Ohio Attempting To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again

cartechboy writes "Man the automotive dealer associations don't like Tesla. Remember that time the Ohio dealers attempted to block Tesla from selling its electric cars in in the Buckeye State. Now, it's happening again. The car dealers are once again pushing legislation that would keep Tesla from selling cars in Ohio. Senate Bill 260 would prohibit the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles from issuing car-dealer licenses to auto manufacturers. Since Tesla owns and operates its own network of 'dealerships' (aka galleries), this would make it so the automaker couldn't acquire a car-dealer license. Section 11 of the bill lists 'a manufacturer... applying for license to sell or lease new motor vehicles at retail' as one of the types of organization ineligible for a dealership license. On top of all this, the language isn't on the Senate floor as a standalone bill. No, it's inserted as an amendment to Senate Bill 137 which is an unrelated bill requiring Ohio drivers to move to the left while passing roadside maintenance vehicles. Is this yet another slimy tactic to try and undercut the new kid on the block?"

Comments

Pretty Much.

[SlashdotWanker]

Yes.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Guppy06]

Ohio has a Republican governor and Republican supermajorities in both chambers of its state legislature. The three sponsors of this are all Republicans.

Re:Pretty Much.

[noobermin]

Republican governor, Republican general assembly, not to mention a Republican introduced this amendment.

Don't let facts get in your way.

Now, since I happen to be a voter here, I'll make sure no bozos like these get elected in my district come November.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Kenja]

Which is even more baffling, I usually associate free market to republicans. Dems are usually supporters of bigger government.

That's what Republicans claim, but there is very little recent evidence of this.

Re:Pretty Much.

[nehril]

The history of why the car dealership system exists as it does is actually quite interesting. Back in the day, car dealerships were the good guy underdogs, and car manufacturers were pretty much the devil. The "Planet Money" podcast has a great episode on this:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful

Basically explains why buying a car in general sucks (consistently ranked as one of the worst consumer experiences), and why there isn't a "new car supermaket" where you can browse & buy cars from multiple manufacturers.

Re:Pretty Much.

[phantomfive]

Which is even more baffling, I usually associate free market to republicans. Dems are usually supporters of bigger government.

The closer you get to the local level, the less each party matches their stereotype. When you get to small towns, you'll have democrats sounding very conservative, if that's the kind of people who live in the town (or vice-versa). Issues that are important at a national level just don't matter at a city level.

What does the town of Riverbank, CA care about the US military budget? But they might have a strong opinion on whether their local car dealership goes out of business.

Re:Pretty Much.

[jbmartin6]

You can always tell a liar by comparing the actions to the words. Words aside, Republicans have always been the party of big centralized government.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Copid]

It's pretty straightforward for two reasons:

1) Parties bill themselves as X all the time without really being all about X. It often even gets built into the conventional wisdom, even though it's bullshit. Good examples are Republicans being about fiscal responsibility and Democrats being all about tolerating the viewpoints of others.
2) These types of laws are bought by the dealerships. The independant dealerships are owned by local wealthy entrepeneurs. Local wealthy entrepeneurs are usually the biggest political donors, and they swing Republican, so when they want to place a phone call to their pet legislators, they're calling the Republican whose seat their advertising helped to win.

Re:Pretty Much.

[HornWumpus]

You don't know many new car buyers.

Around here (N Cal) apartment parking lots are full of brand new cars. Buying a new car that costs your entire yearly take home is common.

It's all about status symbols. You can get a fairly reliable old Honda for well under 5K$.

There is no group with a lower aggregate IQ then new car buyers. Not even 'audiophiles'.

Re:Pretty Much.

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Republicans are friends of big business. Not of the free market. Over the years the Republican Party has transformed from "conservative" and "liberal" to the Corporate Lobbyists Party. In essence they use the party as a means to pave their way into management level once they retire from politics, happily kissing asses along the way.

Re:Pretty Much.

[flaming error]

This. The obvious truth is that each party wants the programs they don't like to vanish, and the programs they do like to expand.

Only purist libertarians honestly want the whole government small. Regardless of their rhetoric, the actions of every other party show they want the government to be ginormous, domineering, and bent on shoving their agenda down the world's throat.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not Free Market vs Bigger Government - it's who's giving us campaign contributions

Re:Pretty Much.

[Sponge Bath]

The GOP has been fractured by a bunch of progressive lefts that pretend to be conservative. (Boehner, etc).

Uh huh. No TRUE Republican does the things Republicans are currently doing. The only possible explanation is Republicans are really progressives. Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Valdrax]

Which is even more baffling, I usually associate free market to republicans. Dems are usually supporters of bigger government.

Don't buy the talking points of the parties. Each party has a number of conflicting interest groups within them, and which group is on top varies from region to region. Some conservatives believe in the free market almost religiously, while many others believe in the free market is only a great idea to apply *outside* of their industry. Furthermore, the lower you go down from the national level, the more an individual politician's interests will be tied into which big fish is willing to dribble money into their campaign, and that will more often than not be tied to the local rich guy.

Car dealerships are local businesses that pull in a lot of money and which have long had a history of being big donors to local politics. There are a number of ideological reasons that Republicans would support protection of a local elite at the expense of what the public wants, but let's face it, a Democrat would probably support the same bill if his town had a politically active car dealership in it and just use different rhetoric for it.

The "free market" is a principle, and principles frequently go AWOL when reelection funding is on the line. Or if you want to be even more cynical, you can consider it just the Republican's "branding" rather than beliefs. Something to keep the common voters rooting for the team, while the business of politics continues to be business.

Re:Pretty Much.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

It's a split.

Broadly speaking, the Republican party is really a coalition of two conservative groups, but two very different, almost diametrically opposed conservative groups.

You have the "fiscal conservatives" who think everybody should be hands off anything economically. This is the "free markets" Republican you tend to think of.

Then you have the "social conservative" who think everyone should be righteous and whatnot. They want not only themselves to be righteous, but you as well. To force you to live by a religious code that you don't follow, you sometimes need government interference. The joke being here "the Republican party wants government so small it just sleeps in bed with you and tells you No."

These groups were kind of glued together in the Nixon years, and really cemented in the Reagan years, It kind of explains some of the multiple-personality-disorderness of the current Republican Party. I'm surprised it hasn't blown up yet - do you really think a true Tea Partyer has much to talk to Rand Paul about? The doggedness of corralling "rogue" Republicans and painting them as R.I.N.O kind of keeps this all together.

That being said, many supposed fiscal conservatives really aren't so much. "Fiscal Conservative" Sarah Palin bloated a small city's spending so much she sent it into a debt spiral. The largest recent expansion of government was under Bush #43. Before that? Reagan. Wasn't the quote "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" - not very fiscally conservative. "Tax and spend" Clinton ran a fiscally responsible government and ran a surplus (which goes into the above - Bush had cash to burn, and so he did). Paul Ryan wants to gut government programs, yet he wouldn't be where he is today without them - he kind of skirted on Social Security benefits to get through college. Fiscal Conservative makes a great bumper sticker, but many Republicans seem to live by "please let everyone be fiscally conservative, well everyone but me".

Re:Pretty Much.

[Grey Geezer]

Ohio rubes and marks need to buy only internal combustion cars I guess. More and more it seems to me as though Republicans (or perhaps it's only their big business sponsors) regard us not as free individuals, but rather as consumers and serfs. They seem to believe that we shouldn't have job flexibility (how awful that because of the ACA we might be free to change jobs, or even quit our jobs), should not control our family size (no birth control for you, they need more consumers and serfs), should not have a clean environment (clean air and water regulation is OK..., but not if it interferes with, or reduces, their profit margin). Democrats are about as bad...maybe only marginally less obvious about it is all. Libertarians are pretty much Republicans only without the urge to stick their noses into our bedrooms and bodies. It wasn't always this bad. Was it?

Re:Pretty Much.

[MadMartigan2001]

As a purist libertarian, I completely agree.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Skraut]

Unfortunately there was also a Republican Senate and Republican House here in 2012 which took the results of the 2010 census and gerrymandered themselves secure seats for the next decade.

Re:Pretty Much.

[NoKaOi]

This. The obvious truth is that each party wants the programs they don't like to vanish, and the programs they do like to expand.

Only purist libertarians honestly want the whole government small. Regardless of their rhetoric, the actions of every other party show they want the government to be ginormous, domineering, and bent on shoving their agenda down the world's throat.

The parties don't give a crap about how big the government itself is. They care about power. That means they care about getting their people elected so that they have power. That means they care about their campaign contributions so that the party's people can get elected so that the party has power. That means they care about giving money in the form of government contracts to their compaign contributors so that they party's people can get elected so that the party has power. That also means convoluted regulations that benefit the campaign contributors, not the people, so that they party's people can get elected so that the party has power.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Grishnakh]

As someone who's generally socially liberal and maybe slightly left-of-center economically, I also completely agree. The two parties in this country are totally corrupt.

Re:Pretty Much.

[JMZero]

Wow what a bizarre, moronic comment.

as they won't have the cost of running their own dealers

So dealerships are actually money losers, eh? And the people who own them are just so committed to their LOVE of community that they run them anyway.

the current method is far more efficient

So having independent dealerships would just save Tesla rafts of money, but they don't want to do it? And so we need laws, to what, protect Tesla from making such a bad decision?

Why don't we let Tesla decide how Tesla wants to sell cars? I'm sure lots of other companies were worried when Apple starting setting up their own stores. But the right response isn't "NOOO, we can't let Apple do that because, uh... they'll lose money having to operate all those stores - we're really saving Apple from themselves". And it's certainly not "oh, well, those Best Buy salesmen knew their community so much better, how could Apple people ever understand unique needs?".

If you think you're right, you should have no objection to letting Tesla try this, find out they're wrong and then switching.

But you know you're not right. Obviously.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Grishnakh]

While true, it's also true of the Democrats. Notice how cozy the Democrats are with the Wall Street financial firms, not to mention the media corporations. The only difference between the parties is which industries they're in the pocket of.

Re:Pretty Much.

[CaptSlaq]

--snip

Car sales direct to consumer are entirely a localized business all around the US, and for good reason! Car dealers are often active in their communities (mine are) and understand the unique needs of customers within a given region, making them better salesmen. They can reduce costs for both Honda and the consumer by ordering in bulk from the factory, which maximizes efficiency from the plant.

This would be true for large manufacturers of vehicles that have several models, as regional tastes should be considered when dealing with a large inventory and/or model selection. Telsa is a boutique manufacturer. They currently have exactly 1 model that has a handful of options. Most if not all are built to order. There's a rather large gulf between these two situations. While there will be 2 in the near future, and possibly 3 a while after that, they're not going to approach the size and model lineup of any of the major manufacturers anytime soon.

Re:Pretty Much.

[HornWumpus]

Clinton/Gingrich had one projected surplus. They had no actual surpluses.

If you factor the SS trust in, they weren't even close to surplus.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Peristaltic]

For the most part, the only actions members of congress work hard at taking are those that increase or maintain their own wealth and power (or, indirectly, that of the groups assisting them in this endeavour). Most any other public stance they take is usually theater to distract opposition to these outcomes- If they can keep us occupied, arguing about the theatric details while maintaining the illusion that we actually have a say in what happens, so much the better.

You may find an outlier here or there (usually for only a brief period of time during his or her political career), but not often.

At the state level, it seems as if voting for the common good is slightly more prevelant, with the emphasis on "slightly".

High-functioning sociopaths have control, both in government and in corporate America (The Venn diagram for these two groups probably overlaps 75%), and they possess the unprecedented technological means to keep it.

Re:Pretty Much.

[flaming error]

A "blue dog democrat" is a democrat whose constituency is conservative.

A "republican in name only" is a guy who wants to be a republican but is rejected and disowned by the base when they catch a whiff of non-zealotry regarding their party line.

Re:Pretty Much.

[uniquename72]

The GOP has been fractured by a bunch of progressive lefts that pretend to be conservative. (Boehner, etc).

I love how today's Republicans pretend to worship Ronald Reagan, while calling any existing Reagan Republican a RINO.

Reagan raised taxes and the minimum wage when it was good for the economy, allowed fairly easy immigration for illegals already in the country, and happily met with the leaders of enemy states. Today, even talking about any of these things would have Fox News frothing at the mouth.

Obama is to the right of Reagan on a host of issues, and still we get whining from today's Republicans.

Re:Pretty Much.

[Bing Tsher E]

You're clearly an expert on what the Republicans want. They should appoint you as their spokesman, because you've just got it all figured out. Reading those leaflets the Democrats send you gives you a heck of a lot of information.

Re:Pretty Much.

[flaming error]

No, huge difference. Blue dogs are self-declared.

RINOs are labelled by others. And you don't have to be liberal to be a RINO, you only have to disagree with a talk show host.

Re:Pretty Much.

[blindseer]

Really? Democrats are less corrupt? Perhaps I have a bias but I don't recall too many Republicans going to jail recently. I do recall quite a few Democrats sitting behind bars right now.

Maybe the Republicans are just better at covering their tracks. If that is true then that just means the Democrats are corrupt, and also stupid.

I'm not someone that is going to come running to defend the GOP. I'm also not going to stand by while someone tries to tell me with a straight face that Democrats are trustworthy. Democrats are notorious for election fraud. I'm just at a loss for words.

Re:Pretty Much.

[allcoolnameswheretak]

You are probably right. But it seems to me that the Democrats have been the lesser of two evils for decades now. There seem to be more people of integrity and common sense on the democratic side than on the republican side, be it the politicians themselves or the news commentators vying for them. Also, I can't abide the constant stream of disinformation that right-leaning sources love to spread in their efforts to cause FUD.

Meh...

[mythosaz]

Ostensibly these laws exist to stop manufacturers and distributes from cutting out the middle-man. If Ford or Honda can sell directly, they can get rid of the dealerships, and then charge whatever they want for a Ford, since there won't be any competition. They are, on the face, anti-monopoly laws. [The oft-mentioned Texas law does the same thing for theaters - preventing Paramount from eventually owning all the theaters and then stopping showing MGM movies to anyone in the Lone Star State.]

...but we all know it's because car dealers buy politicians, and want to make sure they get their cut of luxury Tesla sales.

Re:Meh...

[Gadget27]

Cutting out the middle man is not a crime, its an achievement.

What would be the problem if Ford or Honda sold directly to the consumer? Are you suggesting that it's anti-competitive to set the price of your own product? In a scenario without dealerships, there would still be competition... not between dealerships, but between manufactures instead. If you could only buy a Ford from Ford, and the only cars on the market were Ford, then there could be a problem, but there is no shortage of auto manufactures to keep the market competitive.

Re:Meh...

[minstrelmike]

Cutting out the middle man is not a crime, its an achievement.

It kind of depends on how you make your own living.
If you make your living as a middle man, it doesn't seem like an achievement; it looks more like a disaster.
And while I dislike getting pedantic, the _definition_ of crime is based on law, not morals or economics.
If the law says cutting out the middle man is a crime, then it is.

Note that I am not arguing pro or con, merely perception vs social reality.

Re:Meh...

[Hadlock]

It's still an achievement. If you look at it objectively the middle man only exists to expedite sales of cars from the manufacturer to the end user. If it's now more efficent to get the product to the end user directly than working through a proxy, you've cut out a step. In the era before instantanious cheap/free communication the middle man was an important center of local product knowledge, now we have wikis and fedex. I can troubleshoot and order an alternator for a rare car on the internet and install it myself, I don't need the specialized knowledge of the BMW dealership to do this for me anymore. Electric cars have even fewer moving parts to maintain.

Re:Meh...

[AaronW]

In the early days dealerships made sense. It made it so that manufacturers didn't have to hold onto inventory and deal with all the individual financing or service.

In the case of Tesla dealerships would be a big problem.

To give you an example, back in 2006 I decided to get a Prius. I researched and decided what options I wanted, what color, etc. The problem was that for many months the only cars I could get were white or sometimes black. I didn't want white or black and I wanted a certain set of options. I ended up waiting six months and ended up with my third color choice. I also had to deal with them trying to sell me things I didn't want, especially when it came to service.

Now move ahead to 2012 when I decided to get a Tesla. Through their website I was able to chose exactly what I wanted down to the color of the wheels. Today there are even more choices on exactly what features you get with the car. Again I had to wait six months but I got exactly what I wanted. When it comes to service, they do not try and push unneeded services on me since Elon Musk has stated that their goal is to not make a profit on service. When I broke something on my car the cost to fix it was a fraction of what it would be with a similar luxury car.

The Tesla show rooms are also quite different. The people working there do not make a commission so they're not trying to push options or features but to basically answer questions. The one I went to was inside a mall. A lot of regular people walked in to look at the car and ask questions, most of whom probably had little interest in buying one. They answered their questions the same as they did for me when it was fairly obvious I was looking to buy one. It was a totally different experience than what one expects at a typical dealership.

The Toyota dealership keeps sending me all kinds of crap in the mail even after I sold my Prius. Another non-Toyota dealership who did some body work on my car after someone hit it also sends me a bunch of crap periodically. Tesla sends me almost nothing. There are no coupons for radiator flushes or other crap constantly flooding my mailbox. It helps in that service is only suggested every 12,000 miles other than tire rotation.

Since Tesla builds to order they don't maintain an inventory of cars. It allows them to streamline their business and reduce costs.

Also, dealerships in some ways are a monopoly. Dealerships are franchises and they are guaranteed that there will not be another dealership for the same car within a certain distance. This means that I have to really go out of my way to avoid the local Toyota dealership for parts or service which I have had to do on some occasions due to the crap I had to put up with from the dealership.

Also, dealerships are often big conglomerates of dealerships such as dgdg.com. They have a huge percentage of dealerships in the Bay Area covering many different brands from Dodge, GM, Fiat, Hundai, Kia, Mazda and more. These are not your small mom and pop dealerships.

During a Q&A with Elon Musk he said that the biggest push against Tesla was not from the mom and pop dealerships but from these huge mega-dealership groups. They have a monopoly and see Tesla as a threat to them.

Dealerships are nothing but leaches. They offer little if any value and only are there to suck money from consumers and give car salesmen a bad name. Their service is often overpriced and they push crap you don't need.

Protecting businesses again?

[Opportunist]

It's not the first time politics try to protect businesses, but it's hardly been THIS blatant before.

Free market is a thing of the past. Today you don't buy and sell goods and compete with your competitor with quality and price, you buy and sell laws and compete in who can bribe more politicians.

It's a bit like papal elections in medieval times.

Re:Protecting businesses again?

[Akratist]

And, optionally, you try not to be the guy whom the legislative hammer is brought down on by politicians looking to make a buck, which is the other side of the coin. But, yes, when I hear people complain about the "free market," they obviously have no idea how our current economy functions.

Re:Protecting businesses again?

[coolsnowmen]

It's not the first time politics try to protect businesses, but it's hardly been THIS blatant before.

Just after the civil war the big traincompanies lobbies the US federal goverment and recieved shit tons of money to build a transcontinental rail road. The companies convinced the enough people that it was in the best interest of the country to connect it together.

What you'll see, if you look closer is a set of laws passed to ensure the train companies made money, mostly at the expense of tax payers. They manipulated stock prices. They used the power of where the railroad would go exactly to extract favorable land grands from localities. They pushed natives off the land. The term "Robber Barron" applies...

There is a boring book that explains this in excruciating detail. "Railroaded" is like 700+ pages and has over 100 pages of citation if you are wondering where he got any of his information from.

It also is that last time anyone in my office took a book recommendation from me.

Re:Protecting businesses again?

[tlhIngan]

Free market is a thing of the past. Today you don't buy and sell goods and compete with your competitor with quality and price, you buy and sell laws and compete in who can bribe more politicians.

No, a free market tends towards monopolies - it's the ultimate end game.

What you're describing as competition and such is just an idealized situation. It's how free markets SHOULD work. You know, like how communism SHOULD work. But like communism, there are unintended consequences, and the free market producing monopolies is one of them. It's based on simplistic assumptions that do not hold out in the real world (like competition can spring up instantly - it assumes there's nothing like "startup costs" which can be insane due to infrastructure requirements (e.g., if you want to build out a new cell carrier, it costs billions in equipment, land leases, etc. Assuming no interference from competition)).

We try to fix this through regulations (commonly known as "red tape" and "bureaucracy" to those who advocate less rules and smaller government) to try to steer towards competition and away from monopoly.

Once again ...

[gstoddart]

Once again, companies try to prevent competition through legislation ... and apparently some lawmakers aren't above giving it to them.

This is just buggy whip makers trying to ensure they still get their cut.

Free market my ass.

Not just targetting Tesla

[Attila Dimedici]

While Tesla is the only manufacturer who is attempting to sell cars without a dealer network, the dealers recognize that if Tesla is successful with this tactic other manufacturers will follow their lead. The car dealers are attempting to protect their business model. I hope the dealers fail because it is not at all clear to me that dealers add any value to the process. It appears that the dealers' association agrees with me. However, I am not positive that car dealers do not add value. If they do, and manufacturers are allowed to sell without them, we will quickly discover what value they add to the equation. In either case, this attempt to enshrine their existence into law is a bad idea.

Re:Not just targetting Tesla

[SleazyRidr]

Exactly: for anyone turning around and telling us that we need dealers: let them show what value they can add to the marketplace. If they're giving people something, then they'll continue to survive and turn a profit. If they are indeed just middlemen that we no longer need, then we should not be subsidizing them, and we should force them into more productive lines of work.

Re:Not just targetting Tesla

[Talderas]

Some dealers have value added service but that's mostly restricted to trucks and vans.

They also, to an extent, greatly simplify the logistics of warranty issues for the manufacturers.

Re:Not just targetting Tesla

[NoKaOi]

Q: Do car dealerships add value?
A: I have to go ask my manager.

Missed Opprutunity

[EMG at MU]

Generally, politicians with (R) next to their name claim to be against regulations and state/federal interference with free enterprise. Therefore I would expect the (R) members of the Ohio Senate to be up in arms about this law, capitalizing on this opportunity to show that the (D) guys are always putting unreasonable burdens on private enterprise and stifling innovation and growth.

But the fact that the sponsor and co sponsors of the bill are all (R)s contradicts that long held (R) stance. What gives? And why aren't there any reporters pointing out this contradiction?

Re:Missed Opprutunity

[idontgno]

Because no one with a brain believes the propaganda ^w premise that underlies the apparent contradiction. Anyone the press might report to who would believe such a report already knows. Anyone the press might report to which doesn't already know wouldn't believe.

In other words, it's not news.

More importantly, it wouldn't push up circulation/sales/page views/ad impressions/other all-important sales metrics.

Re:It's disgusting how much control...

[just_another_sean]

The guys pushing this have R's next to their names.

In my country the solution would be simple...

[Zaatxe]

The owners of Tesla Motors would also be the owners of ANOTHER company that controls the network of dealerships.
Wouldn't that work in the USA?

Re:part of our free trade agreements

[gstoddart]

stop trying tp build a better monkey

I most certainly will not stop trying to build the best damned monkeys this world has ever seen.

They will be able to fling poo with great accuracy across vast distances.

People won't know I've released the monkeys until they get monkey poo in the face and have NO idea of where it came from.

And when not flinging poo from afar, they will entertain me by choreographing monkey dance numbers.

I shall never give up my quest for a better monkey.

Re:It's disgusting how much control...

[gstoddart]

Exactly! The main guys pushing this may have D's beside their names, but they are Republicans in all but name.

No, they're Republicans in name too.

They don't have D's next to their name.

Re:It's disgusting how much control...

[Mr D from 63]

Of course, this has nothing to do with Tesla or people buying Tesla's. Its about HOW cars are sold, not which cars are sold. It is dealership protection, plain and simple. Folks use Tesla to draw attention, but Teslas could be sold under the proposed law just like any car.. via dealerships.

Now, I am very much against this protection of dealerships. But it has nothing to do with Tesla, or political parties. You'll find plenty of protectionism in both parties. It stifles competition. While there may be a few legitimate consumer protection concerns involving unscrupulous car sellers, it doesn't really measure up, and there other ways to afford those protections if they think they are needed.

But anyone who jumps on the "republicans want to ban Tesla" wagon isn't really thinking very much about what really is at the core.

Tesla will not cave on this

[Coward Anonymous]

It is not a coincidence that Tesla has no dealerships. It likely never will.

This strong-arming is a perfect example for the reason. Dealerships wield in an inordinate amount of political power in their regions. The result hash been that once a manufacturer grants a dealership license to a dealership in a certain area, it is perpetual, geographically exclusive and irrevocable by the manufacturer. Unheard of conditions in practically any other business.

Tesla will sooner open its own dealerships across Ohio's state lines. The lost sales taxes will eventually prove irresistible to the coin operated legislature.

Less government? Yeah right...

[sjbe]

The party of less government and pro-business.

Pro-business. Mostly yes. Less government? Not so much. The republican party only wants less government when it suits them and keeps them in power. If the republicans REALLY were for less government they would be pushing to reduce the size of the military, reduce medicare, reduce social security and stay out of morality debates like stem cell research and gay marriage. They can pay lip services to "less government" all they want but their actions are not those of a party which actually wants less government.

Dealers are (mostly) rip off artists

[sjbe]

The reason it's awful, is that for most people, a car is the most expensive item (apart from real estate) that they will ever buy, by a huge margin.

The reason it is awful is because lots of dealers have a VERY well deserved reputation for trying to rip people off. If you've ever been through a negotiation to buy or sell a car through a dealer, you probably know that they will use every underhanded tactic in the book to try to get you to pay more than you need to. They try to sell you add ons that you do not need (like undercoating) or are overpriced. They try to take advantage of you and as a result, people resent them.

Still arguing Republican-vs-Democrat?

[MadMartigan2001]

When will you people wake up.

Re:anyone hear of conflict of interest

[viperidaenz]

Automakers should sell their own products. Then you don't have a middleman who try to pass the blame to the auto maker and an auto maker who will try to pass the blame to the dealer.
If the manufacture misleads the dealer about their cars, there's nothing the customer can do about it but complain to the dealer.

Re:Ask...

[Samantha Wright]

This kind of abusive segregation-of-vendor-and-producer legislation goes back even further, to 1936: General Motors bought laws that prohibited power companies from owning transit services, gradually and systematically destroying the streetcar systems in almost every city in the United States. If that hadn't happened, I suspect combustion engine vehicles would not have attained the dominance they enjoyed during the latter half of the 20th century. The impacts this would have on the energy and ecological situations are hard to predict, but I'm willing to bet the world would've been better off by a significant margin.

The moral of this tale: any time anyone involved in the automotive industry wants something legislated, it's probably really, really fucking evil.

Re:This is a legitimate complaint

[JMZero]

But, uh, there is?

There's lots of non-dealership places that I can go to fix my car, and those would exist no matter who owned the dealership I bought my car at (and might be more prevalent, even, if more car selling was direct from manufacturer).

Similarly, there's already manufacturer original parts and parts made by other companies. This has even less to do with who owns the dealership. It's not like the independent dealerships are making all the parts they use.

Buying online gets around all of that

[JudgeFurious]

I think that the real issue is that a car, much like a home is one of the relatively few things in this world that Americans (for the most part) will ever negotiate the price of. In the US most things traditionally "cost what they cost". You decide what you want to buy, you go to where they sell it, and you pay them the price that they have on the price tag if you want it bad enough and/or think it is worth the asking price. Relatively few people in the US negotiate daily and for most of them it's not a comfortable experience. Most people don't have a comfortable understanding of the process and are worried that they're being taken advantage of when they settle on a price. The process doesn't do much to help get past this fear. The last time I bought a car I did it online. I was looking for a 2006 Pontiac GTO and went to Pontiac's website where I searched for one in Texas and Louisiana. I found them all, assembled all their email addresses for their online sales department, and sent them the same email. Basically "I want a 2006 GTO, I'm going to pay 18% off sticker, I don't care what color it is or whether it is an automatic or manual transmission (there were very few options on that car). Please contact me if you want to move a car right now. I have my own financing lined up. Thank You". I got a bunch of replies. Most said nobody would make that deal and three said they had a car they would sell me for that deal. I picked one (a silver one in Bastrop Texas) and drove there from Houston with my wife to pick it up. I was in the dealership for about 45 minutes.