Slashdot Mirror
N. Carolina May Ban Tesla Sales To Prevent "Unfair Competition"
nametaken writes with this excerpt from Slate: "From the state that brought you the nation's first ban on climate science comes another legislative gem: a bill that would prohibit automakers from selling their cars in the state. The proposal, which the Raleigh News & Observer reports was unanimously approved by the state's Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, would apply to all car manufacturers, but the intended target is clear. It's aimed at Tesla, the only U.S. automaker whose business model relies on selling cars directly to consumers, rather than through a network of third-party dealerships. ... [The article adds] it's easy to understand why some car dealers might feel a little threatened: Tesla's Model S outsold the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8 last quarter without any help from them. If its business model were to catch on, consumers might find that they don't need the middle-men as much as they thought."
State laws imposing restrictions on manufacturers in favor of dealers aren't new, though; For more on ways that franchise operations have "used state regulations to protect their profits" long before Tesla was in the picture, check out this 2009 interview with Duke University's Michael Munger.
Why have a middle man if they cannot offer any better deals or services? I understand it artificially creates jobs, but that seems like a horrible thing to force.
This does not just apply to vehicles.
If there is no value added and only cost added, then it is pointless. If there is value added, then consumers should have a choice for it.
If the only value is creating jobs and expenses, then it is pointless and detrimental to progression, price, and capitalism.
Looks like a pretty blatant act of political corruption to me.
The only REAL problem here, is that in the US, this kind of corruption is perfectly legal.
The problem with being the man in the middle is that, sooner or later, you are going to get cut out. All you are doing is adding costs to the customer and reducing profits for the manufacturer. You can't expect your free ride to go on forever, especially in the days of easy price comparison by consumers and profit maximization by manufacturers.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
blatant act of political corruption
In the South, we just call that "politics."
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I really don't understand why we still allow campaign contributions to specific politicians. IMO, this is the single biggest flaw in our political system currently. All contributions should be pooled and divided equally among all candidates. This should have been dealt with decades ago..
News flash: cosmopolitan urban centers are also full of greedy, stupid people. I know because I live in one. You can't escape them by changing your location.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
That's crazy talk! How are you going to replicate the experience of good, honest, high-pressure salesmanship in a browser window? Or prevent the consumer from opening a second tab for comparison shopping purposes?
The word "lobbying" was created to replace "bribery".
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
When you outsell the 5-series, the E-class, and the Audi A6, then you'll have something to talk about, as all three manufacturers sell an order of magnitude more of those.
Well no, when they accomplish that then they won't need to say anything. But they have something to talk about now, because the Tesla vehicle is outselling its competition. They're not yet outselling cars out-of-class, but give them time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You can support your candidate of choice by voting for them. I personally think all contributions should be banned and campaigns run via public funds. That way all candidates have a level playing field where their policies differentiate them.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The difference here, is that in rural areas, you have a Dead Sea effect... anybody with any brains and talent leaves. Guess who stays behind?
Nobody I grew up with with any talent or prospects whatsoever, bothered to hang around for long.
Just means that citizens of that state will leave the state buy the car, then come back.
Problem solved.
So the auto manufacturers created the franchise system, essentially to get around the laws. This is little different from McDonalds. The manufacturers pretty much control the operations, and in return offer kickbacks. The only way around this is the used market. It is probably, in the current climate, inefficient. It is probably one factor that makes american car makers less competitive, having to support the dealer network. OTOH, it is good for the manufacturer and consumer because you can go to any dealer who sells new fords and know you will get basically the same thing as any other dealer.
The thing is we probably should not change laws for an individual, which is what Tesla is asking some states to do. If there is good reason to make the change, then make the change general. What is happening is that in some states the law is changing so that only Tesla or a company very similar to Tesla will benifit. THis is probably a not good thing.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You support your candidate by voting for him.
Let's get a boilerplate acknowledgement from the White House that doesn't accomplish anything at all! *That'll* show 'em!
The issue, though, is that dealers aren't adding value, so there aren't 'profits made in NC'(if the complaint were 'buyers are test-driving at our dealership and then buying online', that would be a case of dealers offering a valuable service; but being unable to get paid for doing so.) This is simply an attempt to make it illegal to not hire a middleman to take his cut of what you pay for your car.
Essentially, NC car dealers are attempting to buy legislation that allows them to certain transactions undertaken by NC residents for their own benefit. If they were offering some sort of value(say, local repair capabilities, or the ability to buy a car without waiting for delivery), they wouldn't need to make their competitors illegal, because they'd have a selling point of their own.
You can support your candidate of choice by voting for them. I personally think all contributions should be banned and campaigns run via public funds. That way all candidates have a level playing field where their policies differentiate them.
Public funding does not create a "level playing field". It creates a strong bias toward incumbents. It takes more money and publicity to mount a challenge than to defend an incumbency. Even the current limits on campaign contributions have greatly increased the percentage of politicians that get re-elected, while also greatly increasing the number of millionaires in congress, since they can just use their own money. This is not necessarily all bad, since rich people may be less corruptible, since they don't need the money.
I really don't understand why we still allow campaign contributions to anyone. You are right in that this is the biggest issue in this country right now because the effect of this is the complete subversion of the democratic process - politicians are creating laws that favor a minority of special interest groups at the detriment of all of the citizens those "public servants" are supposed to represent. This systemic form of bribery taints the vote of every piece of legislation that comes up which is why changing this needs to be our top priority. However, it is not an easy problem to solve since the only way to end private campaign contributions is to pass new legislation, which can only be done by politicians who have won and continue to win elections thanks to private campaign contributions. At this point, I think the only peaceful way to force this change is either directly through the use of a referendum or indirectly via a petition that a majority of the people sign that promises to vote out the current politicians unless they pass legislation that bans all forms of private campaign contributions. For the latter, you could either vote for the "other guy" during the election or vote out the current politician during the primary. One thing is for certain, though: they aren't going to fix this without extreme pressure from the voters.
In return for opening the dealership with a brand, you are the exclusive dealer and service center for that brand within a certain distance. If you have a Ford dealer, I can't open another Ford dealer next door. You're relying on Ford to enforce that provision, but they know what would happen if they screwed over their dealers - lawsuits, and suddenly no one to sell your cars any more.
Car dealers already take in skimpy profits on new-car sales, as consumers are able to use the internet to find out what dealers pay for a car, plus the sales-based quarterly/yearly bonus money that the manufacturer gives them. So increasingly the negotiations are up-from-cost rather than down-from-sticker.
So the parts and service departments are where most of the money is made. But guess what? New cars don't need much service, used ones last a long time too, and parts are also available over the internet. A future with many electric cars also suggests that parts & service will see declining revenues.
Younger generations aren't into cars the way older ones were, so the "superconsumers" are going away. Add all this up and I just don't see how the industry will support anywhere near the number of car dealers that it did in decades past. Getting rid of Pontiac, Hummer, etc. removed some capacity but there's still a long way to shrink.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
Oh, I would be so happy if the internet killed car dealerships! Yes, there are some industries hurt by the internet age that I mourn, like local book stores. But if car dealerships just die, I won't miss them at all. I won't miss their loud, stupid advertisements on TV, but I especially won't miss the ugly way in which they use valuable real estate in populated areas. American cities would work so much better if they used space more wisely and became generally denser. Car dealerships are one of the most important plagues that is keeping that from happening. Fuck them and their useless sprawling parking lots. There is nothing socially redeeming about them at all. I hope that car companies in the future make a move like Apple, and have something like a Mazda store in the local mall. It would basically be a showroom in which the cars are presented like jewels, with salespeople and mechanic "geniuses" that could chat up customers, as well as curious mallgoers who got hypnotized by the shiny things. They could have a back exit to a portion of the mall's underground parking lot where they have a few more cars that can go out for a test drive. Their maintenance and repair could be done by an authorized mechanic shop with a contract. That needs some land, but much less than a dealership. Really, there is no reason for traditional parking lot car dealers to live, and many great reasons for them to die.
I hope for his sake that he's just a lying fuckwad; because if he said that sincerely, then he's dumber than a sack of hammers...
I think by New York or New Jersey standards, Southern corruption is quaint and gentlemanly.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It isn't nearly always better to buy directly.
When you buy directly the cost savings of middle man usually goes to the producing company. As the Price the customer pays is often based on Supply and Demand.
Also selling directly without using local vendors, you will need to expand your sales force to cover all the areas, and have to deal with a B2C model vs a B2B model. So your increase your own staff, which then will make your product much closer to the initial cost of selling to an other business at a discount and they mark it up by 10-20%
For example Sun Microsystems, use to sell to vendors who then resold their products often with some sort of value add. Sun Got very popular by the late 90's and Early 2000's so they decided to expand their direct sells, often competing with their own vendors. To get the little extra margin per unit. But what Sun didn't realize was that a lot of the customers were comfortable dealing with the vendors (smaller companies felt like bigger fish, medium to large companies could almost control these guys) So with the Vendors getting hurt by Sun, they changed their tactics to other systems such a Linux or Windows NT as a viable alternative. By just changing their marketing from Suns Balanced TCO vs. Showing how cheaper hardware and OS can lead to faster systems with a different TCO calculation. So Sun popularity began to drop.
I don't see Tesla as being unfair competition with other auto makers for selling directly, it is just their business model they will have to deal with the trade-offs and rewards for their choice. It isn't like the other companies who have independent dealers are suffering from it, as Tesla cars are not super cheap to be hijacking the market.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hilarious.
Your take when it's an (R), "I have a feeling he's sincere. Think of the children!"
When it's a (D), "what a corrupt bastard. We need to get money out of politics! Government shouldn't be regulating anything; let the free market work it out!"
You, "sir", are a hypocrite of the highest order.
Public funding does not create a "level playing field". It creates a strong bias toward incumbents.
There ALREADY is a strong bias toward incumbents. Re-election rates pretty much never drop below 90% for House seats and rarely below 75% for Senate seats. Public funding could not possibly make this situation significantly worse than it already is.
Even the current limits on campaign contributions have greatly increased the percentage of politicians that get re-elected, while also greatly increasing the number of millionaires in congress, since they can just use their own money.
The data I linked to above does not agree with your assertion. Re-election rates haven't changed appreciably since 1980 and there ALWAYS have been a large number of wealthy candidates. George Washington was among the richest Americans of his day and adjusted for inflation was the wealthiest president ever with an inflation adjusted net worth of over $500 million. Jefferson, Jackson and Madison were in the top 5. Mitt Romney by way of comparison would have been the 2nd or 3rd richest ever had be been elected.
Do you not see a potential problem in having lawyers be the only people who understand the law?
How can everyone follow the law if no one but lawyers can understand it?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
blatant act of political corruption
On this planet, we just call that "politics."
FTFAccuracy
FTFTruth
Nobody's suggesting you shouldn't be allowed to do that. The proposal is that you shouldn't be able to do commercial business with them, within the narrow context of the re-election business specifically. Support them in all politically-imaginable ways, and even form a corporation with them to sell cars, if you wish. We just want to point a gun at your face and say "stop giving them money." We want elections to become political instead of commercial.
Consider some so-called politician that you happen to hate. (Please don't tell me you're the one person in this country who doesn't hate anyone.) (Obama? GWB? Reed? Boener?) Now admit it: you don't really think of that person as truly political, do you? You could respect a true sincere adversary, but this guy, he's not quite that. He didn't win over his supporters by showing he knows how to make wise decisions; he used expensive media advertisements to trick a bunch of fools into supporting him, right?
If only Obama were the actual socialist that a certain media company says he is, you might actually hate him less. But he's not: the bastard is corruptly selling his DoJ to the highest bidder in a way that would horrify Marx and Engels. If only GWB were the conservative he ran as, you would hate him less, but at least your cold uncaring government would be cheap. But he wasn't: somehow the dimwit managed to commit to more spending of public funds than LBJ and FDR combined, funnelling it into contractors' pockets at everyone's expense.
Where's the political philosophy?
If only those people actually had to sink or swim on their actual political merits or lack thereof, then maybe your guys would finally crush that party, once and for all, and the country could get back on track. Or at least you'd finally get that fair fight you've always wanted but the country never really has, and then if you lost, well, that opposing philosophy isn't all bad. Even Marx's|Rand's society would have a few nice things about it, as stupid as it would be.
But instead those people buy slick ads, and the sheep in That Other Party keep falling for it, believing the ads and voting for the slickness instead of the politics. And the reason those other people aren't merely polically wrong (if only that were their failing!) is that the ads they use to buy the foolish voters are expensive, so they owe favors. Thus, their misguided conservative|liberal foolishness, goes beyond wrong, into corrupt.
Regulating the election business is one proposed solution to that, for allowing things to get back to politics and allowing democracy, instead of media ad budgets, decide our fate.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Here’s a link to a good story.http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes
It auto makers were being launched today we might see something different, but you have 80 years’ worth of entrenched law that needs to be changed.
The short answer is politics. Back when cars were first being introduced, there was a big power difference between the auto makers and the auto dealers. Auto makers would bully, threaten, and coheres the small business owners, so they struck back, and wrote state laws that tipped the power balance back to the auto dealers.
Auto dealers are a lot like Real Estate agents, small family owned companies deeply embedded in the community and thus in politics. To get the laws changed you are going to need to convince the entrenched power that be to give up their power.