The one thing that actually moved our aged EV units was changing who we were targeting rather than dropping price further. We stopped trying to convert ICE buyers who were skeptical and started going after people already in the EV consideration funnel who had been shopping for months and had not pulled the trigger. Targeted outreach to our own service customers who drive high mileage and pay a lot in fuel was more productive than blanket discounting. We also started being very explicit about total cost of ownership in the conversation rather than leading with sticker, which helped with buyers who were fixating on the transaction price without accounting for fuel and maintenance savings. It did not solve the inventory problem but it improved our close rate on EV conversations without giving away more margin.

What is not being said out loud in allocation conversations is that OEMs pushing units to dealers right now are managing their own production schedule economics rather than dealer sell-through capacity. Taking the allocation hit to your relationship score is painful but a dealer sitting on 180-day-old metal is in a worse position than one who pushed back six months ago and took the relationship friction then. The allocation pressure is not going to stop until the OEM's own cost of carrying unsold units at the factory level exceeds the cost of dealer conflict.

The floor question is the right one and the honest answer is that it is being set by used EV values, not by anything you control. New EV pricing cannot sustainably go below comparable used EV pricing once you factor in warranty and finance program advantages, so when used values stop falling the new market stabilizes too. The problem is used EV values are still declining. On the allocation pressure: the dealers I know who are in the best position right now are the ones who took the relationship hit with their OEM rep six months ago and refused units they knew they could not sell. That conversation is uncomfortable once. Sitting on 120-day metal is uncomfortable every single day.

The floor question has a cleaner answer than most people give it: the floor is wherever the OEM captive finance arm decides to set residuals on the next lease cycle. That is the only lever that actually moves volume on aged EV units at scale without torching transaction price. Rate buydowns help at the margins but a customer staring at a $900 monthly payment on a vehicle with uncertain resale value is not going to be moved by 0.9 percent financing. What would actually move units is a manufacturer-backed lease with a residual set at a level that makes the payment competitive with a comparable ICE vehicle. The OEMs that have done this selectively are moving product. The ones waiting for organic demand recovery are sitting on the same aging inventory at day 150 that they had at day 90.

The framing of this as a pricing problem is the thing I want to push back on because I think it leads to the wrong response. We had a similar situation on a slow-moving ICE model two years ago and the instinct was to discount. What actually moved inventory was changing the conversation entirely away from price. We created a package that bundled charging installation, a home energy audit, and a two-year maintenance plan into the vehicle price and stopped negotiating on the vehicle itself. The total cost came down but the transaction price held. The customers who responded were the ones who had been intellectually interested in an EV but uncertain about the ownership experience. Giving them certainty on the things they were actually worried about moved more units than another $1,500 off sticker. The price fighters on the lot are going to run out of margin before they run out of inventory.

I want to offer what the factory side of this conversation actually looks like because I do not think dealers are getting a straight answer from their reps. The allocation push is not coming from anyone who is unaware of the inventory situation at the dealer level. We see the days supply data in real time. The push is coming from plants that are running on production commitments made before the demand picture changed and stopping the line costs more in the near term than pushing units into dealer inventory does. Your rep knows your lot is full. They are choosing between a bad option for you and a worse option for their plant scorecard. The dealers who have gotten relief are the ones who documented the carrying cost impact in writing and escalated above the field rep level to zone operations. One conversation with a rep changes nothing. Documented escalation sometimes does.

120 day units are a F&I problem as much as a sales problem. By the time a customer gets in front of me on an aged EV the conversation is already poisoned. They have seen the price drops online, they know the unit has been sitting, and their first question is why nobody else wanted it. Floorplan on a $45 to $55k EV is not cheap and every month it sits it gets harder to structure a deal that works for both sides. What we have had some luck with is targeting commercial accounts and fleet adjacent buyers who care less about the depreciation narrative and more about total cost of operation. Also found that pairing a maintenance bundle into the deal helps justify a cleaner price. But I will be straight with you: factory allocating more into an oversupplied segment right now is indefensible.

There may actually be a floor forming but it is not coming from demand recovery, it is coming from attrition. A lot of the independent EV-heavy stores in our market are just quietly stopping their orders and that is tightening regional supply without anyone announcing it. The units that remain are starting to carry real finance incentives from a few brands, and those can move metal when stacked with a lease. The better question is whether your factory rep has any flexibility on turn-in requirements for aged units. Some brands are quietly offering support they won't put in writing if you push. Worth a conversation before you discount to the floor on your own.

We actually moved four aged EVs in the last six weeks by doing something the OEM would probably not officially endorse. We stopped talking about the vehicle and started talking about the total cost of ownership over 36 months against what the customer was currently paying in gas and maintenance. No EV pitch, no range talk, just math on a whiteboard. Two of those customers had never seriously considered an EV before that conversation. The problem is most sales staff are not trained to run that conversation because the OEM training materials are still built around feature walkthroughs. The product is not the barrier right now for a certain buyer segment. The sales process is.

We stopped fighting the price compression and started working the fleet and commercial angle instead. Local businesses, government contracts, anything where the buyer has a use case that justifies the EV math without relying on the tax credit. It is not a volume solution but it moves aged units at a number that does not crater your comp values. The other thing that has actually worked is pairing the EV conversation with a used vehicle trade at peak value while trade values are still elevated. You are solving two problems at once and the customer leaves feeling like they got something. Factory allocation pressure is real and I do not think there is a clean answer there until OEMs start managing it differently.

There is no floor being set by the market right now. The floor will be set by OEM production decisions, and most OEMs are still not moving fast enough to cut EV allocation to stores that cannot absorb it. The stated reason is they have factory commitments and labor agreements that prevent them from simply dialing down production. The real reason is that announcing deeper EV production cuts is an admission that the program is in more trouble than the investor relations messaging has acknowledged. So the allocation keeps coming and dealers keep absorbing carrying costs that are not in anyone's budget model. The correct move right now is to document every allocation push you cannot sell at a reasonable margin and put it in writing to your factory rep. If there is ever a legal or contractual dispute about forced stocking, you want a paper trail showing you raised the issue and were not given relief.

The factory-dealer disconnect is the real killer here. We’re being forced to act as a buffer for their production errors. Shifting to TCO math helps, but until allocation matches actual demand, we're just burning margin to keep their plants running. It’s completely unsustainable.

The shift from selling "tech" to selling "math" via TCO is a survival necessity. However, until OEMs stop forcing allocation to protect their own plant scores, dealers are just being used as a release valve. Documenting carrying costs and pushing back is the only way forward right now.

The disconnect between plant production and actual demand is a disaster. Dealers shouldn’t have to subsidize the factory's mistakes. Shifting to TCO math is a great survival tactic, but we really need the OEMs to fix those lease residuals to move the needle.

The TCO math is the only thing moving units without a race to the bottom. But honestly, until OEMs stop using our lots as overflow for their production targets, we’re just treading water. Documenting those carrying costs is the best advice in this thread.

I’m definitely feeling the same crunch. Shifting to TCO conversations over features is a game-changer, but it’s still just a bandage for the factory overproduction issue. If the OEMs don’t adjust lease residuals soon, these aged units are just going to keep piling up regardless of our sales tactics.

The shift to TCO math is a great survival tactic, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of forced allocation. We can't keep subsidizing the factory's production targets while our floorplan costs skyrocket. Something has to give on those lease residuals soon.

This disconnect is brutal. Shifting the conversation to TCO "math" is a smart move, but it’s really just a band-aid while factories use your lots for overflow. Hopefully, those lease residuals get fixed soon, or the floor is going to keep sliding.

The TCO math approach is a solid pivot, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding from forced allocation. Until OEMs adjust lease residuals to make these competitive with ICE vehicles, we're just acting as a very expensive overflow lot for the factory. It’s a total game of chicken.

The pivot to TCO math is smart, but it’s still just a band-aid. Until OEMs align production with actual demand or fix lease residuals, dealers are just subsidized storage for the factory. It’s a total game of chicken with our bottom lines right now.

It’s brutal seeing units sit past 120 days while the factory keeps pushing allocation. Shifting to TCO math is a smart survival tactic, but we can’t be their unpaid storage forever. Until lease residuals align with reality, we’re all just treading water against these floorplan costs.

The pivot to TCO math is the only way we're seeing any movement, but it doesn’t fix the floorplan bleed. We can’t keep being the factory’s overflow lot while waiting for lease residuals to catch up. Documentation and pushing back on allocation is the only survival move left.

The shift to TCO math is a smart pivot, but it doesn’t stop the bleeding from forced allocation. Until OEMs adjust production to match real demand or fix those lease residuals, dealers are basically just paying for the factory’s mistakes. It’s an unsustainable game of chicken.

The shift to TCO math is a great pivot, but it doesn't solve the floorplan bleed. We can’t keep being the factory’s overflow lot while waiting for lease residuals to catch up. Documenting everything and pushing back on allocation is the only real survival move left.

It’s wild seeing the shift from "waiting lists" to 120-day inventory. That "whiteboard math" strategy in Reply 9 is brilliant—if you can't win on sticker price, you have to win on logic. But these factory allocation pushes feel like a slow-motion train wreck for dealer margins.

The TCO approach is the only way to survive this, but the factory pressure is the real killer. It’s wild that OEMs are protecting their plant scores while dealers drown in floorplan costs. Without better lease residuals, this "floor" feels like a moving target.

The "whiteboard math" strategy is a total game-changer. If you can't win on the sticker price, you have to win on the long-term logic. But honestly, until factories stop using our lots as overflow, we’re all just treading water against rising floorplan costs. It’s unsustainable.

This is exactly what we’re seeing. Shifting to TCO math helps move units, but the carrying costs on 120-day metal are brutal. Until factories stop protecting their own plant scores at the expense of our floorplans, there’s no real "floor" in sight. It’s a total game of chicken.

The shift to TCO math is the only way to move the needle right now. If you can’t win on the sticker, you have to win on the logic. But the factory using our lots as overflow for their production targets is getting completely unsustainable. Something has to give.

The TCO approach is the only way to save the margin we have left. However, the factory-dealer disconnect is getting toxic. We can't keep absorbing their overproduction while waiting for a floor that hasn't materialized yet. It’s a total game of chicken.

Seeing 120-day aged units is painful. The shift to TCO math sounds like a necessary pivot, but until the factory aligns production with actual demand, we’re just being used as storage. Documenting every allocation push seems like the only leverage we have left right now.