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FTC Approves Tesla's Direct Sales Model
cartechboy (2660665) writes "We've all read about Tesla and the ongoing battles its having with different dealer associations. Basically, dealer associations aren't too pleased about the Silicon Valley startup's direct sales model. Today the FTC has had made a statement on the matter and it's actually in favor of Tesla's direct sales model. 'In this case and others, many state and local regulators have eliminated the direct purchasing option for consumers, by taking steps to protect existing middlemen from new competition. We believe this is bad policy for a number of reasons,' wrote Andy Gavil, Debbie Feinstein, and Marty Gaynor in the FTC's 'Who decides how consumers should shop?' posting to the Competition Matters blog. The FTC appears to take issue not with those laws, but with how they're being used, and with the direct-sales bans being passed in several states. Now the only real question is how long will it be before Tesla prevails in all states?"
To be clear, FTA staff wrote a blog posting in which they approve of new ways in which consumers can shop for goods. They have not approved any new regulations related to Tesla. The summary is accurate, but the headline is a little off.
I'm from Seattle, you insensitive clod!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Per the US constitution the Federal Government has the power to regulate interstate commerce. If they said that laws preventing direct marketing of interstate goods were unenforceable because it falls within the Fed's purview then many more laws would probably be affected. If they don't then it looks like the FTC is favoring Tesla. The only thing it wouldn't apply to is Alcohol, because the 21st amendment specifically gave the states the right to stop it from coming in.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Think of it as a warning shot. They're letting state legislatures know that they don't approve of these bans, so the local governments will have a chance to decide now whether they will back down or fight. Any court battle with the feds would be un-winnable, since the constitution clearly gives the feds the authority to set policy in this matter. By changing their rules now, the can avoid new federal rules and maintain some level of control over car sales in their state.
Thus several laws were passed to protect the car dealer from to much pressurer by the manufacturer, and one important detail was forbidding car manufacturers to operate their own dealerships in competition to the independent dealer. But Tesla Motors doesn't even sell via independent car dealers, thus they aren't in competition to dealers of their own products. In this case, all the laws passed to protect independent dealerships from too much leverage of their own supplier don't make sense, as there is exactly zero pressure from Tesla to its dealerships, as as there are none.
Where are Teslas made? How is prohibiting direct sales NOT interfering in interstate commerce in states where they are attempting sales?
Sadly, a big part of the population is very change-averse, because routine/conditioning is easier than adapting to new situations. Maybe this is evolutionary, because short term it's more "energy efficient".
Just look at the whole start-button thing with windows 8. While nearly everyone STILL argues around this little change and how bad it is because the old Startmenu is just the way how things were done for 20 years (which really is the only real argument, as all others are straw men), it really is an improvement in several ways IF one takes the time to adapt to work with it. Yet, even intellectually competent people bash it because it's just CHANGE.
And as this change-averseness (?) is not restricted to the "lower classes" but runs through the whole population, the stupid people will groan at the effort they have to make (and due to mass, loudly) and the intelligent ones will make the decisions to keep things the way they are....
this is a product designed for the 0.0001%.
Come on now...
Society worldwide is changing towards renewable energy. While Tesla's cars might not be perfect right now, they are a step in the right direction. It is so hard to go up against an established industry, especially when they have such large lobbying budgets. I hope you can understand that this isn't just about Tesla, it's about new businesses being able to compete.
And for the 0.0001% give me a break. These cars may be expensive and considered a luxury item, but it doesn't mean they cannot be afforded by middle to upper middle class. Also, new technology is expensive, that's how it works. If they don't sell any new cars due to archaic laws, how do you expect the price to drop?
This topic is very interesting to watch unfold, and I think many slashdotters would agree with me.
I'm not sure why this "pressure" that car manufacturers put on dealers is a bad thing. They manufacture the product, and if they have the leverage to dictate how it will be sold, good for them. I'm not sure what compelling state interest is served by artificially restricting the way manufacturers can sell their cars.
I don't think anyone has a god given right to be a dealer and sell someone else's cars. Sure, it sucks to be a dealer who has no choice but to agree to a car manufacturer's conditions...but so what? Life is tough...
If there was a group that benefitted financially by the presence of start button, and it lobbied state governments to prevent Microsoft from taking it away then you would have the comparison right and you realize how ridiculous it is.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'd disagree with the comparison to Windows 8. If you must use the start button debate as a point of reference, a more apt analogy would be if Tesla were to change the pedal style accelerator (the standard interface to "go" in a car ever since cars started being built) with a trigger mounted to the steering wheel. Changing the guts under the hood in Windows wouldn't be a complaint for most people (barring major issues in how the OS performed as a result) but changing the interface that has been the standard for 20 years on a desktop computer is idiocy. It's not change for improvement's sake (as with Tesla's advancing powerplant technology) but rather change for the sake of change alone, without any appreciable improvement in efficiency in the operation of the product. Metro works fine for touch based devices, but not all desktop/laptops are touch, and to be frank touch interfaces are far less efficient than a mouse in a desktop environment. Who wants to sit at their desk with their hands on the keyboard and, when needing to interact with the GUI, have to reach up and touch the monitor rather than moving their hand over a few inches to move the mouse.
Did I just read a computer analogy in an article about cars?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The reasons all these states have this law related to cars is because they are big purchase items and based on past problems they are requiring that the purchaser has some in state method of getting the product fix or for resolving problems.
That is a typically stupid thing to say on slashdot. The reason that all these states have these laws is massive lobbying. If the goal were to protect the consumer, then all of these states would mandate that repair information down to every last OBD-II code or similar (all the info needed to reprogram and/or recode all the modules) would be available to the purchaser of the vehicle, and that they could freely redistribute it to anyone who was working on the vehicle. That's not the laws we have. Instead, we have protectionist laws which actually screw the customer, by preventing competition. The laws are actually for the opposite purpose that you think; they're there to make it harder to service your vehicle, so that its value depreciates more rapidly, and you are forced to buy another one before it can no longer be repaired because it can no longer practically be repaired.
Why is there so much about tesla anyways this is a product designed for the 0.0001%.
You must be new here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The manufacturers are pretending to develop electric cars. They have an interest in preserving the status quo. When GM first developed an electric concept car, they named it the "Impact". It's hard to imagine a scarier name for a small, light-weight car. They cancelled the EV-1 despite the customers who loved it.