This post doesn't add up. I would be surprised to see most dealerships going ahead with Genesis. From everything that I have seen, most dealerships are dumping Genesis and it will be hard to access a local dealership. Nobody knows much until Genesis finalizes their dealership network. Hope for more dealerships not less.
Under the initial plan, Hyundai only wanted around
100 Genesis dealerships (which I thought was too low), of which only around
80-85 would come from dealer groups owning Hyundai stores (the rest would be dealer groups new to Hyundai, well, Genesis).
But aside from the regulatory/licensing issues, there was basically a revolt from the Hyundai dealerships - both of which led to the months of delay as Genesis abandoned their initial plan and went back to the drawing board, opening up the possibility of obtaining a Genesis franchise to every dealer group owning a Hyundai dealership.
Genesis USA initially tried to keep the # down by having pretty stringent build-out requirement for stand-alone Genesis stores, but somehow along the way, those seemingly were abandoned as well and Genesis ended up w/ a lot more dealer groups interested in proceeding ahead w/ Genesis (about
400).
That # is far more than what Genesis sees as optimal and they are hoping some drop out.
In the Pittsburgh area four listed Genesis dealers said they won't be selling the Genesis brand. One said only one dealer will be in the Pittsburgh area and one said they are still waiting for Genesis to make a decision.
For a mid-size city like Pittsburgh, 2 Genesis stores would suffice (at least at the start).
Having just 1 would be tough as would be a decent drive for buyers from the Southside/Southern burbs to hit a dealership located in the Northern burbs (likely where a sole Genesis dealership would be located as the wealthier burbs are on the North side of the Allegheny).
Twenty miles around where I live can be a few hours which would mean never owning a Genesis. Pittsburgh has one Mini dealership and in my end of town not many Mini Cooper's to be seen . Lexus,
Infiniti and Acura all have three or four dealerships locally with a good display of ownership.
Can't force dealer groups to invest.
Even if there is only 1 at the start, if sales are good, other dealer groups would be interested in opening their own Genesis store.
Under the old 100 dealership network plan, a lot of states (including a state like South Carolina) wouldn't be getting any Genesis dealerships.