Some friends from the Czech asked me if I could find how it works with exporting cars from the USA to the EU. Well, I will write another post about that, practically and technically it shouldn’t be a big problem.
In Czech, the new Chevrolet Corvette C8 cost around $100,000 and there are only a few cars available in stock. I used to be a seller in a VW dealership and still have a car export business in the EU so I just wanted to see how car dealers work here. I found the nearest dealer in Torrance, CA, and sent them an email: Hi, I am interested in the new Corvette C8, please give me a call! Trust me or not but in 5 minutes some seller called me! We said it’s better to talk in person at the dealership and 30 minutes later I was there! This is business guys! Not like in the Czech where you will wait two weeks for the response to your email.
I briefly introduced myself and told him that the cars would be for export to Europe. He said we don’t care what you will do with the cars if you pay for them. However there is a problem due to COVID-19, there no cars in stock available in the USA. Automakers don’t have chips for cars and demand significantly exceeds supply.
He offered me I can order the car without any discount (list price) and the estimated time of production will be 12 months + you have to pay an extra fee of $ 15,000 to the dealer because they don’t have enough cars for all customers.
f you want to get your Corvette in 6 months (the time is not guaranteed) you have to pay an extra fee of $25,000 above list price.
When I told this, my Czech friend. He said I don’t wanna Corvette anymore! 😀 Instead of that I’m gonna search for Charger Hellcat for him. We’ll see soon if the situation is the same or not.
It would be nice to be a Chevrolet dealer in the US right now! I can truly tell you that the average profit for dealers from the sold cars in Eastern Europe is between 0-3% of the list price. Some people believe that old times will return back before COVID-19 when it comes to car production. I am not an expert on the US market but in Europe, I don’t think so. The new cars will be more and more expensive and there will be a problem with production. It is not only due to COVID-19 but also because of EU new cars restriction. EU wishes to sell only hybrid and electric cars (generally cars with low or zero emissions) and automakers pay unbelievable penalties if they sell conventional cars (with gas or diesel engines) because the CO2 limits are too strict. My fellow Europeans, I would say you have last 10-15 years to enjoy conventional engines before they will be prohibited.