particular salesperson had turned away with the same ridiculous and false line.

As perplexing as that may sound, it’s a true story, and there are many more like this, unfortunately. This got us thinking: do you have any similar dealership horror stories to tell? Did your sales rep ever try to discourage you from buying an EV? We bet you have tons of stories to tell about your experiences shopping for EVs at traditional car dealerships, so bring it on.

Tell us your EV dealership horror stories, and maybe we can push this business to do a little better.  

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