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Tesla Faces Tough Regulatory Hurdle From State Dealership Laws
First time accepted submitter vinnyjames writes "States like Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and North Carolina either have or have recently added legislation to prevent Tesla from selling its cars directly to consumers. Now there's a petition on whitehouse.gov to allow them to sell cars directly to consumers." Laws that protect auto dealerships aren't newly created for Tesla, though, as explained in this interview with Duke University's Mike Munger.
I think we've just figured out what the next big thing is. Mercantilism should have disappeared centuries ago.
Now? The petition has been up since June 5th. I guess this is a last ditch effort to get signatures as it's over 44K short.
I've seen your face before .. back when Michigan fought Japan through legislation in Washington DC. How have you been? I see you are on the rise again as people pretend you're their last, best hope.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Tesla victory in NC
go figure...once they go on test drive....they love it.
Seems like these States are trying to invoke the Federal power to regulate interstate trade. That's a no no.
Isn't this protectionism? Oh wait that only applies if an American isn't being fired. When Americans get fired, then it's capitalism.
Interesting that his spawned a grassroots We The People petition. I don't see how most people have a horse in this race right now.
Impossible! North Carolina and Arizona, at least, are libertarian paradises - very "business friendly" - that would _never_ pass legislation interfering with markets or freedom to contract. Never! There must be some misunderstanding.
sPh
How many outraged would have cheered this legislation as originally applied to the Big 3?
(Some hot air about competition to the cheers of useful idiots) and therefore they can't (and politicians' pockets get lined by a different faction.)
How many yelping now about "this is not what America is about!!!" will forget that the next issue that comes around when some politician (blows hot seductive air to useful idiots who cheer wildly) and does the un-American, un-Freedom economic thing (and gets his pockets lined?)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If they want to be really cool about it, they could have someplace you could deposit $50000 worth of bitcoins and have the car delivered directly to your doorstep.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Just because I'm not interested in buying an electric car (and don't live in one of the states affected by this) doesn't mean that I don't have a horse in this race. What's at stake here is the ability of ordinary people to buy whatever brand they want even if the only way they can do so is by going directly to the manufacturer. Being required to go through a dealership is a form of restraint of trade, and when the merchandise comes from another state, that makes it interstate commerce. Everybody who's concerned with the rate at which the current administration is eroding our rights has a horse in this race, not just those who want to buy a Tesla car.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Three things,
Middlemen don't like being cut out. those that try find themselves cut.
Manufacturers, factories, etc don't want the headaches of dealing with uniformed idiots. Ever work a computer Hell desk? yea that has been going on for as long as we have had machines. The average person is barely above being an idiot and half the population is dumber than they are. I have explained the same thing to the same person 30 times in the last 3 months she still doesn't get it. She can't open her mind up to possibilities other than what she already knows.
Lastly, Middlemen provide slack, and options for the supply chain. In today's tight supply chains they are even more important than ever. As if the factory doesn't have your part your stuck unless your lucky enough to have a middleman with extra.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Manufacturers, factories, etc don't want the headaches of dealing with uniformed idiots.
If manufacturers don't want to deal directly, they why do we need laws prohibiting them from doing so?
Middlemen provide slack, and options for the supply chain.
If middlemen really added value, then customers would be willing to pay for that value, without government coercion.
I'm sorry, this may sound stupid, but can anyone point me to directions where I can find something about WHY this is the case? I.e. why is it forbidden for car manufacturers in the US to sell cars directly to consumers?
I'm not native, so I don't know and it sounds outlandish for. The TFA has a link but the text there is awful to read, so any help really appreciated.
Thanks
a former European
Seems like rather than fight, Tesla could simply set up dealerships in those states. I'd imagine there are some dealers who would like to add Tesla to their portfolio.
Planet Money did a great piece on dealership laws awhile back, talking about a startup that wanted to sell cars directly, and how insurmountable the obstacles they faced ended up being.
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.
So, why not allow the option of middlemen, and the option of direct sales. If what you say is true then middle men will foster a better experience, capitalism will prevail, and companies dependent on direct sales will falter.
Right?
This signature is false.
See #1: middlemen don't like being cut out.
The manufacturers of other cars have to sell through dealers because of these laws, and they don't want Tesla to have an advantage, and the existing dealers want a chance to become dealers for Tesla so they can get a share of that action.
The average person is barely above being an idiot...
I admire your optimism.
Thus the laws were originally intended to protect consumers on the local level. Now, especially in the face of subversive business models like Tesla's, matters have changed. Local dealers are in closer league with manufacturers, the latter often even providing financing for purchases. The arrangement is mutually beneficial: manufacturers can prevent upstarts like Tesla from getting a foothold in the market; dealers, acting as middle-men, can reap the rich benefits of rentseeking through powerful lobbies targeted toward state governments. N.b., however, this arrangement does not prevail in all states.
If middlemen really added value, then customers would be willing to pay for that value, without government coercion.
Well, there are middlemen that add value, but they're not typical auto dealerships. They're facilitators that help you locate the car you're looking for. Many of them have agreements with dealerships that will get you the best price or near it without having to dicker, and you only pay a [relatively] small commission to the "dealer" that you're actually dealing with. This only really makes sense when buying a fairly new vehicle, otherwise the commission can be disproportionate. Of course, their value would fall without this sort of protectionist nonsense.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Up next, must have a dealership for that Starbucks you want, and that Apple or Dell computer you looked at. Dealers started as an easy method for the car manufacturers to finance production since they could ship every day and let the dealer hold excess inventory while consumers bought in inevitable surges (seasonality). Then the tail wags the dogs. Tesla only needs to sign up a company that is everywhere, like starbucks, to showroom their brochures or a brake shop chain for maintenance and call it a 'dealer network'. Or they create a new LLC with sufficient funds to build retail outlets (like Apple stores) and spin it off as its own company, shares on wall street, more cash.
The free market is evilz!!!!!! We need the regulation!!! Big brother good, big business bad!!!!
Half of all people score in the lower 50% of intelligent tests.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
I think of that fact every time I sit in a doctor's office. Half of them are below average, too. :-(
I can see this happening in an overly regulated state like Massachusetts, but isn't Texas supposed to be the shining example of the free market in action? Next you're going to tell me that it doesn't matter what political structure a state or country has when it comes to money.
Yeah, but which half?
So the argument against removing the laws (for all auto manufacturers) and making the dealers "sell" themselves to the auto manufacturers is what exactly? That dealerships lobbied really, really hard to sell you a product that they add no value to? Can you say "crony capitalism"?
Having purchased a Tesla Model S the experience is the exact opposite of when I purchased a Toyota. Tesla's showrooms do not sell cars. They show them. When I went to the showroom I could ask questions without any pressure to buy the car. The only way to buy a Tesla is on their web site so there's no sales critters trying to get a commission. There are a myriad of options to choose from which allows you to get the exact car you want. I got the paint color, interior color and all the options I wanted. It went to the point where I chose the wheel colors and whether or not to have a rear carbon fiber spoiler (I chose not to). There's also no haggling over price. Tesla basically builds to order without having to deal with an inventory of cars. You order your car and they deliver exactly what you ordered, or in my case I picked mine up at the factory and took the tour.
At the Toyota dealership I didn't have much choice. I could choose any car as long as it was on their lot, plus there's the high pressure sales. The only thing worse than one of their car salesmen is a used car salesman (which they also sell there).
Dealerships don't really protect the consumer. As far as I'm concerned, they're leeches. A relative of mine bought a Fisker Karma and the dealerships are basically helpless since Fisker is more or less bankrupt in all but name. The warranty is basically worthless as is any pre-paid service and parts are unavailable. Since Fisker laid off their engineers even support is limited even if paid by the owner. The dealership my relative goes to is better than many. Many dealerships completely dropped any and all support for Fisker so the owners are completely SOL. There's nobody to even perform routine service on the vehicles.
I groan every time I have to have something fixed that's not under warranty at Toyota. They charge a premium for the service since they know that with a Prius you're unlikely to take it elsewhere.
Dealerships also wouldn't make nearly as much profit on service either. Tesla has vowed to not make a profit on service, but then again, service should be a lot simpler than a gasoline powered car. There's no transmission to service or wear out, only a simple gear reduction. There's no 5K mile oil changes, the motor is lubricated for 12 years. There's no fuel pumps or spark plugs to replace.
Since the number of cars sold is fairly low, a dealership would also be selling o
Tesla service consists of a 12,500 mile inspection, replacing the wiper blades and brake pads if needed (brake pads should last basically forever), rotate the tires, replace the cabin air filter and possibly flush the coolant. Service also may include hardware upgrades, software upgrades are distributed over 3G and can be applied by the owner whenever it's convenient.
Tesla has vowed to not make a profit on service. When I broke one of the clips on my roof they had to replace the entire panel next to the glass sunroof. If the panel were on my Prius, the dealership would probably charge $200-300 just for a replacement panel plus a fortune in labor. Tesla charged me $100 and $175 labor to replace it, which after explaining what they had to do to replace it was a bargain.
Things are quite different now than they were in the 1950.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I am mightily curious to know what uniforms those idiots are wearing. Is there an official depot from which to order them?
Do manufacturers of other cars have to sell through dealers because of the laws? Or did dealers get these laws passed so manufacturers have to sell through them? One way could be interpreted as dealers just wanting to have a level playing field. The other way could be interpreted as dealers protecting themselves from competitive alternative business models.
It's not just the middleman in this case, though I agree with your comments regarding mercantilism. The beginning points to numerous aspects acting as Cartels. Unions became cartels, franchises became cartels, and executives became cartels. When everyone is a criminal, things never end up well.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Surely that's what legislation like this provides - a useful indicator that your state is prepared to preserve the status quo to protect businesses at the expense of the citizens, so that ultimately cars will just end up costing more in your state because of the extra layer of overhead?
I'd just fly to another state, buy a car and drive it back home. Well, once they finish rolling out their charger station network, anyway :)
I thought No Child Left Behind was supposed to fix that.
Posting AC to preserve mods.
One could use a bit of search-fu and find out, but I won't, also. I do believe it was originally some car manufacturers that looked to set up dealerships as a way to get the cars out of the factory yards, get pre-orders, and avoid some of the problems inherent in dealing directly with customers.
I think of that fact every time I sit in a doctor's office. Half of them are below average, too. :-(
Yes. They are called general practitioners. The other half tend to specialize in higher paying fields, like surgery or anesthesiology.
For better or for worse, medical schools set their standards so high that only the most qualified (typically overqualified) ever get the opportunity to even study medicine, let alone practice. You may have a physician who was at the bottom of his class, but he's still likely to have more knowledge and intelligence than anyone else working or waiting in his clinic. It's not like IT, where there is a job for everybody, with a very wide spectrum of credentials or abilities (or lack thereof). Nor is it like those with a liberal arts degree, where employers just presume the degreed applicants don't know a thing about working life and have them start at the lowest position in the company, most often side-by-side with non-degreed hourly employees, and then only promote those noobs who show some potential to figure it out and actually make some effort to show up on time, properly dressed, and without a bad attitude.
Given that the student loans for the professions can easily top $100k, success is the only option. There is no bankruptcy allowed, and without a physicians salary there is little hope of ever having more than a Spartan existence, regardless of how earnestly one tries to pay off such loans by any other means.
Make the point of sale one spot in the US and deliver the product from that spot. Then open service centers around the nation that can provide factory parts and factory trained mechanics. If demand is high enough the middlemen will be eliminated and it just might encourage other auto companies to do the same thing. Where value exists a sales staff is simply not needed. If the product is wonderful the public will crawl through hell to buy it.
Well funded organizations - dealerships - are able to pad politicians pockets. Thus the politicians do what the organized contributors want.
If Tesla wants to do this, he needs to grease some politicians' palms. Not directly of course, but through the legalized channels - buying things for family members, contributing to shell entities which funnel money to politicians, that sort of thing. There are many ways to effect this.
Do that and Tesla's problems should go away.
Don't forget another reason for resellers - manufacturers don't want to deal with 1 piece orders constantly - it's way too much overhead for them. It's cheaper for them to sell 100 units to one person, then that person to sell it to 100 people, than for the manufacturer to sell to those 100 people.
Also, resellers can handle warranty issues locally - manufacturers then can deal with the reseller to handle it - e.g., the reseller can exchange 5 units to customers, then the manufacturer can send 5 extra units as replacements. Less overhead for the manufacturer, and local sellers may know their market better.
There are exceptions - like Apple, who can handle it all vertically, but they tend to be the exception. Even then their ordering systems aren't as slick as say, Amazon's.
Yes, by doing their best to move the upper half down to where the lower half is. Repeat until everyone is "equal".
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
manufacturers don't want to deal with 1 piece orders constantly - it's way too much overhead for them
This very article is about a company which wants to do just that.
I don't see why you can't have both - companies who want to deal with consumers directly should be allowed to, and all others I'm sure will have middlemen lining up to do it for them (assuming they have a product people want).
Don't forget another reason for resellers - manufacturers don't want to deal with 1 piece orders constantly - it's way too much overhead for them. It's cheaper for them to sell 100 units to one person, then that person to sell it to 100 people, than for the manufacturer to sell to those 100 people.
Is that what actually happens though? When I ordered my last car it had to be ordered and delivered from the factory to the dealer. It was a standard model, nothing special. I doubt most dealers would want to hold a lot of stock.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I thought No Child Left Behind was supposed to fix that.
I stand in awe of the power of your skills in mathematics and statistics. Were you, perchance, educated in a school under the onus of the NCLB policies?
(You can shift the center of the distribution, you can shift the spread of the distribution, but you can't change the fact that there is a distribution. There are just too many variables that nobody can control.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
... I have explained the same thing to the same person 30 times in the last 3 months she still doesn't get it. She can't open her mind up to possibilities other than what she already knows.
Or maybe... maybe it's you not opening your mind to the possibility that she's calling you every 3 days because she likes the sound of that cute guy in IT
Ever think of that?
(or it could be a bet in the typing pool to see how long they can keep it up until they get you to come to their section? Then if you're not cute they'll pester someone else. :)
My sister does that at her work ;)
My heart bleeds for those overprivileged achievers. The thing is, if you do manage to hold down a job as a general practitioner or specialist, then you're set for life. You have a 'respectable' position, a salary that puts you in the top earners, and a pension the size of which most people would dream of as a salary.
To get all this, you'll probably have 'pushy' parents, an overinflated ego (thanks to said parents), and a good memory. Don't get me wrong, you have certainly worked extremely hard to achieve the cushy life you end up in, but it took a long slog during your extended college and intern years to get there, not a great deal of intelligence. Your motives are probably also outside a desire to 'help people' and are most likely money or status based, if it was to help people, I'd imagine that soon gets burnt out of you.
Most of the doctors I know are certainly not that intelligent - egotistic, arrogant, condescending, yes, but only slightly above the common herd. They've just had years of having information pumped into them rote. Knowledge is not intelligence, but it can certainly appear like it to the uninformed.
You can't have a free market with ANY government meddling/laws/regulations/rules/existence being present.
Tautologies don't imply anything.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
As Sponge Bath said earlier, "I admire your optimism." Getting into and through medical school is no guarantee of intelligence or competence.
I've encountered many doctors on my path through life, and only a very small handful really knew what they were doing. Oh, by the way, two of those were general practitioners.
And you can't have a free market *WITHOUT* any government meddling/laws/regulations/rules/existence being present. If you try, you end up with abusive monopolies.
1) do your judges not have to have the support of the actual law before they strike things down?
Generally yes unless we are talking about some of the higher courts where they may rule on the legality of the law itself. Sometimes laws get passed that are incompatible with the Constitution and thus the law gets declared invalid. However in this case there are laws already in existence that may make laws requiring dealers to be unconstitutional.
2) the petition is on whitehouse.gov, which is the federal executive branch. Your executive branch doesn't control your legislative branch, does it?
No but they do control the departments responsible for enforcement of laws including the Justice Department and the Commerce Department. Also the executive branch has substantial ability to influence the actions of members of the legislative branch. Interstate commerce is under federal jurisdiction and thus the executive branch can have substantial influence under existing law. I'm kind of surprised no one has tried to make an argument in front of a judge that dealership restrictions within a state run afoul of the commerce clause of the constitution by unduly interfering with interstate commerce.
Rather, it was used as a short term solution, around the turn of the last century, to get dealers set up across the country quickly without having to spend the capital to do so themselves.
What no child left behind has created is a generation of failures. Case in point... my girlfriend has 3 children that are not mine. 2 of them are pre-teen. The 2 pre-teen children have found out that being lazy in school has no bad effect. Her youngest daughter passed 1 class this year. There are 7 classes a semester and 3 semesters. 21 classes a year and she passed 1. Her son passed 5 or 6, I don't know the exact figure.
But failing a grade means spending 3 weeks in summer school which ends next week. If you are there for every day of the 3 weeks, you are passed to the next grade. I don't know what they do there but they never have any home work.
Her youngest daughter will be in 5th grade this year. She hasn't passed a grade since 1st. Her son will be in 6th this year. He hasn't passed a grade since 3rd.
Both of them struggle to read. Both of them have a hard time doing simple math on their fingers.
That is what No Child Left Behind will get you.
As a bit of a counterpoint, remember that we use middlemen *everywhere.* Amazon, Walmart, grocery stores, department stores... the list goes on and on. Damn near every single business we buy from is a middleman.
Usually it is in our best interest to go through a middleman as it ends up with savings for everyone. The middleman usually buys in bulk (thousands of items) and then sells to us (1 at a time) at a markup. The manufacturer gets the benefit of a steady, predictable cash flow while we get the convenience of buying one at a time.
Of course, that's how it usually works. Not everyone wants that though. In today's connected world we can pay a premium straight from the manufacturer for items custom created directly for what we need. Cars, as large capital investments for most people, are a perfect example of this - especially as the "premium" is usually the same price that you would be charged from the middleman anyway. For middlemen to survive they need to provide a "value added" effect to the merchandise and I do not see that happening with most car dealerships.
tl;dr version: You use middlemen every day, usually love it, but if they don't provide extra value they shouldn't exist.
There is nothing wrong with the points you make. They are all good points. However, none of them is an argument that supports laws requiring a company to use middlemen.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That isn't the schools fault its the parents fault. You say being lazy has no consequences. I say give the little bastards a good spanking then take all their stuff away until they stop being lazy. It's not up to the school to motivate children it's up to the parents. I'm guessing your "girlfriend" is just as useless as her children and she taught them to be lazy.
Because you don't live in a capitalist country, despite what the mainstream media tells you?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa...
Stop making sense.
Likely the bottom half.
That's what shitty parenting combined with a crappy school system will get you. It can be fixed at either end - in fact school days are usually about 7 hours long, only happen 5 in every 7 days, and more than 1/5 of those are vacation days anyway so schools don't have a monopoly.
Sure you shouldn't have to but there are 3.5 waking hours that a kid is not in school for every 1 hour they are in school so parents have ample time make up for things schools don't do and fix any damage schools do do. If the are no bad effects of being lazy in school enforced by the school there's ample time for there to be bad effects enforced outside of school. If the school homework is non-existent or stupid time-wasting garbage there's no law that a parent can't give their child their own homework to do as well (well not in the states I've lived anyway).
peragrin - So... Let me get this straight. You work at a hell desk job and have very little patience for the people you are trying to help. The results making you cynical and unhappy and leaving the customer unhappy, frustrated, and still in the dark. And all the while you are making your life miserable, other people's lives miserable, and wasting your employer's time and money, but have the nerve to call the average person the 'idiot'.
Because of you lack diversity and understanding, because you're a bigoted, naive little snot, because you contradict yourself and make a great case that you're just an idiot calling the world stupid, I'm giving you the title of 'Moron of The Day, June 28, 2013'. Congrats.
In which case you don't need a law preventing manufacturers from doing so - they'll use resellers because it is cheaper/better for them. That there is such a law is usually evidence (not proof, there are other possible explanations) that manfacturers do in fact want to sell directly. If no one wanted to speed we wouldn't need speed limit laws after all.
I'd like to, though. Abolishing these laws would be one step in that direction.
That used to be true. Nowadays there's this thing called "the internet." Maybe you've heard of it?
All these arguments are absolutely beside the point. If it's better, it doesn't need laws enforcing it. If it's worse, it shouldn't have laws enforcing it. Either way, the laws should go.
No value add?????
Think floor mats!
Those ones the dealer sells you are REALLY nice... at least they should be.
Seriously, I'd be running away from that hornets nest of a situation SO quickly, I'd leave skid marks on the doorstep?!?!?
There's plenty of women out there without baggage like THAT hanging around their necks....just waiting to add it to YOUR neck too!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The other manufacturers got these laws passed to draw legally-enforceable turf boundaries.
How many car dealerships have you seen that sold more than one manufacturer's product at a single location? Sure, there are dealership networks that have dealership locations for multiple manufacturers. But when was the last time you could go to Jim-Bob's Ford and buy a Chevy? When did you ever see Jim-Bob's Honda, Ford, and VW dealership? You've never seen these things because of these laws.
If a car dealership could just buy from any manufacturer and sell them all on one lot, the manufacturers would have to actually compete with each other! There wouldn't be legally-enforceable mini-monopolies anymore! Fords and Chevys (Chevies?) being sold on the same lot! Pandemonium! Next thing you know, it'll be dogs and cats living together!
This arrangement has its quirks, and nobody's fully invested. Manufacturers want to sell more, and they've mostly made the determination that dealer agreements are the way to do that (no competition on the same lot), but boutique-style manufacturers like Tesla would rather sell direct because dealer networks are expensive and troublesome when you only have two models to choose from. Dealers would love to be able to sell any car on any lot, anywhere, all the time. But right now, they've got a good gig just being in the business of being a middleman, especially since the internet has made most other middlemen irrelevant. And now Tesla is looking to strip that away from them. They'd have to become Non-Used Car Salesmen, and that's a tough gig compared to $make Salesmen.
I groan every time I have to have something fixed that's not under warranty at Toyota. They charge a premium for the service since they know that with a Prius you're unlikely to take it elsewhere.
There's actually very little about the Prius that's composed of magical hybrid fairy dust and unicorn hair; for the most part, it's just a gasoline car with a few extra parts. The gasoline engine, cooling system, suspension, steering, etc. can be serviced by virtually any mechanic.
If it's a warranty repair, let the dealer handle it (for free.) Those special hybrid drivetrain systems, including the batteries, are under warranty for an absurdly long time (8 years or so) anyway. For any maintenance or repairs you have to pay for, chances are they're not related to the fancy hybrid parts, and therefore there's no reason to go to the dealer over a cheaper independent mechanic.
I blame both. The school should not reward failure but you are right the parents are a joke
Whoosh!
Whatever politicians do, there will always be stupid kids that don't pass tests.
Than what will the Jews do?
Spanking a motivation? Talk about a lack of parenting skills.
Tell me, in whatever job is id you do, would you feel motivated if the boss told you to do something otherwise he'd punch you?
Parenting in a complicated thing. But "spare the rod and spoil the child" belongs in bygone centuries. It's ignorance.
Actually. No.
Once Upon A Time mass manufacturing operated better on large piece runs. However, modern techniques have swung the other direction and most automobile manufacturers can (at least theoretically) handle one piece flow.
Shipping automobiles is still a bit more efficient in bulk, though I can imagine two or three different scenarios to alleviate this last constriction.
-
Lastly, Middlemen provide slack, and options for the supply chain.
I knew it! Bob Dobbs was a holy Middleman all along.
Slack is essential.
That works for communism, too. It's never been properly implemented, thus the bad history of the times it's been tried should be disregarded.
Lastly, Middlemen provide slack, and options for the supply chain
Efficiently run manufactures don't need much slack. When you build only what is ordered when it is ordered, the only thing you need is enough inventory to meet immediate demand.
Next, they won't let you have a quiet drink, or practice on the ukelele, in one. You'll see. This can only lead to widespread smuggling. Out-of-state ownership. Lost revenue, smuggler barons, immigrant noveau-riches who'll want to sire (or dame) dynasties whose offspring will be national and world leaders, pretentious social panorama novels (in pasteel tones), ... oh, the humanity!
Don't be silly. The dealer does add value in providing the show room and the real estate for you to go look at the cars o see what you want. If car manufacturers sold directly, the car manufacturer would provide all of these things and they would be added to the cost of the car anyway. And, you would have no choice on what dealer to go to, the car manufacturer would be the dealer too. With the current system you have a choice of what dealer to go to, and that is your market force, consumers will go to what dealer provides the best value and service. So your idea that there is some sort of non-market thing at work here is wrong, having the dealer and manufacturer seperate actually increases your market choices. The market thrives when we avoid vertical integration, vertical integration would actually stifle your options.
It's cheaper for them to sell 100 units to one person, then that person to sell it to 100 people, than for the manufacturer to sell to those 100 people.
This is the biggest falicy of the century. For a small manufacturer with limited capital, this might be true. But if that same manufacturer had the capital to manage it's chain all the way to the customer's door, they would have a much higher profit magrin, less waste, lower inventory, and overall higher efficiency.
that is your market force, consumers will go to what dealer provides the best value and service.
ROFLMAO
You've clearly not gone looking for a new car and compared dealerships. I have. Every dealership within 100 miles offers the EXACT SAME PRICES. There is no best value. There is only the price that has been decided on by the manufacturer. If one dealership is giving $1000 rebate or selling "below MSRP", every other dealership for that manufacturer will be offering the same deal. Sure, you can choose which sales person you're going to try to haggle with, but they're all bound by the same price constraints.
The only difference you can actually get by going to a different dealership is a difference in sales tax if you go to a different county or state.
Who the hell marked this as interesting. This is the most circular logic I've ever seen, nonreligious. You say other car manufacturers have to sell through dealers because of the laws in question, the very laws the person you are replying to is disagreeing with and were only added to try to satisfy some business owners with friends in high places. So laws get removed, manufacturers can choose to sell through dealers or go direct themselves. Why do you need a law that forces all manufacturers to go through dealers just because the existing manufacturers decided they didn't want to work directly with consumers? They made a choice, nobody forced them to do business with dealers, not till these backward @$$ laws came out.
That's wrong.
a) the show room is a value add regardless off who pays for it, and it's cheaper to the consumer for the manufacturer to do it. There is no middle many percentage on top.
b)" you would have no choice on what dealer to go to, " Says who? That would only be the case if separate dealerships weren't allowed. and manufacturers still have to compete against other manufacturers.
c)" consumers will go to what dealer provides the best value and service." as they would continue to do. again, you are making the the assumption that this would some how take away the option of having dealerships.
"actually stifle your options."
you mean like stifling my option to buy direct from the manufacturer?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Unless you are rich, yo wouldn't want to live in a solely capitalist driven economy. We did do that for a while, it went poorly for anyone who want' rich or willing to kill people.
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below average in a subgroup of above average intelligence, education, dedication and motivation.
You peoples misuse of average makes Maths Hulk want to smash.
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You clearly know nothing o GP pay and costs.
" not a great deal of intelligence."
you will not make the 'slog' without a good deal of intelligence.
"Your motives are probably also outside a desire to 'help people' "
haha, no. I have worked with too many Doctors and I know that's not true for the vast majority of them. If that's what they wanted, they would have gone into finance and made MORE money.
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I transfered my 401k/403b to Fidelity because the middleman took 5% off the top and 1% per year and tried to bury that fact. I compared the performance to other funds and found it to be comperable. The difference is that I will see hundreds of thousands more in retirement instead of making a local broker rich.
Vanguard is another group that has low overhead, but my employer does not play ball with them.
Spanking has catastrophic long term impacts.
You're an idiot.
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Middlemen don't like being cut out. those that try find themselves cut.
Middlemen also provide a place for states and municipalities to easily levy hidden and indirect taxes. It's much easier to increase the inventory tax on car dealerships than to increase the excise or property tax on car owners. The amount and diversity of taxes built into the price of a modern car is staggering. The Tesla is a fine car, but it's a more impressive feat of tax avoidance than it is a feat of engineering. There's a reason the $65K Tesla sedan is blowing away the competition: it's being compared to $35K cars that have $30K of hidden taxes. If Teslas were taxed like other cars, they wouldn't be compared to a Mercedes E-Class, they'd be compared to a Maserati Quattroporte.
What Tesla is doing is disruptive. It's good in the long run to upend the entrenched system and add more tax transparency, but disruption is still expensive. There are hundreds of towns all across the country that rely on a large cluster of auto dealerships for much of their tax base. They still have teachers to pay and roads to maintain, and they are going to get hurt. You can't change a town's commercial or industrial base overnight.
That what bad parenting gets you. I can go on with the serious bad effects of NCLB, but if a child in the 6th grade can not read well or do basic math that's parenting fail.
"If you are there for every day of the 3 weeks, you are passed to the next grade. "
if that is true, then it's p[retty horrible.
I have two kids in school, and the pass there classes, and if the fail they have summer school. Summer School I have to pay for.
One of my children has a form of apraxia, so certain English subjects are vary difficult for him, so he ended up in summer school; which is an online course, and has a place he could go to to get help from a teacher. He works very hard to barley pass. He does well in Computers and design.
Just so you know; assigned homework doesn't help anyone. It should be done away with.
"That is what No Child Left Behind will get you."
bad parenting existed well before NCLB.
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"manufacturers don't want to deal with 1 piece orders constantly "
sure, that's fine. Shouldn't the manufacture get to make that call?
No on is saying manufactures can't use middlemen, only that middlemen should be forced on the manufacturer. It's not like it's food or any infrastructure issue, it' cars. I can't imagine what value to society forcing a auto manufacturer to use a middleman has.
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Half of all people score in the lower 50% of intelligent tests.
"intelligence"
false... and stupid.
There is a long history of corporations/companies stifling the free market and controlling the complete chain.
Seriously, why do you think we wanted regulations in the first place? I'm not defending all regulations, but the idea that there will be an actual free market without government regulation is absurd.
Do you think we would have anyone but IBM developing computer technology if they had been allowed to do whatever they want without regulation?
Do you not know of all the instance of corporations poisoning whole towns? Train owners driving people from their homes and taking their property? killing them?
Learn something. Government has a responsibility to all people, Corporation, in general, have a responsibility to make money.
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manufacturers don't want to deal with 1 piece orders constantly - it's way too much overhead for them
Yes, traditionally that's the case. Manufacturers want to sell in large palettes of whateverthefuck.
But just to, you know, throw this out there... Why?
I mean, right now, someone else buys a pallet, turns around and sells the individual things for more than they bought it for. That mark up pays all their wages, bosses, and corporate profits. And yet it would be "too much over head" for the manufacturing companies to do all that.
What's keeping the manufacturing plants from doing everything the resellers do?
And the answer is that the resellers are more agile than the ancient manufacturers. The young ones can use the hip new technology that let's them deal with small orders without having to pay a small army of accountants to file paperwork. You know, a webpage with a shopping cart. The manufacturing plants are largely rooted in their old ways and if you want to buy 1 or 1 million widgets you have to literally fax them an ordering contract. It really is cheaper for the old manufacturing plant to sell in bulk.
But there's really nothing keeping the technology out of the hands of the manufacturing plant other than their reluctance to change and their investment in fax machines.
When you get a new manufacturer on the scene, like Tesla, why the hell would they buy fax machines?
I can see North Carolina, Texas and Arizona, which are red states, having this legislation...but, Massachusetts?
and yore bold usage of the word "your" to prove you're point
Half of all people score in the lower 50% of intelligent tests.
Actually, that depends on how you define the lower 50% and how fine-grained the test results are.
Let's say (for simplicity) that 5 people take a 2 question IQ test. As with most IQ tests, we get a bell curve of results: 1 person gets both right, 1 person gets both wrong, and 3 people only get 1 right. How many people scored in the lower 50%? Is it 1? Is it 4? It's certainly not 2.5.
Even if you expand the test taking population and add more questions, you still run into the possibility that you won't necessarily hit 50%.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You're confusding ignorance with stupidity. Ignorance is curable, no amount of education will fix stupidity.
I guess Florida is different. Beck Auto Group, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Nissan. Garber Auto Mall, Buick Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Ford GMC Jeep Ram Dealer.
The feudal system was much better. 20% to the Lord and the serfs shared everything else. What, there was a market place with merchants? People bought and sold things? really?
I know what you mean. My son had $50,000 in loans from law school. It took him three whole months to pay that back. It was terrible.
It did. All scores are now zero. ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Uh huh...and when exactly was that, dumbshit?
The government is itself an abusive monopoly. Try and manufacture a car and then sell it directly to a customer and tell me how that works out for you.
The appeal is this: in the end of the day you know how much you're going to pay without a protracted battle beforehand. This was especially nice in the days before you could price a car on the internet.
When I was buying my first new car, the internet was not the wealth of knowledge that it is now. So I had an idea of price range, but really no concrete dollar amounts between the cars I was looking at (Civic, Corolla, Saturn). To get an idea of price at any other dealership meant getting into negotiations, and trying to separate the dealer-added crap from the factory packages.
At the Saturn dealership, I got to see the price of every car and every package. And after suffering though several other dealerships, I began to see this one fact: the no-haggle prices were as good or better than I could get anywhere else. At the end of the day, the salesman still gets his cut, so why waste your time and breath trying to move a mountain?
You won' t get high dollar for your trade from a no-haggle place (that's where they make their money), but you can always take it to another used car lot. I didn't have that problem at the time, so I really had a good experience.
Today you have unlimited knowledge on the internet, so you can go in prepared...or use any number of other buying options.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The very definition of a "free market" implies lack of regulation. I'm too lazy to search for some proper authoritative source, but here is the description from the wikipedia article on it:
"A free market is a market structure in which the distribution and costs of goods and services, along with the structure and hierarchy between capital and consumer goods, are coordinated by supply and demand unhindered by external regulation or control by government or monopolies."
Emphasis mine.
Now fine, I take it you want to argue that you can't have a "free fair market", for lack of a better term. You want it both free and fair. Those aren't necessarily orthogonal concepts, but they seldom coincide when you have more than one party involved.
You want make driving a car fair? Sure, slap on a 3rd party insurance requirement, just in case someone has an accident without insurance. That's fair for you because you're scared of that reckless uninsured driver, but it's unfair for the little guy down the street that can barely scrape by to buy that tire he so badly needs for the coming rains. Nor is it fair for that guy who missed the payment and yesterday his insurance expired, and gets stopped on his way to the DMV to pay for his 3rd party insurance because he's all too happy to pay the extortion fee. The real reason is because he needs a car to go to work, and can't afford to go to jail if he has an accident without insurance, even if it is for one day.
Speaking of tires. Tires in America are apparently quite overpriced due to some recent Obama-proud trade tariffs. It sure is fair for those 1000 or so jobs that were not lost due to cheap Chinese imports, and the unions that the workers pay fees to. Not so fair on the Chinese business man who innovated and probably lowered costs on his side by hiring underage workers. You know, workers that need jobs to pay to feed their families or whatever.
Care to name one example of this supposed "stifling [of] the free market and controlling the complete chain" you mention? I'm genuinely curious, because to me, a monopoly/oligopoly can mostly only be caused specifically by government regulation. Before you answer, please think about all the current monopolies/oligopolies that are present in the market. The market that the government is supposedly protecting from the evil companies.
Tesla should have an advantage, at least right now, to promote the technology, which you have to admit is going to be the way of things. Facilitating adoption by the general public is only going to benefit everyone in the long run. Once it's really caught on there will be dealerships falling all over themselves to get in on the action, but for right now electric vehicles are a hard sell.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Capitalism - early industrialization - made it possible for people to live who would otherwise died. Stop lying about the history of capitalism.
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Motivations that work are age-appropriate, and need to be adjusted to the individual. One of the causes of the problems seen today is the failure to use corporal punishment as required. Less than a century of limp-wristed modern "child psychology", applying a hypothetical regime of no punishment, does not overthrow the thousands of years of experience behind effective traditional parenting.
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Not spanking produces children who don't think they'll be shot when they hold up a bank.
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Do you think most people at MIT could pass tests without doing assigned homework? Do you think history, which requires very extensive reading that cannot be accomplished in classroom hours, can be learned without reading history, which is most of what the "assigned homework" consists of?
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In the United States, the primary examples of "Train owners driving people from their homes and taking their property" have been government land grants to railroads. Without the massive government force used by the corrupt collusion of business and government, such abuses are much more difficult.
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I worked for Tesla for two years. I was part of the Electrical Engineering team that designed the standards for the automation equipment to build the Model S and supervised the companies who built the machines for us. I left the day the car was officially launched for financial reasons. Loved the place, but they didn't pay well enough to support my family in California.
However, as a senior engineer, I was privy to a lot of good information on what we where doing. I even met Elon Musk a few times.
When Tesla was developing their model, they did a major analysis of the entire automotive marketplace. What they discovered is that the most reliably profitable part of the entire automotive chain was Dealerships.
Dealerships made more money than Parts Suppliers, Assembly Plants, Service Centers, etc. So Elon decided that he would simply absorb the existing Dealership structure (used by every other automotive manufacturer) into the company core.
Smart move. Now greedy dealers are freaking out. There is no reason they should be. No one is taking away the vehicles they already sell. They just are not going to get Tesla's vehicles to sell.
Seems like good capitalism. No wonder the Right Wing wants to frak with it.
At least they're nicely dressed idiots.
The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, huh?
If my boss threatened to punch me for being a slacker I'd get the fuck to work. But that doesn't happen because I'm a productive worker.
Yes, this is just results from a google search.. and admittedly are confusing..
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary
says GP makes an average of $125,568.
http://www.healthcare-salaries.com/physicians/medical-doctor-salary-md
gives two different salaries in different paragraphs -- $186044, and
I'm not sure what happened exactly, but you used to see things like that. I remember one dealer that used to sell Buicks, Nissans, and Kias at the same location. However, this seem to come to end sometime around the late 90's and early 2000's, and all the "mixed brand" dealers picked one brand and dropped the others (the above example nowadays only sells Nissan).
"Less than a century of limp-wristed modern "child psychology",
As I said, it's ignorance. As is that comment.
If my boss threatened to punch me for being a slacker I'd get the fuck to work.
You're in a tiny minority. Most would go work somewhere else. A fair proportion would bring legal repercussions down on the bully.
But that doesn't happen because I'm a productive worker.
Without your boss threatening to punch you... Guess there was another more effective motivation, eh?
Run. No matter how tit, it isn't worth it.
what helped me was my Insurance company's buying club. They not only used my wants and needs to choose a range of recommended high-value cars, when I chose 1 they negotiated a final price and I just had to walk in and sign the papers. Got a Hyundai Sonata hybrid for 21,000: hard to beat that kind of value added insurance company too.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Then help end it. Sign the petition. They only have 4 days left. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/allow-tesla-motors-sell-directly-consumers-all-50-states/bFN7NHQR
NPR did a radio show on why Buying a Car is always so terrible: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes
It raises the perfectly valid question of, "why can't you go to a single place and shop for multiple brands of cars like you do appliances, electronics, cameras, groceries etc?"
There is absolutely a non-market thing driving the current car-buying process, and it is a bunch of laws in every state that heavily protect car dealerships from the sort of fair competition that merchants in every other industry have to face. Dealers are protected by law from another dealer that wants to open in the same territory, and there are serious restrictions on manufacturers that prevent them from terminating a contract with a bad dealership. So, if you as a customer didn't like how a dealer sold cars, your only option is to drive very far away to the next dealer, or to buy a completely different brand. You can't even buy the car online. This is completely different from buying almost anything else.
Do you not understand how science works or something? Do you still think you get sick because of evil spirits? Psychology may be considered one of the "softer" sciences, but don't criticize it when you clearly don't know anything about what that menaas. The conclusions of "child psychology" comes from actual studies and field data, while the thousands of years of experience is also what gave us leeching to remove bad blood, surgeons not washing their hands between patients, and burning witches whenever we couldn't understand something.
Don't try to rationalize your desire to hit a child when you're frustrated that they're not listening to you with the claim that thousands of years of experience backs you up.