This is what pg tweeted earlier today:<p><i>Banning Tesla is an index of the corruptness of state governments as banning Uber is of city governments.</i> (<a href="https://twitter.com/paulg/status/443469758369767425" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/paulg/status/443469758369767425</a>)<p>A very astute observation, as usual.
Here's how we got here:<p>1) Money buys political influence (duh!)<p>2) Most cities have small tax bases, where car dealerships are a very large part of the tax base. City managers want a larger tax base to help fund their plans.<p>3) Thus, car dealerships & local politicians have aligned incentives.<p>4) So, local laws (zoning, advertising, etc) favor car dealerships.<p>5) Higher offices are filled from the pool of local politicians, as they move up the food chain.<p>6) Those politicians remember their contacts @ the dealers, who helped fund/launch their careers, & they remain aligned with them in passing laws empathetic to dealer's interests.<p>Of course, legitimately, car dealerships have HUGE capital investments (fast aging inventory, large chunks of prime real-estate, staffing costs). Would YC ever want to get into the traditional dealer space? No friggen way. Too risky & doesn't scale.<p>And, nobody really buys a car without a test drive/showroom. So, nearly any "online" sale is cannibalizing the dealer's investments.<p>So, we need to have some kind of online buying system where you MUST enter in a dealer showroom code before buying, & they get some commission, as they DO offer real value here folks.<p>IMO, the whole consumer retail system is going to evolve into "showroom + online buying" in a fair system soon.
I hate dealers, every time I buy a car it is always a stressful experience. Dealers are trying to cheat me on every my step.<p>Last time I was via PenFed Car Buying Service, got a "guaranteed" web quote:<p>Got the dealer:<p>Sure, we will honor the price. But all of our cars have door guards installed - that's $500 extra. We just don't sell the cars without door guards.<p>Got the contract for the car:<p>Some extra maintenance plans included for an another $900, forced to remove them. Oh and the dealer made an another mistake for $1000, couldn't add up two numbers together (damn liar). An hour later got a fixed contract.<p>Got to the financing guy who is trying to sell me extended warranty and gap insurance for about an hour.<p>And that's over 6-7 hours at the dealership... /vented
Holy crap. Is this for real? Dealers are one half of the rotten pie that is the car industry, just let the dealer industry die already. Much like the music business tried fighting digital music only for it to completely take over, the car industry eventually will change to a different model that isn't reliant on an industry lubed up in snake oil and shady business practices.<p>Extended warranties, sneaky extras and premiums added to your contract, the amount of crap you have to endure when buying a new car these days is horrendously deep. If only more car companies sold directly and allowed you to buy online like Tesla does, I know the lobbyist motor dealerships group would never let that happen though.<p>No wonder the car industry is in the toilet, it's killing itself and Elon Musk is one of few people trying to change things and he's met with resistance: typical.
Tesla has a showroom at Short Hills mall in NJ. You can go in, check it out, test drive the car, and then order online. While it's really telling about NJ's government, I don't think it'll impact Tesla or its customers.<p>Also, I love how the article title reads "New Jersey Votes", as if the citizens got a vote in the matter.
The article is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like direct sales were legal in NJ (and so presumably the only reason Ford and Chevy and Toyota and the rest did not do them is that they did not want to), and the politicians are now stepping in to make a new law to stop Tesla.<p>In fact, it looks like direct sales have been illegal for a long time, but the law is poorly worded, and can be read in a way that bans direct sales for Ford, Chevy, Toyota, and most other major car manufacturers, but does not apply to manufacturers like Tesla, who <i>only</i> sell direct.<p>What the new law is doing is saying that the old law is meant to apply to all car manufacturers, not just Ford, Chevy, and so on.
Whats to stop a NJ resident from going to NY to purchase a Tesla direct? Is their a a big financial penalty for doing so when registering? What is to stop a grey market of NY residents reselling them to NJ consumers if so? This makes no sense.
Why aren't auto manufacturers jumping on the idea of selling directly to the public? Do they get some benefit from middlemen that Tesla doesn't, or is it just because they are so established doing things one way they won't consider other ways?
I wonder what requirements are placed upon dealers. In theory, Elon Musk could just open up his own "Elon's Teslas" shop and voluntarily sell the cars for no additional markup. There'd be some additional overhead, but it'd still be a much nicer arrangement overall than the current one I bet.
I didn't realize this was so common:<p>> Tesla has won recent legislative battles in states like Washington, Ohio, New York and Minnesota, but states such as Texas, Arizona and Virginia have retained or added laws limiting the company’s ability to operate stores.
Here we have a new industry everyone wants, a US product people want that gets high awards, innovative, inspirational and lawmakers go and block easier ways to sell it. Is this how we are going to compete on new industries and alternatives?<p>This is the same middle man battle going on in other industries, years of legacy middle men. Dealerships will still exist and Tesla won't kill them, let them play.
That's the state where it is considered too dangerous for you to fill up your own car with gas, right? So one's expectations of that place's lawmaking sanity should be already pretty low, and these expectations are now confirmed.
Anyone know if they've considered the most logical route:<p>If you sell direct, no dealers.
If you have dealers, you can't sell direct<p>In all of Tesla's battles, I haven't seen this brought up.
What are the regulations around setting up a dealership?<p>- Can Tesla set up a proxy dealership whose only job is to take the order and send out a receipt of purchase?<p>- Can dealership be purely online?
Its surprising to see why Auto Manufacturers uniting against this , reaching directly to Customer without middle man must be really good for them too , isnt it ?
It could also be because people are waking up to the irrational exuberance in the tesla stock. Imagine selling all these cars but not actually delivering them.