There has been a tremendous amount happening on the dealer council front lately.

The biggest win has been the company affirming its’ commitment to the dealer body and stating that all vehicles will continue to be delivered by dealers in North America.

Dealer Council was informed of the Ford brand being split into two divisions with Ford Blue being the ICE side of the business and model e being the EV side of the business.

Kumar Galhotra will lead Ford Blue as President with Andrew Frick reporting to him as Vice President of Sales, Distribution, and Trucks and Rob Kaffl as Director of US Sales and Market Share.

Ford Motor Company in the Future

Jim Farley will continue to be CEO of the entire company and will also serve as President of model e. Reporting to him will be Marin Gjaja as Chief Customer Officer, with Heidi Shaffer as Director of Sales and Mike O’Brien as Director of Market Representation. The main priorities for council will be working with the company to make sure the standards for model e are fair and reasonable for the dealer
body. Model e leadership will be present at our annual conference and will be engaging us in their standards workstream discussions. We are expecting most standards to be directly related to customer experience.

National Dealer Council Priorities

Another top priority for council will be obtaining more transparency and communication with regards to allocation and inventory. Given the current days supply this is top of mind for every dealer and an overwhelmingly majority have expressed concerns that they do not understand the current allocation system. Council worked with the company to enhance the FCTP so that vehicles can stay in service longer and the allow used vehicles to be placed into FCTP will we continue to fight the inventory shortages.

As we all know, there were several big announcements made with regards to the floor plan assistance program. Council worked directly with Ford credit to get them to eliminate the requirement that dealers floor plan with FMCC to earn FPA. This was a win for dealers. We will continue to work with the credit company for enhancements to their dealer loyalty programs, CMA account offering, and to make their wholesale rates more competitive. We are also working to make sure Ford has the best customer experience when it comes to ordering a vehicle and locking in a price and payment. We are expecting some pilot announcements in this space soon.

Moving Forward

Our next full council in person meeting will be happening in Detroit the week of April 24th. We expect a very full week working hard to be the voice of the dealer body. Feel free to reach out to me at the new minority dealer representative email address with any questions, comments, or concerns [email protected].