Car Dealers Complain To DMV About Tesla's Website

cartechboy writes "State and national car dealer groups have been battling Tesla Motors for years, trying to stop them from selling its electric cars directly to buyers. Most of the time, the dealers work behind the scenes to change state laws and and force Tesla to conduct its sales through 'independently-owned third parties' which are... well, car dealers. But in California, Tesla's operations are legal, so that tactic won't work. So dealers there are taking an interesting new tack — complaining to the DMV about Tesla's website."

Comments

Ford Vs Musk

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Henry Ford fought the cartel of car manufacturers called American Motor Manufacturers Association which claimed patent rights to the automobile and demanded royalty payment for all car makers. Ford defied them, fought them all the way to the Supreme Court and won back in 1900s. Hope Musk fights the dealers, their cartels and their political shenanigans and win. As soon as I can afford it, I will buy a Tesla.

Re:You know it's the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess we're past the ignoring and laughing phases.

Dealers Have Much Worse Ads!

[Webcommando]

From the fine article:

Tesla fails to provide required information and shatters the notion of comparison finance shopping by including the potential availability of incentives, gas savings, and tax savings into final payment quotes for prospective customers.

So the beef is that Tesla isn't being clear about everything and that upsets the dealers. hmm..

In my local paper, the dealers have ads in every Sunday that advertise a low price. As it was a few weeks ago, I was looking to buy a minivan for the family (I'm not completely domesticate, I still have my convertible). Great price of $22k for a Town and Country...pretty amazing actually. Way at the bottom of the ad were the caveats--includes first car buyer discount, veteran discount, bonus trade-in amount, etc.

Looking at the discounts there was no way you could be eligible for all of them at the same time. In my case, none of them. Yeah, those Tesla guys are devious and misleading.

Missing Point

[Roger W Moore]

I agree - it does seem to be sour grapes but they do have some good points. However they do seem to miss one. Tesla claim that you save money on petrol. While true if you factor in the cost of the wear on the battery per km driven then cost of an electric car's fuel is actually far higher than a petrol car. With the cost of petrol continuously increasing and battery lifetimes increasing at some point electric cars will win but any fair comparison of the fuel costs must include the battery wear cost.

Re:Missing Point

[turkeyfish]

Bingo. You've hit the nail on the head. Dealerships make most their money in repairs, not in selling cars. Over the life of a car, the 5-20% profit they make on the sale is a small fraction of what they can make on repairs and maintenance.

If Telsa has the audacity to create a product that requires significantly less repairs, it puts dealerships at a competitive disadvantage, which is exactly where they should be in a truly free and open market.

Many in the fossil fuels business like to downplay the savings gained from small fuel costs for battery technology, but they don't want to address the larger costs associated with maintenance issues inherent in internal combustion technology because they know it makes electric car technology even more attractive financially.

Re:Missing Point

[hughk]

Quite simply, a Tesla (or any all electric car) has significantly less moving parts. Faults will occur, but susbstantially less often than with an ICE. Some of those faults though will require very specialist knowledge to fix though.

Re:Missing Point

[SlippyToad]

Years ago, I remember reading in my Time-Life books, which were an amazing series that I re-bought for my own kids, about how cars were manufactured.

There was a Time-Life book on almost every topic of the modern world. This one talked about how early transport was done, and when they talked about cars they SPECIFICALLY mentioned how engineers would put the car on a machine to simulate use, and deliberately weaken parts that lasted longer than the "designed" life of the car.

There was no whispered conspiratorial tone to this; it was stated matter-of-factly in that matter-of-fact tone of voice you do not find in modern media. So, basically, it's not a myth or a conspiracy that our modern conveniences have been deliberately and intentionally made to fall apart at a certain rate in order to ensure profitability for the parts manufacturers.

Kudos to Elon Musk for his willingness to break this absurd paradigm.

Re:Missing Point

[AaronW]

Tesla offers a plan where for $12,000 you will get a new battery pack after 8 years. For every additional year you wait they knock off $1000. In my case I took a good chunk of that and bought a bunch of Tesla stock at $35. It's hovering around $185/share right now.

The A/C should need a lot less maintenance since unlike mode ICE cars the compressor is electric and is completely sealed. Since no hoses are needed to go to an ICE that vibrates and moves, leaks should be less likely. There's no clutch to wear out either. As far as electrical systems, I have never had a problem with any of my cars, my last being a 2007 Prius, which has a lot of electrical systems. In some ways Tesla is simpler. It lacks many of the sensors an ICE car has, i.e. knock sensors, mass air flow sensors, throttle controls, oxygen sensors, oil pressure, fuel gauge, etc.

What sensors it does have tend to be temperature sensors, voltage and current sensors. The model S does have a number of valves and pumps for coolant since the cooling system is more complex, cooling the motor, inverter, charging units and battery as well as tying into the A/C system. It changes the flow depending on conditions and whether it's warming or cooling the battery and the climate control system. This is one of the main reasons the Model S does not suffer the problems the Leaf does. There have not been reports of any significant loss of range in hot climates and the cooling system was tested in Death Valley.

To help the battery last longer typically it is not charged to 100%. While it is possible it is not recommended to do it all the time. The only time I do a range charge is if I know I'm going on a long trip, otherwise I let it charge to 80%. Also unlike the Leaf, there are no issues doing rapid charges at the Superchargers. The Leaf's battery suffers when using the high output Chademo chargers.

VP of Marketing

[EmperorOfCanada]

Years ago I worked for a company that did a tiny bit of work for one of the big 3 US auto companies. Their VP of marketing told me that it was his dream to eliminate the dealer network. He basically blamed a huge amount of his company's woes on the dealers. His dream was that you could buy your car from a grocery store or by phone from a newspaper ad and maybe this whole new internet thing was just the key. It was his opinion that customers were growing to really hate the US car companies because the dealers were so sleazy. But it was his opinion that the car companies had grown to accommodate their sleaze. He thought that all the different models and features only served to confuse the customers.

So wherever that guy is I am pretty sure he is cheering Tesla on. Plus based on what he said, I suspect the other manufacturers are watching and hoping but keeping quiet about it.

Re:Rent seeking

[runeghost]

Oh, bullshit. In any "lightly regulated market" that has enough total cash flow to make skimming worthwhile, a few big players will band together to exploit their customers by any means possible. The only demonstrated historical countermeasures the public can take are 1) government regulation (of varying effectiveness) and 2) lynch the bastards. Since option number two is basically anarchy, which has other unpleasant consequences, humanity usually opts for some flavor of option number one. The American flavor of Libertarians consists entirely of idiots who can't understand this simple truth, or near-sociopaths who are convinced they'd come out on top.

Re:Sour Grapes

[Redmancometh]

Forcing someone to use a middle man by law is pants-on-head retarded. If your model can't compete you're going to lose. This sounds an awful lot like RIAA/MPAA crap.

It's not like tesla is going to impact their bottom line heavily - hybrids and electrics are disliked by a lot of people. Not to mention most people don't have that kind of money to drop on a car.

This is just ridiculous. I hate people that bitch about "the corporations" at every possible chance, but this is almost certainly a result of our corporate overlords.
So these dealers are entitled BY LAW to make money off someone's product? And you wonder why conservatives bitch about market regulation (even if they do hypocritically regulate the market anyways) well here's why. Regulation is good, but this isn't regulation this is bribery of our elected officials.

I would give so much to be able to catch these corrupt fucks in the act of accepting a bribe.