B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 be zero emission - Legislation aims to phase out gas-powered vehicles

You are looking at purely the cost perspective. Let's say what happens if BMW decides to have only one dealership per major city, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and move to online sales model, similar to Tangerine. What happens to their marketshare? I guess Audi or Benz would get their market and subsequently they make less money, even though they save "middleman cost". It is the big picture that is the total revenue - total costs = total profit that matters.

Why can't saving middleman cost makes more money? It is because vehicle is a thin margin, high volume product. There is a lot of R&D involved in these vehicles. To recoup the costs you need to sell a lot. You can't afford to lose sales to just save these "middleman cost" which is a very small portion of the formula.

In Canada we don't have government intervention prohibiting manufacturers to open stores. Mercedes has their own stores, for example. And these multiple billion dollar companies have their elites to do their math better than you and I and they have already decided they would make the most money with the dealership model.

/r/canada Thread Parent Link - cbc.ca