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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.
Telsa... you're being banned state by state, what's wrong?
Wonder how much the dealer franchises had to pay in bribes for a unanimous vote. Seems a bit overkill when you only need a majority.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
Editors: You could at least warn us that we won't be able to participate in constructive discussion of the featured article without paying.
They probably just assume no one reads TFA anyway....
We live in an Oligarchy.
If the majority of wealthy car dealers don't want Tesla ruining their state-sponsored, protectionist, big-government, corporate-welfare free ride; they'll send an army of lobbyists to make sure none of them have to compete against one.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Silly Rabbit, Teslas are for the masses. You can fight with laws now, but where will you go when you are the only one of a handful of states that isn't selling teslas? You can't stop progress, just like you can't stop Uber, AirBnb or any other hip and dynamic companies.
They probably didn't read it either.
Very well, let them. Nobody in Michigan can afford one anyway.
The rationale for enforcing a car dealership model is obsolete. Now these laws only protect special interests who support politicians and are at odds with the interest of the vast majority of the American public.
I'm all for state's rights, but I think its time for the federal government to step in and eliminate this unconstitutional restraint of interstate commerce.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Coming from Slashdot used to be an exemption to the WSJ paywall... looks like the Slashdot/WSJ bridge is down.
auto exec:: you have to do something!!! Tesla will RUIN us with their online sales tactics and futuristic car designs they probably stole from us!! hard working people from michigan will lose their jobs!
governor: what about flint, saginaw, pontiac, and detroit...theyre all completely bankrupt from 40 years of your bullshit.
auto exec: yeah but that was just the hand of the free market and the customers werent buying and stocks too, those were bad.
governor:so you're telling me you cant compete against another american car maker...but you already have an electric car called the volt...and you could just revive the 2 or 3 GM electric vehicles you designed in the past...those worked and were cheap.
auto exec: yeah, we could, but thats all way more expensive than our 2015 strategy: Fucking do what we say or you're ass is out of office.
Governor: Tesla?! why didnt you tell me about these flaming terrorist shariah abortion clinics on wheels sooner!
Good people go to bed earlier.
According to this map, state bans on Tesla sales are a Republican thing.
The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, is a Republican. 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.
By the way, it is election season, and I have noticed signs in my neighborhood stating, "For freedom, vote Republican."
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
They're apparently out now; I saw one on the road this morning.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You're (dubiously) assuming that most /.ers read TFA in the first place...
Now people will just go out of state to buy Teslas, and thus the tax revenue will go to another state.
This is a case where someone didn't think things through.
Here is where the logic fails
1) Republicans control the House, Senate, and Governorship of Michigan.
2) Republicans are "pro-business".
3) Republicans believe in "minimal government".
4) Republicans believe in "minimal regulation"
It would stand to reason that people holding this philosophy would let the "market forces" take their course without government interference. However, this is not how they behave. Hmmm.
Never mind Tesla. I don't even want to deal with dealers for conventional cars. I would rather order the thing online direct from the factory (or Amazon) and just have it delivered. There is so much crap an nonsense you have to deal with at a car dealership, it's not even funny.
This "upselling" thing is a sickness that seems to have infested everything.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have 2 questions I'd like answered by someone who's not financially nor emotionally invested in the whole "Tesla vs the Gobermint" debate:
1) For what reason would a state legislature want to make it illegal for a manufacturer to own their own dealership?
2) For what reason would a manufacturer not want to franchise their dealerships?
Thanks (to the probably 2 out of 100 responses that will actually fit my criteria) in advance.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It's probably worth mentioning that both houses of the Michigan legislature are controlled by Republicans, and the governor of Michigan is a Republican.
Who is the party of free markets and economic growth?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here, this one's free.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Are you colour blind?!! From the very map you cite, it looks like an even break between red & blue states.
With the exception of a few states, this looks more like a Western (non-coastal) state thing.
Western : Montana, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas.
Plus a scattered handful : Arkansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey & Delaware.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Tesla could always attempt to burn the dealer down the dealer industry to spite the dealers.
Massive financial incentives would be the best way. I would love to own a Model S. But really what I can afford is more in the price range of a 3 year old Compact Subaru or a Ford. My financial capacity determines my purchase choice. Therefore if Tesla wanted to spite the auto dealers that don't want to play fair: Telsa could also choose not to play fair. They could generate incentives to reduce the opportunities for dealers to make a sale to a customer that really actually wanted a Telsa. Those incentives could come right out of Tesla's so far as I've seen unused marketing budget. Threatening a dozen heavily subsidized customers per banned-state would be a pretty evil start.
Effectively operating off of a theoretical page out of the art of war. Any sale Tesla in a given state generally denies an autodealer a sale; which denies them funds to fight their irrational war against the future.
In hunting terms its called poaching. Unchecked poachers frequently cause significant ripple effect in herd populations. Likewise the Model S lack much if the service issues that cause people to replace or trade in their cars thus denying many future dealer sales.
Okay, I've always assumed that the stereotypes about the honest of car dealers were true, but I never suspected that they were this much of an entrenched monied special interest group.
Well if people are getting this rich off of essentially retail, then there are bigger things wrong with this picture than we thought.
The US has decomposed into a state where anything wonderful and new will be attacked and maybe crushed. We need to arrest congress people who vote for things like restraint of trade and we need Tesla to receive billions of dollars from states that have tried to crush them. We do not allow people who are in a house or senate to break the law and restrain trade and conspire to give advantage to more established companies. That is criminal in nature. So how about we drag Michigan into the federal courts and award a 100 billion dollar judgement to Tesla and dump Michigan into a cess pool for acting illegally? The same condition applies to leaders who allowed torture of foreign captives. They should have been hung as war criminals right up to and including Bush. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN NOT TORTURE PEOPLE - ever- for any reason what so ever. We also do not allow secret courts or the burial of information that is actually public property.
.... this is Michigan you are talking about. Ford, Chrysler, and GM country.
You can be it is them and their dollars doing this, and it would be happening regardless of what party was in power.
Anyone else slightly concerned that we can bait-and-switch bills like this? You can't just push a process past all the reviews and then modify the document at the last second in the hope no-one will notice. If it could be proven that the change was in support of a specific goal (as this one looks to be) then this is horribly dishonest. ...oh wait, we're talking about politics, sorry I forgot.
I think this works in Teslas' favour. Nothing better than making something illegal to get the attention of everyone and make them want it more.
My view is quite simple: vertical monopolies are bad.
"Vertical monopoly" is just a nonsense phrase, like a "pink monopoly". Tesla has no monopolies, vertical, pink, or otherwise.
What Tesla has is vertical integration which is an approach that Elon Musk has used before (with SpaceX).
Stop assuming everyone who doesn't agree with you is on the take, guys.
It's pretty clear in this case that a lot of legislators are on the take here. It's pure rent seeking to protect car dealerships and has no value to the public.
Corporate personhood != personhood and the use of corporate personhood has to been to provide constitutional rights to the people who comprise the corporation. Your approach won't work since corporations aren't treated as people and labor laws aren't part of fundamental rights in the US Constitution.
I think here the matter would be regulation of interstate commerce, an area over which the federal government has jurisdiction.
Let's face facts, America has hit the reef and is on fire and sinking.
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!!!
A variety of new businesses offer a new way of doing things — to the chagrin of the incumbents already profiting from the old way.
Nice to see Tesla having full support of /., which Uber and other taxi-replacements, for some reason, do not get...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In order for this to be a verticle monopoly all electric cars would need to only be sold tesla
I saw one of the BMW electrics as one of the pace cars that led the Chicago Marathon last Sunday. They're pretty sweet looking.
There was also one of those new BMW supercars at the head of the race. Black on black and it looks amazing.
http://www.autoevolution.com/n...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I presume you have the same view on other companies who own the vertical, like Apple, Sony, Honeywell and Lockeed Martin. The view being 1) it's a monopoly just because they own the vertical but have plenty of competition and 2) it's bad.
I believe they can create an interesting ad campaign around the problem. Put up billboards near the state border: "BANNED IN [State]! The Car The Gov't Doesn't Want You To Know About". (A state can prevent in-state sales, but not owning.)
Table-ized A.I.
Tesla makes a DAMN fine automobile
The dealers are not what they seem
https://movetoamend.org/
"We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. "
Y'all help 'em out if you can....
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
..Self explanatory.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Oh, the irony. Congratulations, you now have an idea of how the Michigan public were treated.
in history managed to fuck with the system in suck a positive way? It's so frereshing.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Republicans treat Capitalism like Julius Ceasar. They publicly praise it but then stab it to death in the Senate.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Tesla sales banned in Michigan? OK. Ford and General Motors sales banned in California. California's auto market is six times the size Michigan's.
"the legality of a manufacturer-owned dealership"
I understand that sometimes a manufacturer doesn't want to deal with the upkeep related to a self-owned dealership chain. However, I don't understand why it shouldn't do it, if it wants to do it. Oh well, I understand, but I don't 'understand', since it's a stupid law (i.e., franchise laws related to vehicle sales). Who the hell care about protecting franchises? Yes, stupid question, obviously lots of people care, they're just not common people like you or me. The best compromise would be to allow any manufacturer to sell directly, if they want to, and let franchises survive by the rules of the 'loved' capitalist market rules - if they can't make enough profit, let them die off, simple as that. They can't beat manufacturer prices? Hell, who cares, I wouldn't mind buying cheaper cars. They could beat the prices? That'd be great, I'd buy from them. Unfortunately things are never that easy, but it would be nice if they would be, for a change.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
People are very quick to blame the automotive lobby for buying the Michigan government, but there would be nothing to buy if the Michigan politicians weren't already whores.
How about a link to the Tesla article.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blo...
Whoops. Mis-mod. Why aren't we able to edit our mods? *grumble*
The bill was modified without any opportunity for public comment
How is that even possible in a real democracy?
This is just illegal IMHO..
But then also comes to mind, why can't a car manufacturer have it's own "dealer", but a company like Apple can?
To which publications are Slashdot users expected to subscribe in order to participate in Slashdot?
I recall long ago, maybe the 80s, Porsche wanted to switch from dealerships to factory stores, and got roundly beaten up for it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.