Slashdot Mirror
Michigan About To Ban Tesla Sales
cartechboy writes It's a story we've come to see quite often: a state trying to ban Tesla's direct sales model. It seems something sneaky just happened in Michigan where Tesla sales are about to be banned. Bill HB 5606 originally intended to offer added protection to franchised dealers and consumers from price gouging by carmakers, and was passed by the Michigan House in September without any anti-Tesla language. However, once it hit the Senate wording was changed that might imply the legality of a manufacturer-owned dealership was removed. The modified bill was passed unanimously by the Senate on October 2, and then sent back to the House that day where it passed with only a single dissenting vote. The bill was modified without any opportunity for public comment. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has less than a week to sign the bill into law. Of course, Tesla's already fighting this legislation.
Editors: You could at least warn us that we won't be able to participate in constructive discussion of the featured article without paying.
3) and 4) are only valid in during election when it's time to manufacture consent. Trust me, they are very pro-government and pro-regulation if it goes in the interest of the companies paying their multi-millions campaign.
It's a trend in our lawmakers that make them so sensitive to being anti anything that they come up with weird circuitous laws to ban things that they don't like or have donations to eliminate.
In this case lawmakers were attempting to protect small mom and pop style dealerships from the Detroit auto industries shady business practices, but I bet they didn't want to seem "anti capitalism" for regulating the pricing of cars to ensure that the dealers weren't dumping cars to drive out the competition. So instead we get a crazy law that bans direct sales. Because its much harder to construe that as anti something, and the politicians can always fire back with a similar "anti mom and pop stores" nonsense.
For a more modern example look at abortion laws. In my great state the politicians are too afraid to go one way or the other so they come up with bullshit like waiting times. In order for a woman to get an abortion she has to wait three days. No reason. She just has to. This is because someone couldn't get an anti abortion law passed so they settled for attempting to shame the woman into keeping the child with arbitrary regulations and rules.
Same across every regulatory statute as well. We rarely ban any activity out right, but instead mire in a quicksand of impenetrable regulations and taxes.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
Here, this one's free.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The Michigan State Senate has a 26-to-12 Republican majority and in the House a 59-to-50 Republican majority. With control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, it is certainly Republicans who are accountable for revoking the freedom to purchase a Tesla in Michigan.
So wait, 49 of the 50 democrat reps vote for this and all 12 democrat senators vote for this and it's a Republican thing?
you must be trolling.
1) So the manufacturer cannot give their own dealership an unfair advantage over franchised dealerships. This is what happened back in the early 20th century when Ford and others were trying to strong-arm their franchisees.
2) So they can sell direct to consumers. They feel that existing franchised auto-dealerships will not give them a fair shake. They'll steer customers unfairly to buy the Ford, Chevy, Nissan, whatever else they're selling if Tesla doesn't give them a bigger commission. Think of the last time you visit a commission based electronics store (ABC Warehouse as an example), the salesmen will push a consumer to purchase the goods which give them the biggest commission. It doesn't matter what the consumer needs, they want a bigger payday, and honestly with that model it's hard to blame them.
Using the electronics example, Tesla is taking the Apple approach, where they want to control the presentation of their goods and who sells them. Apple might not get the greatest shake from the salesman at ABC Warehouse if Samsung is offering a higher commission. However when you go to an Apple Store, you get a salesman who is not paid on commission and their job is to solely educate you about Apple products. Tesla wants the same experience, come to a store where the salesman knows everything about a Tesla and can sell it to you in an environment catered to it. These are niche products that won't get a fair shake from the existing dealerships without a good bribe, just like our Congress in Michigan has shown.
So he asks for evidence, you dont provide any, and you get a +5 mod.
Good work, guys.
https://www.opensecrets.org/lo...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Partly it is the American ethos, however romanticized, about the individual over society. A bigger factor, in my opinion, is that America's unions are pretty bad.
But here is the main reason. In business, contributions are split pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans. It drifts from year to year, from industry to industry, but rarely do you find more than 70% coming from a single industry to a single party. I am not saying that Americans like corporate lobbing, but corporate lobbing does not discriminate.
Unions, on the other hand, give over 95% of their donations to Democrats. Than factor in that the majority of union members work for government. In effect, union members are hiring the managers who will be negotiating their salary. School board elections are notorious for this.