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Who's To Blame For Rules That Block Tesla Sales In Most US States?
cartechboy writes The common assumption among Tesla fans seems to be that state auto-dealer lobbyists are working with Republican legislators to enact laws banning direct sales of Tesla's electric cars to retail buyers. Is it true? The New York Times published an article with some data points that assesses the supposition. While the article mainly focuses on the conflict between Uber and the Republican party, some quotes could be easily applied to Tesla. For instance, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus said, "It should be consumers, not government bureaucrats or legislators, that deicde what companies get our business." The author of the article, Josh Barro, wrote that 22 states permit direct sales of automobiles by Tesla to retail buyers, and of those the majority--14 of them-- voted for President Obama. He suggested that Democratic California, Illinois, and New York "have freer markets in auto retailing than Texas," which is presently Republican. When looking at a five-year-old article by Nate Silver that looked at political donations by car dealers, fully 88 percent of those donations went to Republican candidates, and just 12 percent to Democrats. That possibly suggests a propensity among Republican state legislators to support the interests for car dealers over those of electric-car buyers. Is the small bit of evidence enough to make a case?
Good background on the current system of dealership sinecure can be found in this short 2009 Competition Advocacy Paper from the U.S. Department of Justice, which delves into the history and effects of the dealers-only system which still prevails.
The kind of power-hungry sociopaths who restrict our technology to create artificial scarcity?
How about the Liberal Democrat leaning unions back in the 1960's-1970's?
The reason these laws exist is dealers were getting shut down, jobs lost, and company owned dealerships were opening up, bringing down wages and sales commissions to what they think was fair. Labor unions came in hard, lobbied for laws to "protect" their workers, got these laws passed. Now years later, the words are twisted and it's those "Evil Republicans" fault somehow.
Truth of the matter it's not a political deal, blaming Republicans or Democrats makes no sense as the laws banning car manufactorers from owning their own dealerships benefits everyone but those buying cars. Workers are happy because Big-Boy Car Manufacturers can't come in and say a;; Toyota or Chevy dealer techs get minimum wage and be happy with it. (If you aren't aware techs and such cant just shoot over to a dfferent brand dealer down the road too easy. Yes, simple things like oil change, alignments, etc you can do on any car, but there are tons of little quarts and certifications and training per each brand before they let you touch the advanced stuff). The dealership owners and sales people are happy as the car maker can no longer force them to sell the car for X amount, so they can bump up the sticker prices, and get whatever percent commission they want.
When looking at a five-year-old article by Nate Silver that looked at political donations by car dealers, fully 88 percent of those donations went to Republican candidates, and just 12 percent to Democrats. That possibly suggests a propensity among Republican state legislators to support the interests for car dealers over those of electric-car buyers. Is the small bit of evidence enough to make a case?
But we have the best democracy you can fine anywhere. It doesn't matter if our legislators are being bribed indirectly, or get embroiled in obvious conflict of interest matters.
Welcome to the USA!
Ohh wait, let's preach to the world about free markets.
Who benefits from banning [X]? With near certainty those are the people who bought off whoever is in power (the partisan nonsense in TFS is a smokescreen to keep you distracted). It doesn't matter if it's the UAW or the Auto Dealer's Association that is behind the corruption - you should be disgusted that politicians deign to tell you what kinds of cars you may purchase. "Yes, massa."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
People with Turf will try to protect it.
They will spread the money around, contribute, etc. as needed to protect it. Since at this point in time the majority of the States are run by Republicans, then they are the ones that are being lobbied by the Dealership lobbyist the most. Make no mistake, the Democrats are also being lobbied in states they run.
This all amounts to a big "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" to the Republicans by the New York Times, which fighting to remain relevant.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The creation of the FCC came under FDR's watch in 1934. Actually FDR formed a commission to study communication regulation. The study recommended that a Federal agency regulate all communications. FDR pushed for the creation of such a body and 2 DEMOCRATIC Senators introduced a bill to form the FCC. The bill passed both Houses and FDR signed it into law.
Ergo Politicians suck, because they're ALL built on lies. See ANY MEDIA for details.
Fixed that for you. Seeing evil on only one side works for both sides.
Republicans, Democrats..... A sellout is a sellout regardless of what political mantra they spew while they rent themselves out to the highest bidder.
by 50 years or more, and reflect the situations surrounding the time in which they were passed. One can hardly expect an existing dealership system to use legal means, especially those existing laws, to protect their interests. This ought to be obvious even if one disagrees with the premise of the laws. And by the way, these laws were passed in all states over decades of time, usually in response to some bad action by the manufacturers (such as forcing dealerships to accept cars they did order, so manufactures could offload dead inventory, or not reimbursing dealerships for warranty repairs).
You cannot simply point at today's lackey Republicans as the source for these laws, nor claim them to be "anti-Tesla" anymore than 50-year-old telecom laws are "anti-Google".
A far better resource than the source in the original posting is
http://faculty.som.yale.edu/Fi...
This is an analysis predating Tesla's trouble by a bit, focusing on the government-sanctioned decimation of dealerships through the TARP process, circa 2010, and includes a nice history of franchise protection laws.
For example:
The regulation of auto franchises arose as a response to car manufacturer he regulation of auto franchises arose as a response to car manufacturer
opportunism early in the twentieth century. According to Surowiecki (2006), in 1920, Henry Ford took advantage of its established dealer network by forcing
dealers to buy inventories of new cars that they were unlikely to sell. The reason that the company could “force” dealers to take the cars was that they had all made important investments in their facilities and reputation. Thus they had sunk costs that could be expropriated. Ford and General Motors used the same strategy again during the Great Depression. These episodes demonstrated to policymakers that the franchisor, with its greater information and financial resources, might exploit investments made by the franchisees. Federal regulation followed these periods.
The starting point for auto franchise regulation is the 1956 federal act generally known as the Automobile Dealer’s Day in Court Act (ADDICA), which
provides that a car dealer may recover damages if its manufacturer fails to act in good faith in complying with the terms of the franchise agreement, including on
issues of allocation of vehicles to dealers, or matters of termination, cancellation, or transfer of the franchise. However, by the time the ADDICA was enacted, 20 states had already passed auto franchise laws. Today, every state has a law governing car manufacturer/dealer auto franchise laws. Today, every state has a law governing car manufacturer/dealer relationships.
All states require that car dealers be licensed. Even 30 years ago, 44 states had such a requirement. This regulation prevents the manufacturer from retailing cars through other means. In particular, this regulation has been a major impediment to the development of Internet distribution of new cars.
The FCC was formed by the Communications Act of 1934 to replace the radio regulation functions of the Federal Radio Commission.
The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934. I believe FDR was a Democrat. The law was passed by the 73rd Congress. Both chambers had a Democratic majority. Dems in the Senate enjoyed a 60-35 majority, while over in the House thing were even rosier with Dems holding about 312 seats to Republicans 115 or so (counts varied slightly over time).
The Republican Party has become a simple Rural Party. They protect rural interests, because they found a way to gerrymander rural districts into a majority of congressional districts, despite the majority of the population living in urban areas.
Car dealers are more rural than car manufacturers - as rural areas need more dealers per person than urban dealers, while car manufacturers in a single urban environment can supply the entire country.
As such, the GOP will support the car dealers at the expense of the car manufacturers.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
First, let's remember that lawmaking politicians of influence of either party are typically what, 60+ years old? 70+? These guys still have their staff print their emails for them and are surprised when a someone says 'let's watch a movie' and it doesn't involve (at best) a VCR. Not super-quick at adapting to change.
Second, until pretty recently the "target demographic" of electric car buyers was some sprout-eating weirdo from the Bay Area, ie, someone who wouldn't piss on a Republican if they were on fire, ie not someone that ever, in a million years, would VOTE Republican. OTOH, Car Dealerships are relatively typical small businessmen, whose concerns about running a business tend to coincide with GOP viewpoints and platforms. Whether they vote Dem/Rep is irrelevant, it's that they [i]could[/i] vote Republican, so which group would a Republican politician reasonably spend their time serving?
-Styopa
Career politicians are largely to blame as they will vote which ever way they think will keep them in office. Since campaigning is expensive, the deep pockets essentially run the nation.
As opposed to end-of-term term-limited politicians who will vote which ever way will get them a good job once they leave office? Or as opposed to new term-limited politicians who won't know what the hell they're doing and will vote however their career staff and lobbyists tell them to?
I respect a politician more who wants to die in office, because that means he's never looking for another job. He is having to run for office, and yes, campaigning is expensive and corrupt. Let's fix that instead of ruining the system with term limits.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.