This is the same state where car dealerships are only allowed to be open one day of either Saturday or Sunday. There was recently a proposal to get rid of this law, but it failed. Who was one of the biggest proponents of the status quo? The Texas Automobile Dealers Association.
It's yet another example of where government is used to protect special interests.
Because auto-sellers don't want to work both days of the weekend.
Let's say I run a liquor store. I get together and collude with all my liquor store running buddies and pass a law that says liquor stores can't be open after 5pm.
Ta-da, we all get to go home at 5pm. We don't lose any sales to people open after 5pm, because no one is allowed to do that.
Texas had a bunch of restrictive laws about Sunday called blue laws, the last one left is for liquor sales.
Used to be you couldn't sell cars at all on Sunday, but they added this "either or" clause a few years ago for some reason. Dealers claim having to be open 7 days a week would drive up costs...go figure.
I was there yesterday when Elon supported the new bill to the committee. Each and every single member seemed infatuated. They're personally setting up a meeting with Elon & The Texas Automobile Dealers Association to talk things through.
From yesterday's experience, I'd be surprised if Tesla didn't get its way.
More accurate title would be 'Tesla and Elon Musk work with state lawmakers to enable direct-to-consumer auto sales', but alas, the link bait must flow.
Either way, I hope this works. I would seriously love to see some Teslas on the road here.
the new bill is pretty narrowly specific for a company like Tesla. [The bill] permits U.S.-based companies that make 100 percent electric cars (so no hybrids) to sell directly to customers.
This would be the only reason I would want it voted down / vetoed. If you enable this for electric, it should be enabled for every other car manufacturer.
Are you opposed to iteration? Opposed to the bill passing -- believe dealerships would let it pass? Tesla has to potentially wait orders of magnitude longer while a battle they don't care about ensues -- dealerships versus gas-automobile manufacturers?
I'm opposed to treating manufactures of automobiles and the automobiles themselves[1] differently. So, I guess that means I would want it to apply to all (since there are other ideas for alternate energy cars) or none.
1) I am still waiting for the equivalent of a "gas tax" on energy used by electric cars to pay for the roads
Let's be clear that I and likely Musk -- Tesla -- are not opposed to equal things being equal. I honestly don't know the history and the inner-workings of why automobile manufacturers are barred from selling their goods directly to consumers. If I can liken the music/movie/etc industry to the automobile industry, I can understand why Tesla would not want to wait years, decades, forever? to stave off dealerships, if they don't have to. In all likelihood, the gas-automobile manufacturers are just as likely to be OPPOSED to this bill, if they think it will make Tesla go away and they can continue to get kickbacks from dealerships.
> Let's be clear that I and likely Musk -- Tesla -- are not opposed to equal things being equal.
I hope you're right, but actions are what counts.
As to the rest, I am seriously sick of people using the law as their own weapon against others. A tax break here, a special rule there, and we as voters and consumers lose because there are more law on the books than we need.
These laws originally made sense for car manufacturers that first completely delegated selling and service to dealerships and then tried to undercut them with factory discounts and other things.
The problem here is that Tesla never had any dealerships and does not intent to start any either. So none of these laws should apply to them.
Play by the same rules as everyone else and get some dealerships or work to change the rules for everyone. Anything else is just one more rule piled onto a stack that has more "my" exceptions.
> Every other car manufacturer with no dealerships.
What? Of course it doesn't say anything like that. That was obviously an extension of your statement; enabling any car manufacturer to sell directly to customers would be a diametral opposite to what dealership laws intended in the first place, and my comment was supposed to inform you that there is indeed a little sparkle of sense and justification in dealership laws.
But you obviously lack any insight into the topic at hand and are just feeding off your "more exceptions!11" reflex. That does not a good discussion make.
> That was obviously an extension of your statement
I didn't find it that obvious of an extension. If there is a "little sparkle of sense and justification in dealership laws" then the same argument should apply to Tesla and the only justification you give is that they don't currently have dealerships.
Why should Tesla do all the work for all the other car manufacturers. They have a lot more money and yet they do nothing. I say fuck them. Tesla is doing the right thing. It is picking a battle that has a chance of succeeding.
You are preaching to the quire. I do not disagree with you. Also, we should have world peace, nobody should die of hunger. etc. etc. Is easy to talk idealistically but the reality is that Tesla cannot change the status quo on its own and you saying all or nothing is not constructive at all.
Because, it is at moments like these where new things happen, that old rules have a shot of changing. Everything that lasts is "idealistic", but people settle for "me" and deviate into hyperbole because its easier.
For reference, the Confederate Air Force (now Commemorative Air Force) is the "Official Air Force of Texas". Perhaps Elon just need to sell a Dixie Flag commemorative model to get to be Official Car Maker of Texas and he can get in.
You've clearly never been here. Dixie flags are not actually common - the Texas flag is flown everywhere.
Also, the use of the term 'Confederate' in the CAF originally had nothing at all to do with the U.S. Civil War, and later became a kind of running joke the members ran with.
Even the article states they changed their names because the members felt it was seen as offensive.
I only spent about 30 years in Texas, so maybe I didn't absorb the culture as much as you. I can assure you I know many people that attended a Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio (established 1958) and have seen plenty of Dixie flags. Not as common as the Texas flag, sure, but still not that uncommon, especially in rural parts. Another Old South reference in High School was Tascosa, http://thsamaisd.sharpschool.com/news/school_history. I'm certain there are plenty more, it's a big state, those are just two off the top of my head I have personal knowledge of.
They should never have voted something with Confederate in the name as anything state 'Official', but there are still plenty of people there that don't get it.
Right, the article points that out - they chose the word confederate originally to reflect their 'rag tag' nature, and went along with some confederate imagery as a running joke. Some people saw the use of 'Confederate' and the Dixie flag as offensive, so they changed it via member vote.
I've lived here about 25 years combined and spent 5 years in other states (including South Carolina and New York), some city, some rural, and my experience is that the rebel flag is not that common as compared to other places (I even saw several in rural areas of upstate New York). Different experiences, I suppose.
Actually I believe the law does not prohibit the manufacturers to sell directly to consumers, it requires the seller to be located in Texas. A subtle, but important difference. I believe the original reasoning for this was to prevent sales tax avoidance by purchasing cars out of state. This was pre-Internet.
States will typically enforce payment of use tax at the time of vehicle registration for vehicles which were recently bought in another state and for which no sales tax was paid. This happened to me when I moved to Pennsylvania right after I purchased a car. This is one of the few places where use tax laws are not simply a laughable attempt to shame people into paying sales tax on out-of-state purchases. Texas has better tools to prevent sales tax avoidance in this case; the laws exist to protect dealers from having to compete with manufacturers. I suspect that a seller located in Texas may also not be a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company based in another state.
There are related reasons. For one thing, cars might be a decent percentage cheaper, but only in large metropolitan areas, while in the other, say, 90% of the country you would not be able to find a dealer at all.
From what I have heard, many of these franchise laws date back to the Great Depression, when manufacturers were forcing dealers to buy cars that the dealers could not then sell.
NPR's Planet Money podcast did a good story on how the dealership system works in most places, and how that's hampering innovation in some fronts. Sadly, they had a great opportunity to talk about Tesla's problems but didn't cover it. Still worth it for background learning:
TLDR: Automakers and their dealerships have lobbied to get laws into place over the last century to ensure that those laws favor car dealers and their preferred way of operating. It will be extremely hard to change the status quo.
I think the reason has to be purely political: it stands to reason that state politicians would benefit more by protecting a local franchise vs. a national car company (even though it is ultimately detrimental to their constituency).
Welcome to "capitalism." Do some digging around, you'll find that many, if not most, of the industries and companies and even professions you view as successful only exist due to lobbying for anti-competitive regulations in their favor.
In the U.S., except for a relatively small stretch around the turn of the 20th century, freedom has never overlapped much with libertarian economic "freedom." The whole concept largely post-dates the founding (remember, Adam Smith was a contemporary of the founding fathers, and his ideas wouldn't turn into modern free-market principles until much later). I'm sure at some point it was perceived that it was beneficial for Texas to force sales through Texas franchises rather than allow out of state car manufacturers to sell directly to Texas citizens.
The state-affiliated monopolies are a different situation. They exist because state and local governments wanted something for nothing. They wanted taxi services to serve poor people and far-flung parts of cities, and they wanted telecom services to do the same. In a free market, all these service providers wouldn't do that--they'd focus their efforts only on the most profitable areas. So the governments reached a bargain: the companies agree to serve everybody, and in return they get a monopoly. That's why Uber isn't allowed to "compete" with the local taxi companies--those taxi companies get a monopoly in exchange for their willingness to venture into the Bronx.
Take a look at airfare. It's dramatically more expensive to fly from Richmond, VA to Eugene, OR than from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA, even though both trips are roughly the same distance. But cab fares are uniform (per mile) throughout a government's service area, as are utility rates usually. How does this happen?
Of course, indeed. How many impossible feats do you expect Tesla -- Elon Musk -- to tackle on behalf of humankind? I can't imagine why you think Musk should fight for an industry he does not believe in, of course!
Sure and I'm not suggesting that Tesla should pursue such a goal. My point was merely that Tesla has its own interests at heart, just like most businesses.
The car dealerships should technically oppose it, because what this creates is a hole in their monopoly. It's not a big hole, but its enought to drive a car right through :)
Also, the proposal also creates another monopoly for Tesla. Until there is another fully electric car maker, Tesla is the only dealership is town. If Tesla can generate enough sales. Who can take them on in Texus without offering a fully electric car? If Tesla can't generate sales, then who cares about electric cars.
Why can't they establish a dealership company of their own that sells only Tesla cars? If the dealership company must not be owned by the car maker they can certainly arrange the owners of the Tesla dealership to be something else. Am I missing something?
It's yet another example of where government is used to protect special interests.