Acura assures dealers: We need your partnership

As Acura works to digitize its sales process, the brand is assuring its dealers that the approach will not reduce the role of its dealer body.

That was the message in Acura's NADA make meeting Saturday — that the automaker still needs its dealers.

Online platforms are fanning dealer fears about the so-called agency model, which critics say turns retailers into vehicle delivery services, Emile Korkor, Acura’s assistant vice president of sales, told Automotive News outside the meeting.

“When you eliminate the dealer, the ones that are the face of the brand, you disconnect with the customer,” Korkor said.

“We've been trying to be very explicit with dealers and explain that online sales does not mean one-to-one sales between the manufacturer and the customer,” he said. “We're trying to develop something that's more integrated within the dealers’ process.”

American Honda Motor Co. is focused on a transition to both electrification and digitization in 2023. The Acura ZDX electric crossover will be launched in lockstep with a digital platform that Korkor and a group of eight dealers — called the Acura Innovation Committee — are developing.

Acura plans to move all of its EV sales online, starting with the ZDX.

The committee, Korkor said, helps Acura work through a lot of complex questions that they would struggle with if they did it on their own. Korkor said they are still working out how to integrate and set a trade-in value, and how to best incorporate it into the deal.

“In order to sustain ourselves toward this uncertain future, we need the partnership with the dealers to continue and to be strong,” Korkor said.

“We don't want to take this opportunity, as we're approaching this new era, to just tell them, you know, we don't need you anymore.”