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Michigan Latest State To Ban Direct Tesla Sales
An anonymous reader writes As many expected, Michigan Governor Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed a bill that bans Tesla Motors from selling cars directly to buyers online in the state. When asked what Tesla's next step will be, Diarmuid O'Connell, vice president of business development, said it was unclear if the company would file a lawsuit. "We do take at their word the representations from the governor that he supports a robust debate in the upcoming session," O'Connell said. "We've entered an era where you can buy products and services with much greater value than a car by going online."
To be fair, dealers provide maintenance, repair, and recall services.
Those services are also provided by independent garages, usually at much lower prices.
That's a bigger factor in the history of these laws than the sales part.
No it wasn't. These laws were never, even in theory, about protecting the customer. They were about protecting existing dealer networks. Since Tesla never had a dealer network, these laws shouldn't apply to them.
http://www.mojomotors.com/blog...
http://www.autonews.com/articl...
"Mr. Musk is a brilliant man, and Tesla is an innovative company. We can all respect that," says Jim Appleton, the president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automobile Retails. "But he doesnâ(TM)t get what it takes to do business in New Jersey."
Translation: Musk won't pay off all the useless parasites represented by Jim Appleton and all the corrupt government officials like Governor Rick Snyder the required under-the-table money to do business in their state.
These outdated statues were originally designed to protect little dealerships from the threat of big auto opening their own dealerships if one of their indirect dealers refused to carry their lemons. So dealers under pressure from Detroit were forced to sell the crappy next to the good cars.
Today, prohibiting direct sales protects only the dealerships and harms the consumer. There’s no reason to prohibit a consumer from buying directly from the manufacturer.