"Consumer Electronics retailer Best Buy is already selling Brammo electric motorcycles and has won contracts to supply home charging equipment for the upcoming Ford Focus Electric and Mitsubishi i Electric Vehicle. Now, it looks like the company might actually consider selling electric cars or at least contribute in some way to the ownership experience.
Chad Bell, a senior director from Best Buy, recently said, “we are having conversations with startups,” and “we are very excited about several partnerships that we can’t talk about yet.”
From some angles selling EVs make sense. Best Buy currently has 1,101 stores across the U.S. and as Bell noted, the company’s retail stores have far higher volumes of people coming through their doors every month than most dealers.
Having access to a turn-key retail network already vested in the field of electronic transportation could prove very attractive for small companies trying to break into the market, but at the other end of the spectrum, Bell says there are plenty of opportunities for Best Buy to work with established auto manufacturers. Examples include teaching consumers about EVs and how to operate them; including charging equipment, as well as syncing smart phones with vehicle connectivity systems, tasks that many dealers might find more effective to outsource than performing in-house.
In regards to the push for more EV vehicle focus, Best Buy’s Bell said, “it’s not a short-term play for us. This is a long-term business for us to be in.”
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