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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."
The dealers have a few good points, but EVERYONE knows this is just sour grapes because the dealerships can't fleece potential buyers out of some more money off the top.
Fucking scum.
Telsa's claims might be misleading, but if you want a pathological lying sack of shit, look no further than your local car dealer.
After 30 years of automakers blatantly providing theoretical and incredibly optimistic EPA estimates for gas mileage, you'd think that dealers would be willing to give a little on another car maker fudging some other numbers on their site.
there's a reason why they call it disruptive technology, scumbags
we don't need you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm sure car dealers will have no troubles rallying massive grassroots support to put a stop to this menace to a cherished American institution.
Ain't free enterprise great in America? You can do anything, as long as you cut the vested interests in for a piece of the action. Thankfully though we're not a bunch of economically ignorant Neanderthals that would do something stupid like put a nickel tariff on a pair of socks. That would be interfering in commerce!
It is a stupendous car, the ordering and delivery process was a dream, and the customer support after the sale has been flawless. The other dealers can simply go pound sand! Rather than bitching, try doing everything right like Tesla!
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.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It recently blasted Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] by accusing it of deceptive marketing and pricing practices in the information it shows on its website.
The "It" in this quote is the auto dealers, a very well known group to be the paragons of virtue and personification of integrity when it comes to selling automobiles and providing accurate information.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...when companies are fighting it.
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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.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
Just trying to make an honest livi---
wait
It is really shameful that Tesla is misleading customers with deceptive advertising about its electric cars. Here is a part of the complaint:
"... the Association says that purchase prices on Tesla's website routinely include a $7,500 federal TAX CREDIT, despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office states that only 20 percent of shoppers qualify for the alternative vehicle credit."
None of the members of the California New Car Dealer's Association would ever stoop so low. Especially GENERAL MOTORS dealers. Especially since, according to this report: http://cncda.org/resources/10-20-08_CNCDA_Ltr-GMAC_CEO_Alvaro_deMolina.pdf GENERAL MOTORS dealers represent over 25% of CDCDA's members. Surely none of them would ...
Oh wait.
http://www.chevrolet.com/volt-electric-car.html
"Chevrolet 2014 Volt"
"Net price shown includes the FULL $7,500 TAX CREDIT"
Never mind, move along, nothing to see.
Car dealers are in the same boat as the media industry. Totally clueless how to adapt to the information age. Maybe at one time it made sense but not any more.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
the fuel costs must include the battery wear cost
That would fall under normal wear and tear, not fuel costs. And before you argue that battery is a costly component that gasoline cars lack: it is more than offset by much simplier car design with fewer moving parts. In fact, what I heard was that the dealers do not want Tesla's business because they would lose out on those fat maintenance cash flows.
You guys used to serve a valuable purpose. Yes, you've always screwed us as hard as you could get away with, but hey, can't fault you for following the American Way to the American Dream.
But now? Congratulations, the internet has made you nothing more than the place I go to test drive your products before I let the nearest 50 of you bid against each other for my next buy (and don't think I won't buy from the other side of the country if someone there has a good enough sale going on to cover the cost of shipping the damned thing to me).
You had a good run. Congratulations. Now cash out before you run out of cash. Simple as that.
Please, go down gracefully. Don't let this turn into yet another "when you can't compete, legislate" disaster. That just never goes well for the "legacy" side of the battle.
Of course, we'll get a bunch of comments on how this proves that business men are hypocrites because they are against regulation accept where it benefits them and how stupid the libertarians are.
But this is precisely the libertarian argument - if government becomes (overly) involved in business, rent seeking behavior is the natural result. Capitalism is a cruel mistress and businesses routinely fail, so they look for any edge they can get.
In a lightly regulated market with low barriers to entry, they have to compete on service, price, convenience, etc. In a more heavily regulated market, first movers and existing and heavily capitalized businesses look to create new barriers to entry to prevent competition and create artificial scarcity to keep prices high. This can be via licensing (taxis and beauticians), regulations that have high fixed costs but low per unit/worker costs, monopoly/captive markets like dealerships and liquor distribution, and other regulatory structures that that favor fewer, larger firms to more, smaller firms.
Ironically, the dealership structure began as a true capitalist trade-off - dealership networks allowed automobile companies to become large, centralized and efficient by helping to limit their capital costs - as inventory was created, it was immediately purchased and distributed across the country to local sources of capital. Car manufacturers got less money per vehicle but could concentrate their capital on plants, raw goods, workforces, etc. That dealership network absorbed a huge amount of the capital costs of the vehicles themselves. Once a lot of the manufacturers' fixed costs were paid off, the dealers saw the writing on the wall and used their local political connections to modify state laws everywhere to fix the existing model in place.
Playing devil's advocate for one minute, the summary is misleading when it says dealers are "working behind the scenes to change state laws". In fact, they are working in the open to preserve the existing state laws - Tesla was the company attempting to have various laws changed to their benefit (in the Texas case, to their sole benefit as it was very narrowly written). That said, I would prefer a more broadly written version of the "Tesla law" to prevail.
Air pollution and the relative lack thereof, duh.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
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.
They won't have significantly less repairs though. Maybe people erroneously think that because the most frequent, yet simplest oil and filter changes are gone, but it won't be the case of all maintenance. Most of the components that require critical safety maintenance are still there such as steering, suspension, tyres and to a lesser extent friction brakes due to regenerative braking.
The maximum tax credit is $7,500.00, but it adjusts on a sliding scale inversely proportional to your gross taxable earnings. In reality, anyone who can afford a $70,000.00 car will get a significantly smaller credit, like $1,500.00 or less.
This isn't true. The tax credit is a pure credit, no sliding scale based on income. It's not a refundable credit, meaning that if your net federal income tax liability is less than $7500 then you'll only get a credit equal to the amount of your liability, but that's unlikely to be a problem for anyone who is buying a $70K car.
There is a phase-out of the credit that begins to kick in once a manufacturer has sold at least 200,000 of the qualifying model, and the amount of the credit depends on vehicle battery capacity ($2500 for 5 kWh of capacity, plus $417 for each additional kWh, up to $7500), but the Tesla qualifies for the full amount, and Tesla hasn't yet sold 200K cars, so neither of those are an issue.
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Cycling the used battery will tell the vendor the capacity and viability of the battery core. Refurbishing the battery with new cells isn't really a big deal if they've designed it right, the plastics and charge circuity should have a definable service life. Cell prices go down exponentially in volume, so with automated assembly process I can see that "refurbished" battery modules can be totally viable, until you start buying them on Ebay from China..... As for core disposal, there are established services like Toxco that every VAR and assembler I've ever hard of use.
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
As an owner of a Tesla, I must correct you. Maintenance costs are FAR lower than in my old BMW. I've driven it for almost a year now, and spent 10x overall than I did with a BMW or Mercedes. Do you forget that gas powered luxury cars have all those same features that require just as much (if not more) maintenance than an electric luxury car does? And no more $5-6 a gallon premium gasoline! The savings are astronomical. I know this from experience.
If they were doing everything right then why the need for the tax credit?
It's a mere pittance compared to the decades-old infrastructure that a fossil-fuel powered car gets for "free" because we essentially subsidize the entire petroleum fuel supply chain at a federal level [1] to the tune of $10s of billions of dollars. Yes, that's for mega-corporations who are making record profits every quarter [2].
So 200k models qualify for the credit at $7500 a piece. That's a neat $1.5M for each car manufacturer - how does that compare to the $Billions in yearly subsidies that the petro infrastructure gets that's passed on to each gas/diesel guzzling car/truck on the road?
Quit whining about the tiny tax credit. Instead start complaining about how the big three auto manufacturers and Big oil are bending us over a barrel.
[1] http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
[2] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5503955&page=1
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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.
Interesting point - but wouldn't that mean that petrol car dealers should be adding the costs of, "carburetor wear and tear; carburetor cleaning; air filter replacement; gas tank wear and tear; etc." to their fuel costs; all those costs that electric cars don't incur.
The tax credit was asked for by GM and Ford, and granted to them (and everyone else). The roads are there for military and freight, and cars are an afterthought. The wear on roads by cars is negligible (something like 1/1000th the wear caused by a loaded big-rig).
Learn to love Alaska
The electric car doesn't pollute, the electric company does. Move everything to electric and the total pollution will be less. A few centralized polluters are easier to clean and manage than 100,000,000 distributed polluters.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm interested in what sort of maintenance requirements you expect from any car in its first few years?
All new cars I have owned (in the UK) have had precisely no mantenance requirements in the first four or five years other than additional oil, coolant (just water) etc. I use the annual service as a health check, but nothing has ever been required.
The British motoring authorities even recognise this as they do to require a certificate of roadworthyness for the first three years of a cars life.
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.
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If they were doing everything right then why the need for the tax credit?
The tax credit is necessary because every single one of the other EV manufacturers out there is completely incapable of building a compelling EV that people actually want to buy, so they need to be bribed into buying it. Tesla gets to have its cake and eat it too by both building a car people actually want and simultaneously cashing in on the incompetence of its competition by partaking of the tax credit.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Elon Musk stated that his goal is for Tesla to not make a profit out of service. My experience when I broke something on my car (so it wasn't handled by warranty) was that their repair cost was a fraction of what the local Toyota dealership would have charged me to make a similar repair.
There really is a lot less to go wrong.
No oil and filter changes. No spark plugs. The coolant should last a lot longer. No belts to replace. No fuel pumps to die, exhaust leaks or oil leaks to deal with. No gaskets to be replaced or leak. No smog and related components like catalytic converters to deal with. No transmission fluid to change or clutches to wear out. The brake pads should last a lot longer since most braking is regenerative. The car is very well engineered. They did not cut corners to reduce costs in terms of suspension and drive train. According to a friend of mine who works there (an engineer on the drive train) they significantly over engineered things since they had to get it right the first time.
While I have had some things fixed under service, those things typically fall under creaks and rattles which are understandable given that my car has a VIN a little over 5000. They've addressed most if not all of the issues in later VIN numbers.
A gasoline engine has far more mechanical parts and things to go wrong, a lot more pumps and hoses, parts rubbing against each other, etc.
As for the battery, from my research the cells should be good for at least 3000 full charge discharge cycles. If I'm extremely conservative in estimating 200 miles of range per charge (I get significantly more) that works out to 600,000 miles.
There are some things that may wear out faster, such as the pop-out door handles (the early versions had problems). The electric motor, as opposed to an internal combustion engine, has no friction points other than the bearings, and it has a lot less than a gasoline engine.
One of the issues I had was the 12V battery dying. They got a bad batch of lead acid batteries and I ended up with one of them. They called me up when they detected the problem in the logs to schedule its replacement.
As for software issues, they regularly update it to fix bugs and add new features. They do this over the air and allow me to choose if and when to install an update.
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You don't change the oil in your car? You've never had to replace a belt? Do you just let your car sit in a garage all the time?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
WTF? Dealers complaining that Tesla may be deceiving customers about the true cost of their cars? Have they tried to purchase a car at their own dealerships?
You're lucky you can get close to knowing what the final price will be before you start to waste hours in the salesperson "office" wondering why after all these decades they still perform the "Wizard of Oz" maneuver of having to ask the boss for a better price...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Points are smoke and mirrors in this article. Dealers want to sell an electric car, superior to the garbage put out by mainstream mfg. That is ALL that this article is about. You just need to be able to translate Lying Shit Car Dealer language into proper English. More crap going on in this article than a presidential election campaign.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Cars haven't had carburetors since 1990 when fuel injection became the standard. After that was just one or two models that still had it for another couple years, the very last being the Isuzu truck in 1994.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
so what happens if Tesla decides to cap each models production to 199,999 vehicals, then just comes out with a slightly different model? It's a reality with a small car company
I re-checked the IRS site and I was mistaken. It's not 200,000 per model, it's 200,000 qualifying vehicles per manufacturer. So they'd actually have to spin up a new company.
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Same here in Finland. My last two cars (VW, Audi) did not even require routine service until they hit 30,000 km (19k mi). With my daily commute that's about 2 years. In between, just top off fluids, if needed. The routine service is little more than a simple oil change, checking the brakes, tires, etc.
I completely support Tesla's idea of selling direct, even if I'm not an owner (yet). I hope that they someday find a solution for batteries in Nordic climes, so it's a viable car here as well. After all, we already use the grid to keep our cars warm and start-able in the winter.
I find it appalling that some states, including my own home state, are using legal means to try and block Tesla from entering the market. Whatever happened to the so-called free market in the US? This sounds decidedly less free market.
Charge cycles are not a lithium ion batteries worst problem. Rather it is age. They lose 20% of their capacity every year in ideal temperatures. In Phoenix the nissan leaf was losing upwards of 50% of its capacity (read range) in the first year due to the heat. Also I wish the batteries weren't so heavy, I like tiny light cars, and the tesla roadster's battery pack was 450kg, the only reason they got the weight down to 2700lbs was all the carbon fiber. ICE + fuel tank still weighs less than electric motor + battery pack. I want an electric car, for the torque and the elegant simplicity, but the battery life is a deal breaker for me until my city has a recycling station for them, and the cost of swapping them once a year is even with the maintenance on an ICE car.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
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.
The Wankel rotary engine also had significantly fewer moving parts than a standard internal combustion engine, but a Mazda RX-7 was just as costly to maintain as any other car. Why? Because, it's not the moving parts in the engine that cause most of the maintenance costs, it's all the rest of them, like suspension, steering, brakes, air compressors, and the like.
So, you will need to get your oil changed less often, like not at all versus once a year, so you save $19.95 at the dealer, but all the other regular maintenance stuff is still there and then some since the Tesla is a specialized vehicle, one can expect it's parts and labor to be more costly. And unlike a regular automobile, you have to also maintain the charging/battery system, the dynamic braking, and a several other components that only an electric car will have.
Arguing that an electric car will save because of maintenance is probably not a valid argument. Arguing on fuel costs, possibly. But in reality, the argument should be on the total cost of ownership over say, 100,000 or 200,000 miles. The reason you don't see TCO figures for electric cars in those ranges is that the battery packs need to be replaced before then and when you figure in that cost, the savings disappear.
So, if you have an electric car and plan on keeping it, all the money you save on fuel, you should set aside to replace the battery pack when that time comes. Of course, you could just trade it in before then, but if the battery pack is shot, well, so will be the trade in value.
Dealerships definitely do tires. Whenever I take one of our vehicles in for the regular maintance they let us know what the tread depth is like and push us to get new tires through them when they get worn.
Steering I half agree with you since I only ever have the alignment checked when the tires seem to be wearing funny or the car doesn't drive straight on it's own. In the last decade and a half the only cars I had which needed an alignment were in pretty bad shape. And I'm not really sure how people mess up the alingments on their cars anyways. I had a small sports car that I drove hard and actually slide into a curb hard enough to take a large chunk out of the rim, but when I had it checked the alignment was still good.
Suspension is a little iffy. It really depends on what you are doing with the vehicle. How often you push it's load limit and what kind of roads it gets driven on. And a lot of people won't even recognize when they need new shocks, though I suppose that could be used as evidence that they don't actually "need" the shocks.
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.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
"When the buying and selling are regulated, the first things bought and sold are the legislatures."
Horror stories like these are the rule, not the exception. A quick look at the world shows massive corrupion, even in nominal democracies, where the purpose of going to work for government is the kickbacks. And not just as an elected official. The going rate in India for approving a new building is 1/10th the cost of the building.
We are fools to think tbisn't a heavy lien in the US because the press is so gosh darned awesome at exposing things. How do you hink most congressmen become multimillionaires?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If Elon Musk gets busted for trying to make a big cocaine deal, then we know they have run out of new ideas at destroying a competitor.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I'm sure making more money selling parts isn't a horrible thought. The actual reason they would make a part weaker if it lasted way longer than the car is to make the part cheaper. If the parts are cheaper then the car will cost less and more people can buy it. Plus, there is more room for profit when you can make things cheaper. If you go too far at making things cheap you will lose out on your reputation for quality.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
All EVs will require most of the above (but remember, the only air compressor is on the a/c). There is no clutch and no conventional auto-transmission. Braking though is partly friction but is also electric (regenerative), this should lengthen the life considerably.
I know what you are getting at but internal combustion engines certainly do need additional maintenance. The issue is at the moment is that we know very little about the total lifespan. I know someone who bought a Tesla Roadster and is very happy with it. It has received no unplanned maintenance but then it is just a couple of years old. No modern car should have a problem that early. Five or ten years on may be another story.
One of the interesting tendancies is that to balance the weight of the batteries, many manufacturers have chosen much more modern materials, so we see aluminium in the Tesla and carbon fibre in say the BMW i3/8. This costs more, but has long term benefits.
I would agree that the battery is and remains the most critical element and this has to be accounted for in any TCO calculation. Again, we do lack information, particularly on the realistic trade in possibilities for a battery. For example, whether it can be reconditioned rather than completely remanufactured? These questions will be answered over the next few years and lets be honest, not everyone is going to rush out and get an all electric vehicle and for many, it isn't even that practical. For all the indentations being made particularly by Tesla, there are many more ICE vehicles. Over time, though there will be further cost reductions and more people may decide to switch.
As more EVs are on the road, there will be an increasing need for a dealer network to provide the necessary downstream support. At the moment, we are talking niche, so to require dealers when there is such a low volume seems impractical.
See my journal, I write things there
Charge cycles don't work that way. If you start at 80%, come down to 30%, then charge back to 80%... twice... that's one charge cycle, not two.
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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.
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