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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.
It's just more money-in-politics. The sponsor is State Senator Tom Apodeca, who received the maximum amount allowed ($8000) in campaign contributions from the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association. Of course, they are AGHAST at the idea that they've got a financial stake in this...
Robert Glaser, president of the dealers association, told the News & Observer that the law prohibiting Tesla sales isn’t just about his industry’s self-interest. Pointing to the Tesla representatives at a recent hearing, he said, “You tell me they’re gonna support the little leagues and the YMCA?”
If that’s the real issue, then I may have some good news for all concerned: I asked O’Connell, and he assured me Tesla would be happy to support the little leagues and the YMCA if that’s what North Carolina requires in order to do business there. Problem solved! Right, Mr. Glaser?
Why have a middle man if they cannot offer any better deals or services? I understand it artificially creates jobs, but that seems like a horrible thing to force.
This does not just apply to vehicles.
If there is no value added and only cost added, then it is pointless. If there is value added, then consumers should have a choice for it.
If the only value is creating jobs and expenses, then it is pointless and detrimental to progression, price, and capitalism.
I just had a vision of being able to buy a car at a fair price without having to negotiate. How amazing this could be.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Creating a company costs some 150$ or so. Can Tesla Motor Corporation set up a wholly owned subsidiary Tesla Motor Sales and Service Corporation of North Carolina and sell it through them? Corporations are people, but it is lot harder (and more fun) to create real people than corporations.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/overturn-franchise-laws-limit-auto-manufacturers-selling-their-vehicles-directly-consumers/rlShbLzr
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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
I don't understand how they're going to stop it anyway. Unless this law makes it illegal for an individual to buy a car from an out-of-state individual, how are they going to stop me from buying a Tesla (or any other new or used car) from any legal out-of-state vendor or individual? Are they going to stop me at the state line and slap the cuffs on me? Refuse to license any car in the state unless I can prove it was bought from an in-state dealer?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
So it outsold the 7-series (top end full-size full-luxury sedan), the S-class (top end full-size full-luxury sedan) and the Audi A8 (full-size full-luxury sedan), which even BMW, Mercedes, and Audi would admit make up a small fraction of their overall sales, and this is a win?
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.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
it was called Saturn.
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.
Either way there's profit involved, the question is whether the car dealership is an independent entity that gets a cut of the process or owned by the car manufacturer. I would rather deal with just one company than two that are constantly in conflict over who gets what share of the profits from sales and maintenance of vehicles.
I don't understand the dealership model anyway - when you're the only Toyota dealer in a fifty mile radius and Toyota is having a banner year, you're all set. But if Toyota dealerships open all around you, then what? Or say you're a Saturn dealership, and then General Motors closes the brand. Or you're a Lincoln dealership, and Lincoln demands that you pay for a multi-million dollar remodel of your showrooms at your own expense. Or you're a Nissan dealership, and they release a run of shoddy products nobody wants to buy (for the sake of argument - I have nothing against Nissan). I guess it makes sense if you're already wealthy - open franchises for six different brands at once, and unless the economy tanks any losses in one place might be offset by gains elsewhere. But for someone launching an individual franchise? You are at the mercy of the manufacturer, choose carefully.
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?
One of the biggest sources of revenue comes in from sales and licensing of new vehicles where over time dealership industry is powerful on the state level due to this relationship. When dealers make money, the state gets serious revenues. So when a new type of car comes along with a company who can't afford the high barrier of entry to setup a dealer network the whole thing turnes into market protection in the guise of customer service. If you are interested in buying a Tesla and living in a city with a center, you can go there but it is like bizzaro land because they are forced to operate as a "service center" instead of a "dealership" subject to fees and zoning that are often waived or offset for "real dealerships".
It is stuff like this that makes me wish the market would be dragged into the 21st Century. Shopping for a car is one of those tasks that is slightly higher than "doctor visit". There is little to no value added for going to the dealership so I would rather just order directly from maker themselves than to sit through the junk you need to do for a purchasing a car.
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.
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
A few months back, NPR's Planet Money did an episode on the car dealership business and how entrenched they are with the government. It goes back for decades. It's worth a listen.
"Episode 435: Why Buying A Car Is So Awful"
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful
Sales ("use") tax on vehicle purchases are generally computed based on the state of registration, not the state of sale. Even if you originally registered the car in VA (and you should have some difficulty doing that if your license is from NC), when you changed the registration, you'd probably pay some tax. If you didn't change the registration, your neighbors can rat you out.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
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.
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.
why? why should I not be allowed to support the candidate I believe in? why should my money be pooled and given to politicians I dont agree with??
For the same reason your money shouldn't go (solely) to a candidate *I* agree with. Because the debate should be about ideas and leadership, not who has the biggest bankroll. It is well established that special interest funding causes politicians to listen disproportionately to certain parties. If you fund a specific candidate then he is (potentially) obligated to you but he has to govern everyone. Why should he listen to your needs more than any other constituent just because you happened to fund the winning candidate?
Money gives people a disproportionate voice in the political system. I think the Supreme Court erred greatly when it said that money = speech. One should not prohibit people from spending money on political activities but one should not give someone a bigger voice simply because they have access to more money either. While I don't think you can take money completely out of the equation, we don't have to let it dominate the conversation the way we have either. Our congressional representatives spend virtually all their time fundraising instead of thinking about how to make this country a better place. As soon as they win one election they start fundraising for the next. That cannot possibly be good for the country as a whole.
I don't understand the dealership model anyway
It's basically a legalized pyramid scheme, that was created in the hopes of ensuring that the local municipality has some "good" jobs. Episode 435: Why Buying A Car Is So Awful is a very informative listen.
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.
That is basically company owned dealerships, they have existed for a long time and the decent ones were a FAR better deal if you just wanted a good car for a fair price with good service.
BUT it ties the car company to the vagaries of the local car market including having to worry about brick and mortar store issues like location.
For a very common large scale car maker, it is barely do-able. For a niche market? There is in Holland 1 Ferrari dealer. But that is not the issue because people in the market for such a car don't have an issue traveling a bit in their luxury car and are in any case likely to be living in the west part of Holland (the store used to be in Utrecht, which is almost dead center for the economic heart of Holland).
But it is FAR FAR easier to serve all you need to serve with a web site and a service van. If Tesla has to open a shell company in every state, in every country in every county/province, that is a LOT of shell companies. And why should it? Amazon doesn't have to do it. Why should car dealers not face pressure from web stores? Especially since dealers COULD have a unique location issue, fixing your car.
This is clearly bought law. The US has the right to bear arms. Stop killing kids with your guns and kill yourselves some politicians instead. Or are the guns you carry just to compensate for your small penisses. Come on US, show us why you got more guns then citizens.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.