Court: Car Dealers Can't Stop Tesla From Selling In Massachusetts

curtwoodward writes: Many states have laws that prevent car manufacturers from operating their own dealerships, a throwback to the days when Detroit tried to undercut its franchise dealers by opening company-owned shops. But dealers have taken those laws to the extreme as they battle new competition from Tesla, which is selling its cars direct to the public. In some states, dealers have succeeded in limiting Tesla's direct-sales model. But not in Massachusetts (PDF): the state's Supreme Court says the dealers don't have any right to sue Tesla for unfair competition, since they're not Tesla dealers. No harm, no foul.

Comments

hahaha

[weiserfireman]

I love the courts logic.

Dealer Franchise Laws were prevented to promote the Franchise model.

If a car company sells franchises in the State, it can't then open Company Stores and undercut their Franchises.

But if the Car Company has no franchises, there is no one being hurt.

Car Dealerships can't sue because they don't like a new Car Company's Sales Model.

Reality is the Franchise owners were licking their chops thinking of all the money they would make selling Teslas in their dealerships. They got butt hurt when they found out Tesla wasn't going to sell them Franchises.

Car Dealers should ask why they're being bypassed

[Karmashock]

If they were offering Tesla what they wanted or needed maybe tesla wouldn't see a need to bypass them.

Tesla for example likes to have their dealerships in normal store fronts where they have ONE car in the middle of the store and a lot of information. They sort of look and feel like apple stores. Very minimalistic, hip, modern. If the dealerships were willing to do that then maybe Tesla wouldn't have needed to do this.

Tesla points out that new car companies in the US tend to fail and they blame the dealership system for this because they say they're invested in existing auto companies and brands.

For Tesla to be comfortable the existing dealerships would have to be willing to commit themselves to Tesla in the same way that Tesla's company run dealerships are committed to Tesla.

And even then... Tesla doesn't have to deal with the dealerships. That whole model of sales is obviously going to come under challenge from all the other car companies now that will all ask "why do we have to deal with you when Tesla can do what they want?"

Maybe Toyota or Ford will want to have their own stores. And the dealerships are going to have to justify themselves to those organizations.