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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.
Because if they opened more than four, that would be just... what?
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.
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.
What Tesla driver isn't going to want to show off their car?
Yes, what Tesla driver doesn't want a bunch of strangers driving their car and possibly robbing/assaulting/killing them?
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.
You're not thinking this through. Obviously his dealership-owning father told him that if this bill gets signed he's going to have to move out of the basement.
Considering the degree of pollution in New Jersey one would think that both the public and the government would fall to their knees thanking Tesla and make the Tesla the only car or truck to legally be on any road in the state. And if Tesla has delivered a product so superior that the entire, traditional auto industry is bankrupted then so be it. It also appears that the motorcycle industry will be abandoning internal combustion products quite quickly. Electric motorcycles are beating up gasoline powered bikes with ease at this time. Bills for fuel and almost all repair costs vanish with electric motorcycles. For horsepower as well as torque electric bikes are flat out superior.
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.
That's basically my understanding of the issue. Wikipedia is a good start.
This NADA PDF has the North American Dealership Association view on it. Unsurprisingly, it supports independent dealers, though their little sheet doesn't impress me.
Reading their 'differences', I'm reminded of firearms as being the next most closely regulated product. There dealerships are also the 'norm', but if Winchester(for example) wanted to open a store somewhere, they would be fully able to do so under their license. Irregardless, none of their points shows a need for independent dealerships, just that there needs to be rules to follow for selling cars.
Has the Traditional Automobile Franchise System Run Out of Gas? - has more.
I don't read AC A human right
Planet Money did a good podcast episode on why buying a car is so horrible:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...
It's BS. Basically, auto dealerships are run by rich locals who are very politically connected with the local government, and they get laws passed which are favorable to their business. Car dealerships are nothing more than a tax on cars, as they add to the cost (through their overhead), but don't provide anything in return. They are a middleman, and middlemen always add cost. Car dealerships (independent, non-factory-owned) are an entirely American phenomenon; they don't exist in other countries. Studies have been done and found that currently, dealerships add around $2500 to the cost of a new car; that's money that every new car buyer has to pay in extra costs, and it only goes to enrich the car dealership. Add on top of all this the horribly inflated service costs at dealerships.
Independent auto dealerships are nothing more than scams, and laws requiring them are nothing more than protectionism. There's lots of car manufacturers out there, and we would be better off just buying from them directly, like Saturn tried to do years ago. Dealership apologists try to claim that buying direct would create a monopoly, but that's a lie since with so many carmakers these days that obviously is impossible. Finally, we're able to buy lots of other stuff directly from manufacturers, such as computers (Dell, Lenovo, etc.), so why don't we have laws requiring us to buy our computers from locally-owned shops? Because it would just cost more and give us less selection, that's why.
Yeah, I did some more research after my post and discovered that I was incorrect when I said that it's the same politicians undoing their own work.
Instead, what apparently happened was that the Christie-appointed members of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission barred Tesla from selling cars in the state, thus circumventing the legislature entirely. It's taken the Democrat-controlled legislature until now to get a bill back in front of Christie that undoes that damage (and even then, it doesn't undo all of it).
Mind you, I'm a registered Republican, but sometimes I hate the things "my side" does.