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NADA Is Terrified of Tesla
cartechboy writes It's no secret that the National Automobile Dealers Association has been trying to block Tesla from selling cars directly from consumers, but to date, it has been defeated countless times in many states. Now NADA put out a release and promotional video touting the benefits of dealer franchises, something Tesla has shunned. NADA mentions price competition, consumer safety, local economic benefits, and added value.
While possibly true, it's complete speculation to tie this to Tesla.
But hey, Tesla gets page views.
There will always be a need for car dealerships, but there is no good reason to ban direct sales. This is pure rent-seeking behavior. The dealerships should position themselves as Tesla's partners in buying/selling used Teslas and in repairs.
Wow, local dealerships sound AWESOME!
So far it seems that NADA has happen.
Not specifically Tesla, but electric cars don't have alot of things that car dealers make money with (oil changes, engine work, transmission work and on and on). Alot of dealerships make much of their profits from such things, so what Tesla represents is scary change - of course that change is coming whether driven by Tesla or someone else.
So the dealers have alot of money, alot of friends and will do what they can to gum up the works for (or kill) Tesla and what it represents if they can. JMHO...
They are great, they protect the consumer, ensure fair prices, charge fair prices for repairs, ensure you don't get ripped off, the list goes on! Good for them, Tesla deserves a beat down for trying to get rid of these middle men.
Oh, jk.
I believe this has greater significance than merely a turf war in some backwater market. We have a direct connection between development of a new technology and the challenging of a significant evil of the developed world, institutionalized rent-seeking. A similar thing is happening with the ride sharing services challenging taxis and other escort businesses.
They forgot to mention the free leg massages from leg-humping auto salesmen.
First I heard that ride sharing services were challenging the escort business.
Are these ride sharing services over Craigslist, perchance?
Imagine being the marketing team that had to make car dealers seem like a good thing to have!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Cool science fiction opportunity here is that when we colonize Mars we get to have a Mars vs Earth civil war. My bet is on Mars winning. Time for a hollywood movie deal!!
Another multiverse version of Elon Musk develops a slew of super-viruses under his manufacturing plants in a deep-core Earth super lab. His 2020-ish journey to Mars assembles a team of top candidates for population of Mars now that he has perfected his global terraforming technology. Musk detonates super-virus technology as soon as his crew is safely on Mars. Earth is utterly destroyed and unable to support any life for 300yrs. Musk's new colony thrives in a totally Utopian society with their own laws where each citizen is given enough food and shelter to survive and they can earn the ability to undertake scientific projects that will benefit the colony.
Colonial Mars expands to other planets with the Utopian political system essentially consisting of a Technocracy. Greed and religion are outlawed punishable by death. No person is in charge. Robots are programmed to rule.
Twenty thousand years later Muskites are still populating the universe and expand into super beings. Eventually they are contacted by the Provost Utermina, a group of billion year old beings, evolved from non-carbon life forms, societally grouped into inhabiting several connected and infinite multiverses, also founded upon unwaivering Technocratic principles of kindness, alleviation of suffering and the expansion of consciousness, knowledge and wisdom.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
NADA mentions price competition, consumer safety, local economic benefits, and added value.
Yes, the "added value" of $500 for a $2 3M spray on the seats, and $1500 for an underbody treatment that often isn't even applied.
Yes, those dealers sure know how to extract value. I almost bought a Toyota once. But I couldn't get one that didn't have $5000 or more of unwanted markup for such scams. Gulf States Toyota Distributors should have been taken down for fraud and such. But NADA and others support such unethical and borderline illegal practices. And demonize Tesla.
Learn to love Alaska
Isn't price competition based on who has the lowest dealer markup?
Doesn't eliminating the dealer franchise also eliminate dealer markup?
Wouldn't we all be buying the same wholesale price?
That being the case, how is price competition (in this case!) a good thing?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Not specifically Tesla, but electric cars don't have alot of things that car dealers make money"
Electric cars need tires. Electric cars need brakes. Electric cars will have safety recalls. Electric cars can be in accidents. Electric cars can be broken into.
I don't claim to know much about electric cars, but if it has moving parts it will be need to be serviced at some point.
I don't think you thought your post through.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
but I would love their business model to be used by all auto manufacturers.
tesla will be something when it can go coast to coast down back roads w/o fear of where we gonna charge this at right now its a cod peice for people who have a range rover or benz setting next to it in the driveway
The margins for dealer sold cars are HUGE, thousands and thousands of dollars in commission for the better sales guys per car. Now imagine if Tesla ruined that market made cars cheaper for everybody.. of course these guys are scared of Tesla, if they are a success doing this nobody will want to use a dealer and the price of all cars will go down so they lose out on that margin.
Uh, Tesla wouldn't be making anything cheaper for consumers. They'd Apple it up and charge comparatively more, while keeping all the profits to themselves.
'Everyone' hates the car dealership, and I do too. But, in my recent, personal experience, they have provided me the benefit of price competition. I needed to lease a car and found the lowest price I could find. I then simply called the 'Internet Department' at each of the local dealerships for this particular model, and just asked if they could beat that price. One guy said he could, and I went to him. I don't know if this is possible with purchasing a Tesla. Can different dealerships set their own prices, or, since the dealership is the manufacturer, is the price the same across any 'dealership' within a given geographical area?
Don't know. Can your boss set your salary on a whim after asking a bunch of random strangers what he should pay you?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
PDF.js is being dog slow at rendering the PDF. So first I had a look at the article on The Car Connection. "Fiercely compete for your business" just means that Chevy, Ford, and the like have failed to compete with Tesla. "Create good-paying local jobs" sounds like a broken window fallacy. "and significant tax revenue for local communities" is true whether or not the factory owns the dealer, as the local branch of a factory-owned dealer likewise pays property, income, and sales tax. "If automakers themselves were in charge of repairs...well, we don't want to cast aspersions, but it would be easy to see the incentive to cut corners." Still, this would hurt only Tesla. If NADA thinks Tesla would be willing to kill its own brand, let it.
Once the "Fact Sheet" finally rendered, nothing I wrote above was invalidated. Plus: "profits generated by factory-owned dealerships flow up a vertical ladder to out-of-state shareholders." So do the profits of the factory itself, no matter who owns the dealer. "Local dealers will be there for consumers in good times and bad." I've seen local dealers close up shop. "A new-car dealer serves a consumer for the entire ownership experience." Just as true of factory-owned dealers.
..in the traditional sales system is not a thing that most people enjoy
Some people falsely believe they are "players" but they still get screwed
Most people are "sheep" and they get screwed faster and harder
I am not a master negotiator..I just want a car at a fair price
I always feel like a lamb in a roomful of tigers when I deal with a traditional car dealer
I'm a really good engineer, and I have many other talents..but cutthroat negotiation is not one of them
I really, really want a better system
I found my last car online (used card)
I paid over the phone, deposit (subject to independent mechanical inspection report) by credit card, full balance by direct deposit (or I would have had to pay credit card fee)
It was delivered outside my work on the back of a truck nice and clean
Quite happy with it actually. It was much cheaper than buying a similar car in my local city.
Won't there still be a need for dealers, and aren't all the video's arguments still valid, for used cars?
I find car dealers are a great resource.
They're a good place to go to test drive cars and compare different models in person.
Not a good place to buy cars from though.
But everyone knows what that conveys, even the dealers themselves:
Of course, this divides ranks with the dealership community itself, as the old guys close to retirement are going to continuing milking their cash cow by any means available, as the younger guys start to worry about their long term futures when the backlash strikes, which the old guys are doing nothing whatsoever to abate sooner rather than later.
They say that society is "only" three square meals from anarchy. That's a lot, actually. I estimate that the fraternal order of the car dealership is only two snifters of brandy and one Cuban cigar's worth of suggested forbearance away from king-sized flop house crossfire.
They'd Apple it up and charge comparatively more, while keeping all the profits to themselves.
Good. Tesla spends far more than most companies on R&D, and healthy profits will allow them to continue doing that.
Vernon's a director of the Grunnings drill manufacturing company.
Car dealerships have got to be about the worst consumer facing industry there is.
Most of the 'local' revenue is from fleecing other locals with borderline (and some not so borderline) scams. I'm amazed there's not some big undercover expose showing all the crap they do on a regular basis. (Maybe there is and I just haven't seen one... ?)
Die already.
If they somehow magically pulled a 180 on the entrenched shitbaggery that permeates that whole industry and turned into normal retail sales outlets maybe I'd start to listen to whatever the hell they're saying here.
(I guess I should disclose I've got some Tesla stock, but that has zero bearing on my opinion of car dealers)
I think the NADA is wasting their time, if they are indeed "scared" of Tesla, or even really actively fighting Tesla. The number of people currently buying a Tesla is so insignificant compared to regular car sales, that the NADA has nothing to worry about for at least another 5 years (which is when all-electric vehicles hopefully become cheap enough to actually compete, price wise, with gas fueled vehicles).
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
In many communities you will find that the major dealers for a given brand are owned by the same family. So you cross town for a better price and oddly enough it is identical.
...I love it. There are Nissan (at least) dealers hereabouts who have occasionally priced cars over MSRP. Now that may be annoying, but it's basically legitimate, considering that "suggested" means just that. I can understand a dealer saying "We're charging you over MSRP because we can, so take it or leave it".
But these guys take it to a different level. The window sticker lists the MSRP and all the usual add-ons, and then an entry that says "[Dealername] Added Value $500". It doesn't include any of the silly crap like Scotchgarding the seats -- those are saved for the sales manager to try to force on you.
If they had a real brain, they would approach Tesla to see about getting frame with drive train. In doing that, they could put their own body on it and start their own companies. From there, down the road, they could switch from dealer, to auto makers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You are looking at this from the wrong point of view. The way you should be looking at is, if you ALSO had the option of calling up Ford or GM or whoever your car maker was directly, and asking THEM if they could beat the dealer's price, could they? Of course they could, they make the damn car.
The idea that dealers create pricing competition for cars is total baloney because dealers don't make cars in the first place, they just mark them up and sell them. Ford competes with Honda and GM, they don't compete with Honda dealers and GM dealers. The thing that keeps the features and functions progressing for Ford while keeping costs low is not their dealer network, it is competition from other auto makers. The only competition dealers are having is who can mark up your car the least.
Let's get rid of realtors next. Another bunch of useless parasites.
Mostly random stuff.
ride sharing an escort - eeew.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The margins are huge. Part of the thing dealers love is preying on people who just don't know about buying a car. Either a full sticker priced sale, or dealer add ons that are insane such as $2000 running boards are a great way to make money off a sucker. Just one item like that can be much more then the normal profit made on a car.
It took me a week to buy my last vehicle. I felt dirty and angry after several of my purchase attempts because I was quite clear on the phone before visiting what I wanted and did not want to waste time going to a dealer who was not willing to do it. I wanted to pay invoice and get fair market value for my old vehicle. Some of the dealers tried to cheat (keeping rebates), others did a good deal but then offered be well below market for my old vehicle. It was a very frustrating process. In the end after failures at 4 dealers I found one that was at least honest. They still made dealer 'holdback' plus other incentives which is enough profit.
Dealerships losing government supported business model.
GM management wanted the closures, not the government because their business DID NOT SUPPORT all of the extra dealers. GM's sales were down to almost half of what they were and they still had almost all of the dealers. They definitely needed to downsize the network.
Basically you made the whole political angle up to serve your petty DEM vs REP crap.
These laws (passed 50 years ago) predate the capability of buyers to easily browse and purchase used vehicles from the supply outside their immediate vicinity.
How there can be laws to prevent you from selling to an individual in any industry. I know they were purchased, but still how can a law like this ever get passed with out SOMEONE getting in its way?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"touting the benefits of dealer franchises"
Then let them compete with other sales methodologies in a free market basis. Creating an artificial market environment usually only exists to maintain an unsustainable market for a select group of people who have influence with those in power.
Wouldn't surprise me if, after their attempts to enforce their middle man monopoly by law fail, they change their name to the National Automotive Sellers Association and try to claim some of the federal budget for themselves.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Sad troll attempt- 0/10. Corporations exist to make money. Given the opportunity to do so with little effort, you can bet your ass they ALL would. I can't even believe you'd throw GM, Ford, and Toyota in that list. Those guys have had so many recalls for cheaping out on parts I couldn't even list them all. I don't mention Honda or the Koreans because I don't know anything off the top of my head but I'm sure you can find plenty of problems with them as well. When you have a demonstrable habit of cutting corners why would you ever think they'd start behaving without someone cracking the whip on them? As far as I can remember, the price of a new car has only ever went up. Cutting out those middle man dealers is just a great way to get the bigwigs a bigger bonus! You'll still pay more for next year's model and they'll still use some plastic clips where 4 real screws should have been! Keep hatin' hater!
There is a reason dealerships are popularly referred to as stealer-ships. While people there are trying to make money, the selling practices are universally despised and not liked by many. As such, I say that we should welcome Tesla and all other manufacturers. The more the merrier. Dealerships are welcome to compete with the quality of their service in free market
https://translate.google.ca/#e...
'Everyone' hates the car dealership, and I do too. But, in my recent, personal experience, they have provided me the benefit of price competition. I needed to lease a car and found the lowest price I could find. I then simply called the 'Internet Department' at each of the local dealerships for this particular model, and just asked if they could beat that price. One guy said he could, and I went to him. I don't know if this is possible with purchasing a Tesla. Can different dealerships set their own prices, or, since the dealership is the manufacturer, is the price the same across any 'dealership' within a given geographical area?
The problem is, all the different prices you got were different amounts of markup from the manufacturer's price. You settled for the least amount of markup you could find. I suspect that all of them would be more expensive than buying directly from the manufacturer, which in the case of Tesla, you essentially are.
It only seems like a good deal in comparison to worse deals, not because it's actually a good deal.
"You paid WHAT!!" "But it's ok honey, it was 50% off! Think of the money we saved!"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Most things are not sold directly by the manufacturer but by retailers. The variety of things that can be bought is too large to have a seperate store for each manufacturer out there, its nice to have product catagories in one place. With smaller objects of lower value, it seems this is strongly preferred. Cars are a very large, expensive item so there is more of a tendancy to have stores that specialize in just them. This sort of reduces the natural retailer/manufacturer seperation.
The fact is dealers do provide added value, however. The value comes from of course, the lot, of being able to actually see a car before you buy it. The cost of running this will be there whether the manufacturer runs the lot, or whether an independent dealer does. The market does operate to regulate prices for dealers, since its a part of the car price, it can be argued that having independent dealers may give people more choice regarding who has a more efficient lot operation.
Many aspects of the dealership people find unpleasant will still be there with a manufacturer run dealership. One of them is the credit checks for the loans. Bargaining is not necessarily exclusive to independent dealers but could also occur at a manufacturer dealer. A lot of the qualities of the independent dealer will still be there with a manufacturer dealer, therefore. Since you have no choice of dealers to work with, it could even be worse.
Maybe people should have the option of a direct buy from a manufacturer, but, a manufacturer locking out independant dealers from providing an alternative is also not a great idea. The vertical integration could be anti-competive and lead to overly monopolistic qualities.
I bought my first car from a dealer (new or used) from Saturn. Fixed price, no haggles, absolutely loved it. I considered Honda at first but the salesman was so extremely aggressive that I quickly gave up that idea. And Saturn with a fixed price was not more expensive than the competition. Sure, SOME people are good at negotiating the price down but most people are not. Haggling means that the person with the most experience at it wins, and the sales team who do this every single day will have the most experience compared to the average customer.
So the Tesla way of offering a price and the customer can choose to accept it or go elsewhere works. If it's too expensive then they'll have to lower the price to get the customers in the door. Just about every single thing you buy in the US has a fixed price with no haggling, except for cars and houses.
To be NADA.
Just like the rest of the auto makers. Don't forget Tucker.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
Haggling means that the person with the most experience at it wins
No, haggling means the person that's least willing to walk away loses. It's not hard, you just have to say, "okay, no deal then", get in your car, and drive away if they won't sell for what you're willing to pay. Plus you get the bonus of knowing the salesman is going to be sweating as he explains to the sales manager why he lost the sale.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Who here has actually had a 'good' experience when buying a car from a dealer?
:-)
The last car I bought was pretty much trouble-free. I researched the vehicle, determined what I was willing to pay for it, and called the dealerships with my out-the-door price. Three of them balked, the fourth faxed me a quote with my price, and I picked the car up later that day for exactly that amount. They weren't real pleased to find out I already had financing in place through my bank, but that wasn't my problem.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
In the last few weeks taxi drivers are in a fuss over technology possibly eliminating their trade. Now we see car dealerships in a hissy over the potential elimination of their livelihoods. I can recall when movie theaters were in a state claiming that cable TV would ruin the theater industry which really did occur. Taxi drivers will not get much public sympathy as they are not powerful nor particularly well liked. The car dealers will shrivel up much more slowly as they have money and a bit of status as well as a public that is slow to adopt new products. But the fact is that the Tesla vehicles simply will not need mechanics. Swapping out a battery pack or an electric motor can be done by any small shop. Glass is already normally handled outside of dealerships as is paint and body and half the garages already provide break maintenance. Brokers can handle the sales unless Tesla sells directly to the public so what is there for a dealer to do? Frankly as each trade falls away we will see protests and warnings of dire consequences. The trucking industry will soon fall to robotics and perhaps the commercial airlines as well. The construction trade is in serious danger as 3D printing can build superior homes. I'll bet money that 3D printed boats start to appear soon. I know that one canoe was already built as an experiment. The books about Future Shock were pretty much dead on target.
The only competition dealers are having is who can mark up your car the least.
don't you have that backwards? the competition is to see who can get away with marking it up the most. it's an endless quest to find new ways to screw the customer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But you never know if you could have gotten the better deal even when you do agree. You may indeed get a price that you agree on but you never know how low the dealer might have gone. This is like poker and the sales person knows how to read the customer better than the customer can read the sales person.
There's also the case that you can be in a situation where the dealer knows you're much more ready to give in quickly and you're sort of at their mercy. Ie, my last car died and the sales person knew that my car was in the shop next door and that bad news was soon to arrive, and probably could deduce easily that I was in no position to just drive away without the hassle of getting a taxi to take me to an auto rental service. On the other hand you can time it so that the dealer is the one that's in desperate need to make a quota before end of the month.
There's also the sleazy business (done everywhere, not just auto dealers) where you can not get any information without being given the sales pitch. Ask about how a hybrid works and you're not going to be told that, you're going to be told how great the car is and that you need to buy today etc. Whereas my experience with Saturn was great and the sales people actually gave me decent information that turned out to be reliable over time, and surprisingly would actually leave me alone to read stuff or do research and they actually let me leave the lot without being hassled about it!
I know there are some people who think they really are great hagglers, and sometimes they're right. Sometimes they get fleeced though. A lot of people just like to think they're smart enough to handle it all, just like the people who think they're smart enough to go gambling and win. But I think many people just totally despise the whole process and would gladly pay more money to avoid the process, all the bs of "haggling is easy" won't change their mind.
Seriously.
The auto industry has had pretty much unlimited rein to revolutionize themselves for the last 70+ years (Tucker Preston, ring a bell?). But they, and their predatory salesforce, have turned up their noses and outright torpedoed each and every opportunity to do so. All so they can give us pathetically miniscule changes on a yearly basis and charge us ever greater sums of money to do so.
Fuck them and the buggy their rode in on.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sure, local dealerships can fight over the scraps over who will take the lowest cut. And the manufacturer, who sets the "cost" price that the dealerships pay, is who laughs all the way to the bank. So while dickering on a price isn't possible with Tesla, it's also not possible with the existing dealership model. You can't go to ten dealerships and tell them, ok, which of you is going to more aggressively call up Ford and get me a better price from them?
So yes, you can negotiate for a dealership that adds less markup on top of what they pay, why introduce that layer at all anyway?
But you never know if you could have gotten the better deal even when you do agree. You may indeed get a price that you agree on but you never know how low the dealer might have gone.
You're absolutely right, of course, but in my case, I placed a non-trivial value on my free time, and given that what I was offering was a couple thousand dollars under the researched "invoice price" (which of course is bogus, given the nebulous value of the dealer's holdback and other potential dealer incentives) and *many* thousands under the MSRP, I felt that it was at the very least a fair price and that it represented a case of diminishing returns to pursue anything lower.
If it helps any, I hate the car. It's what my ex wanted to get, not me.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Uh, Tesla wouldn't be making anything cheaper for consumers. They'd Apple it up and charge comparatively more, while keeping all the profits to themselves.
A Fair Price
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/fair-price
Below is the exact math for 734k CNY [Chinese Yuan]:
$81,070 US price
$3,600 Shipping & handling
$19,000 Customs duties & taxes
$17,700 VAT
734k CNY @ 6.05 exchange rate
This pricing structure is something of a risk for Tesla, but we want to do the right thing for Chinese consumers. If we were to follow standard industry practice, we could get away with charging twice as much for the Model S in China as we do in the US. But we're doing things differently, even if it means that some people might look at the price and mistakenly think it must somehow mean the Model S has less value than its competitors.
Tesla already had the opportunity to "Apple it up" and chose not to.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I had to drive through a hedge row to leave a dealership once. I was eighteen and shopping for my first car, driving my folks' old '86 Isuzu Trooper. I had driven in to look at a car up on the pedestal that I wanted to know the price of, and they blocked the driveway and wouldn't move. I shifted into four-wheel-high, jumped the curb into the landscaping, drove through a shallow, landscaped water retention basin, through a short hedge of oleanders, out on to the flat landscaping next to the street, shifted into two-wheel, and pulled out onto the street. I only saw the facial expression of one of the salesmen that blocked me, but it was absolutely priceless...
I do not have a problem with the end of the dealer franchise system. It's one thing if they were honest about the price and all of the associated costs so that one could actually negotiate with them, but it's fighting tooth-and-nail to get them to that point. When we tried to buy a truck in September 2008 and the prices just didn't align with what we expected, and finally after more than an hour they brought out the complete price breakdown, under duress that we were going to walk out if they didn't. Still couldn't reach a price, still walked out.
If franchise dealers would negotiate on an out-the-door price (especially when one is going to pay cash or bringing in one's own financing, effectively a cash transaction from the dealer's point of view) then I wouldn't be calling for their end, but with all of the crap they pull I see nothing redeeming about them, no value added.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
No, the dealer margins on new cars is actually very small. Used cars are higher, but not that much. Most of the margin is actually taken by the manufacturer. It's the reason they are so slimy when selling them, they make next to nothing on them.
Most of a dealer's profit is on servicing and on any kickbacks from financing. The car its self, not so much.
> Are you suggesting that the car manufacturer would not want to get that markup themselves?
Of course not. Some, almost certainly. But what is Tesla's goal? Really?? It's to drive everyone else out of business. And the way to do it is to lowball the price. And the reason they can do that is that they don't have to pay for dealers. This is not rocket science.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So why did they block the driveway? That has to be quite a story..
Yeah, he was probably thinking "Why didn't that clown use the other driveway? The one that's wide open?"
Depending on what brand of bread you buy, you are already visiting a dealer, so what is your complaint again?
You are looking at this from the wrong point of view. The way you should be looking at is, if you ALSO had the option of calling up Ford or GM or whoever your car maker was directly, and asking THEM if they could beat the dealer's price
If you want a Fiat and are in Turin the number to call is 011-004-2000. The price they make are a bit lower in respect of other car dealer, especially on cars in the park lot, but they're not the market killers you could think: i suppose that the mak up goes in the Fiat shareholders pockets instead of the car dealers pocket.
Retailers compete on price all the time.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Even with less mechanical stuff to break, I'm sure the usual malfunctions can occur.
Lacking a dealership, how do you get things fixed on a Tesla? Does some guy come to your house?
That isn't to say Tesla will solve all these problems (I'd be especially worried about the cost of servicing what's essentially a computer on wheels), but at least they charge a price and you know what you're getting. No negotiations. No oily salesman pitching stuff you don't need.
But what is Tesla's goal? Really?? It's to drive everyone else out of business.
Tesla's goal is to make Elon Musk and the other shareholders money. They don't care how many competitors they have, as long as they are making money. If driving other competitors out of business makes them more money, it is because they are able to charge higher prices with less competition. They don't make money by low-balling their price, unless that decreased price causes an increase in overall sales to compensate for the lower margin per sale.
Admittedly I have only purchased two cars new, but my experience was that you can negotiate on an out the door price. My process was to find a model I was interested in, wait until they were motivated to sell, then started e-mailing.
I e-mailed all 7 of the dealers within 60 miles of me and asked for a no kidding out the door price, and told them not to figure in a single incentive that the general public wouldn't qualify for (good student, military, etc.).
Then I took the best price and e-mailed those who were close to that price and told them they had one more chance.
In both cases I came out with a price that was well below what truecar says is a good price, and when I wen't in to buy it was easy. I had financing in hand and when I got to their closer (the guy who upsells you) I just said no to every single thing he offered and walked out with the keys 20 minutes later.
Tell me again how removing the plastic seat covers and washing the car is worth the $600.00 dealer fee. Remind me how having to haggle over price for an hour or more so I don't get cheated is a good thing..
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
there is really no reason for tesla(or any car manufacturer) to sell to dealerships if they care about the consumer. in most cases, the manufacturers make x copies and sell them all to the dealerships. they dont really care if the end user likes them or even buys them because theyve already made their money.
in the best case scenario, everyone buys every car... but it costs the end user 10-20% more than the cars cost the dealerships. if tesla cuts out the middle man, they can charge the normal dealership price, but for everyone and still make the same profit.(this also makes their cars cheaper than the competition).
dealerships are outdated and are in need of destruction.
The margins for dealer sold cars are HUGE, thousands and thousands of dollars in commission for the better sales guys per car.
Seriously? I'm certainly no fan of car dealers, but if you think salesmen are getting several thousand dollars per new car in commission, you're kidding yourself. Average commissions are around $500 per vehicle.
Inernal combustion vs. electric motor. The electric motor just runs. Internal combustion engines need maintenance. That is why the dealership exists. Remember those ink-jet printers you could buy for a hundred bucks and then pay close to that for a thimble-full of ink? Internal combustion vehicles have become more dependable over the years, but they will never beat the electric motor for reliability. Which car manufacturer was featured in a movie about killing something years ago? It name has two letters and it is involved in an extended recall mess...
America has been socialist since Obama starting working us over.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Someday all our cars will be bought like everything else. Off the internet. And from China.
Sped along by the greed of the US car companies, unions, and dealers.
Dealers buy cars from manufacturers, and have certain contractual obligations to do so. This allows the manufacturers to level out their production and offload inventory risk to the dealers. Dealers have been very good for manufacturers for a long time. In early years of car sales, manufacturers believed that an independent dealer (who is carrying the inventory risk and is highly motivated to sell cars) was more likely to sell inventory than an employee of the manufacturer sitting in a company-owned store. Manufacturers *want* independent dealerships.
And not everyone wants to specify their next new car and then wait months for it to be built and delivered.
Every other retail seller--like Amazon--is also a middleman, just like car dealers. Sure middleman profits increase overall costs, but they provide selection, one stop shopping, etc. that would be impossible if I had to go to a manufacturers outlet for each different item purchased.
Not a fan of car dealers and their tactics, mind you, but they do serve a purpose.
The true price is a number that both parties agree upon. For a seller, of anything, it is in their best interest to sell at as high a price as they can without alienating customers. For a buyer, it is in their best interest to pay as little as they can. For any item being bought/sold, there exists a range of numbers at which both parties find the price to by acceptable and the transaction made.
In a haggling situation, it is not uncommon to hear something like this *after* the sale of say a $100 marked item: "$75 was a good price for me, I was really willing to pay up to $85. Oh yeah, I'd've sold it to you for $65". Obviously the sale could have been done at anywhere between $65 and $85 and both parties got what they wanted, albeit with less satisfaction for the seller at a lower price and less satisfaction for the buyer at a higher price.
There is no one true price for anything.
I've haggled at Best Buy. I've haggled at furniture stores. Generally the higher the price of an item, the more likely it is that there is room to get a lower price or a better deal somehow. What you see at McDs and other places is simply an increased willingness to trade low-cost items in volume sales against the potential inefficiencies of higher markup that can lead to haggling situations. But you have no idea what McD's markup is, do you?
Dealerships know that a significant portion of their customers are predisposed to car less about overall costs than the monthly payment. They know that they can only afford $300/month payment, so a deal that gets them a lower overall price but monthly payments of $350 will be rejected.
When you walk into a dealership and say "I'm going to pay cash for a car today if you can give me what I want at a price I find reasonable. And I've done my homework, so I have a particular number in mind. I've also checked your inventory online this morning and know you have a car matching my specs on your lot right now." you find that a lot of the rigmarole goes away.
P.S. I got the car I wanted at about $100 more than the rock-bottom price I went in with plus 0% three-year financing so I could keep my cash longer. Also got free normal service (oil changes, etc.) for three years, have had two such appointments so far with pleasant waiting room, etc. Plus they wash the car after they service it.
"This is simply not true for the vast majority of retail situations. In almost all cases there is a sticker price that is what you pay. You can easily compare different stores for price and choose the cheapest, or accept a higher price because you prefer the store for some reason."
All that you have going here is that the sticker price is almost always *already* in the range both parties are willing to accept, so there's a much smaller incentive to work to get a lower price as a buyer or a higher price as a seller. That sticker price is offered *because* it almost always avoids haggling, which is important in high volume situations.
As for not caring about McD's prices, that's probably because you understand at some level that McDs is probably not a high markup situation, where volume is preferred over optimizing per-customer pricing. And you probably have an understanding of the price of the raw materials and labor: you know you could go the store, buy ground meat, buns, condiments, and make your own burger for less, but not *that* much less. And again, the sticker price falls within your tolerance level. If McD's started selling a Big Mac for $22 sticker price, you probably would be unwilling to buy it even though the price is "transparent" what with being right there on the big board and all and with store personnel absolutely unwilling to sell for less.
it's not absurd to suggest that dealer networks add value. the question is, for whom? not the consumer, generally.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
They have ONE model currently in production, the S. The X has been delayed while issues with the door are worked out, to my knowledge you can't find any on display in common areas. They probably have a few prototypes on display, but that's it. They also have the historical roadster, which isn't really compatible with their current technology.
I don't read AC A human right
there was a time when vacuum cleaners were sold by door-to-door salesmen. imagine if we had corrupt politicians still propping up that ridiculous practice today and the only way to buy a vacuum cleaner was to wait for some schmuck to turn up at your doorstep and throw a bunch of dirt at your feet when you opened the door.
Actual competition is terrifying to "free market capitalists".
Actual competition is nirvana to free market capitalists; those who oppose it, like NADA, are not free market capitalists. FTFY.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I've worked for dealers for 28 years in service. Years ago I wondered if a idea like teslas would mature. It is much harder for dealers to profit from anything due to the required transparency and internet competition. Please think of your career , business, could you survive with constant never ending negotiations ? Think about it , because it's coming . Takumi.