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.

Comments

The best part of the article is at the bottom

[LNO]

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?

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[benjfowler]

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.

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[j00r0m4nc3r]

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..

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[ArcadeMan]

The word "lobbying" was created to replace "bribery".

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[Holi]

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.

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[organgtool]

I really don't understand why we still allow campaign contributions to specific politicians

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.

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[WGFCrafty]

This is not necessarily all bad, since rich people may be less corruptible, since they don't need the money.

Uh, what?

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[fl!ptop]

Money is not speech

Perhaps, but my freedom to spend my money as i see fit, on the candidate or candidates of my choosing, is protected under the 1st Amendment.

corporations are not people

True, but when the government decides to regulate corporations, they have a right to speak, like the individual person does.

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:The best part of the article is at the bottom

[Sloppy]

why should I not be allowed to support the candidate I believe in?

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.

No middle man

[ZeroNullVoid]

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.

Re:Moral of the story

[SirGarlon]

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.

Re:And we don't need the man in the middle indeed.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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?

Re:Cherry-picking

[drinkypoo]

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.

Why Buying A Car Is So Awful

[brit74]

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

Re:Why cant Tesla create a dealership?

[citizenr]

It can be owned by Elon himself.

Leadership should be about ideas not bankrolls

[sjbe]

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.