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New Jersey Removes Legal Impediment To Direct Tesla Sales

As reported by The Verge, the rule-makers of New Jersey have relented, and will now allow a slightly freer market for cars. Almost exactly one year after it was banned from selling its cars directly in New Jersey, Tesla will be back in business in the Garden State. Governor Chris Christie signed into law a bill this afternoon that reversed last year's ban. The new legislation comes with some limits. Tesla can only open a total of four direct sale dealerships and has to operate at least one service center. But it's a major win following a heated war of words that saw Tesla CEO Elon Musk compare local dealers to a mafia protection racket subverting the democratic process.

8 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    screw over family owned businesses to support large corporations. The protection of dealerships was originally created for good reasons. Large corporations were screwing over small dealers. Now the Republicans have trashed all of those protections.

    Pathetic troll.

    Currently, the Democrats are the majority party in both Houses. In the Senate there are 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans. There are 48 Democrats and 32 Republicans serving in the General Assembly.

    The sad thing is that there are tards that will actually believe you since you're bashing someone they disbelieve.

  2. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by AaronW · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except now the problem isn't the small dealerships. It's the huge dealership conglomerates that are worth billions. The laws were created in order to prevent the likes of GM from competing directly with third-party dealerships. In the case of Tesla, there are no third-party dealerships with which to compete.

    Also, with the Tesla model dealerships don't really work. Every car Tesla sells is made to order. There is no inventory sitting around at dealerships. The customer orders exactly what they want and it's made to order. This is very different than a traditional dealership where the dealer buys an inventory of cars then turns around to sell it to the customer.

    --
    This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
  3. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    From:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_dealerships_in_North_America

    "state laws in the United States prohibit manufacturers from selling directly, and customers must buy through a dealer."

    They laws were enacted to keep large, powerful corporations from putting all of the small businesses out of business that sold cars. GM tried to destroy every single car dealer in this country at one point, and several states stepped-up to protect those small businesses from attack. Now the Republicans have removed those protections. The Republicans that rule NJ have really screwed the people with this one.

  4. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    From:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_dealerships_in_North_America

    "state laws in the United States prohibit manufacturers from selling directly, and customers must buy through a dealer."

    They laws were enacted to keep large, powerful corporations from putting all of the small businesses out of business that sold cars. GM tried to destroy every single car dealer in this country at one point, and several states stepped-up to protect those small businesses from attack. Now the Republicans have removed those protections. The Republicans that rule NJ have really screwed the people with this one.

    Calling you a tard was an insult to tards..

    Currently, the Democrats are the majority party in both Houses. In the Senate there are 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans. There are 48 Democrats and 32 Republicans serving in the General Assembly.

    Hell, calling you dumb as a post would be an insult to every acorn with dreams of growing up into a tree, getting cut down, and then hewed into a post.

  5. Re:Just 4? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have you ever heard of the concept of zoning? Think of this as zoning on a statewide level.

    Oh, come on. This bears no resemblance to zoning at all. Zoning establishes areas by use (e.g. commercial, residential, industrial...we've all played SimCity), not by company name on the sign out front. If you want to call it zoning at a state level (presumably to limit the number of dealership lots in the state, as you said in your earlier post), then where are the restrictions on those uses for the rest of the industry? And if this really is zoning, then what's to stop them from simply buying out an existing dealership that is already "zoned" appropriately so that they can increase their count from 4 to 5 in the state?

    Oh, yeah, there's a law that's shackling just them and no one else so that they're prevented them from doing exactly that.

    Call a spade a spade: it's a caveat tossed in to appease the other side by establishing an unjust restriction on one company's ability to compete in the market. Don't try to pass this off as being something that even remotely resembles zoning.

  6. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    A) Democrats have near-supermajorities in both the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey (60% in both). Chris Christie may be a Republican, but he can still only sign the laws that are put in front of him. Regardless, that really doesn't matter, since the same politicians who established this law last year are undoing their own work now. Partisanship shouldn't be entering this discussion.

    B) I'd love a link to the history of car franchising in America. I have yet to see one and would love to know what the history was or why those protections were established in the first place. Because, based on what I understand so far, they seem to be ancient, anti-competitive laws established by states in response to a perceived crisis that ended decades ago and which are now being used by the formerly-underdog players to abuse their now-dominant positions.

    But maybe I have it wrong. Either way, I'd love any links you might have on the subject.

  7. Re:Just 4? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um... the law says "Tesla" at what part of the text?

    The part where it says "like Tesla Motors" in the actual text of the law. It both mentions Tesla explicitly as an example of who this law applies to...

    This bill provides that ZEVs may be directly sold by certain manufacturers, like Tesla Motors [...]

    ...as well as implicitly refers to Tesla in that the bill is tailored such that it will only ever apply to Tesla. Namely, the bill only applies to manufacturers of Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) engaging in direct sales who were licensed by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission on or before the start of last year. The only company on that list or that will ever be on that list is Tesla.

    Just because they do things differently now, what if there are suddenly "Tesla2", "Tesla3", and so on?

    There can't be. See the provision above about the date. Even if a "Tesla 2" manufacturer came along and managed to get licensed by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (which they can't be, since I believe the part of last year's law that prohibits them is still on the books), they wouldn't have done it before the start of 2014, meaning they wouldn't be eligible for this exemption.

  8. Re:Sad to see the Republicans always... by dannydawg5 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Planet Money did a good podcast episode on why buying a car is so horrible:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...