Pub. 3 2021 issue 1

4 Craig Bickmore, Executive Director Committed to You E veryone has been busy recently, and as we welcome the warmer days of spring and watch the COVID vaccine begin to make a much-needed change, I can’t help but feel positive about the future. It’s hard to imagine that a little over a year ago, COVID-19 drastically changed our lives and forced us to redesign and rethink our priorities. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves, our families, the people we work with, and the health and direction of our nation. But during these difficult times, I watched how dealers — here and nationally — rose to the occasion and continued to persevere and adapt to an ever-changing business landscape with shifting customer demands. Although sales slowed initially, many of you saw your most profitable months in years. An essential need to innovate remains, and we must keep pushing forward to improve our processes and facilitate the customer buying experience, both online and in person. We will see more “disruptors” emerge with new ways of doing things. Even so, I’m confident that car dealers have learned and grown much over the last year and will continue to be the cutting-edge ambassadors of technology. Over the last several weeks, we have seen many news releases from OEMs about their respective EV timelines. So, what does the emergence of this new technology mean to dealers? I think the same thing it means every year to dealers. Dealership staff gets trained and learns how to explain and demonstrate this new technology to the general public. In other words, this is what dealerships do: introduce new technology in an informative, professional way, just as all of you have been doing for years. Now, I realize I’m downplaying to some degree what the EV direction means as a whole. However, some people say that dealers somehow are not capable of embracing this “new” technology. According to them, dealers are married to the internal combustion engine, and because of that, this new and advanced technology should be sold directly by those who know it best. That is a complete falsehood. The fact is, the car dealer is the ambassador of new technology and introduces new and advanced technology every year. Whether it is new Bluetooth technology, Apple CarPlay, apps that integrate with vehicles, or specific driving and safety technology, dealers have introduced the latest offerings for generations. The statement has also been made that dealers don’t want to sell EVs, as demonstrated by the low EV sales numbers compared to overall sales. To that, I have some questions: What EV cars are manufacturers offering the public so far? How available is a charging infrastructure to consumers? What has the range been?