If You Haven't Donated Yet This Quarter
Please Remember To Help
The FR FReepathon
Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!
Posted on 08/22/2013 10:01:28 PM PDT by grundle
an unlikely newcomer is getting top honors: the Tesla Model S.
It’s the first electric car to win Motor Trend’s Car of the Year; an unprecedented 99 out of 100 rating from Consumer Reports; and now, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it’s also the safest car ever.
But if the Model S really is the car of the future, then why has Texas banned its sales in the state and why are lawmakers in several other states trying to do the same?
To answer that, first you need to meet Tesla CEO Elon Musk. He plans on opening 50 new Tesla stores in the next year. And taking a page from the Apple playbook, Musk is selling his product directly to consumers. No hard sell. No commission for employees. And uniform prices at every store.
“We actually train people to educate,” explained Musk. “We always wanted to be a really low-key kind of friendly environment, where we're not constantly trying to close deals.”
That’s a dig at the traditional middlemen in the car-buying experience: the car dealers. Musk wants to cut them out completely. He thinks customers don’t like them and that dealers are prejudiced against electric cars.
So Musk is declaring war on car dealers, but car dealers are also declaring war on Musk. They have already successfully booted him out of Texas and there is anti-Tesla legislation pending in North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia.
“This happens all the time,” said Bill Wolters, the president of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association. “Someone wants an exception to the franchise laws. If we made an exception for everybody that showed up in the legislature, before long the integrity of the entire franchise system is in peril.”
For all the hype, only 20,000 have been sold.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Indeed.
I really don’t see how a seperate car company selling directly to the public infringes on a dealership that has a franchise to sell a different kind of car.
It would be like a guy that owns a McDonalds not allowing me to open a hirn_man burger joint down the street.
I guess I got confused by someone representing car dealerships using the word integrity.
But I just went through a 5 hour ordeal to buy a new truck so I’m a bit prejudiced. I like the truck but hate the buying procees.
I like the way they sculpted those steps into the saddle tanks on that super-limo.
Electric cars in general are well known for amazing torque and acceleration.
I give this an 6 on the honking hoot scale.
Tesla just opened its first supercharger station in San Marcos at the Premium Outlets on I-35 exit 200.
Socialist rent seekers working the Texas State legislature will fail in the end.
Consumers will prevail.
texas has a weird mix of socialism and wild west freedom, chalk it up to craziness in austin
How about Houston’s Lezbo Mayor?
how about her?
History repeating itself like what happened with Tucker?
For all the rants about how free and conservative Texas is I find its also awash with superiority disease often a product of being at the top and incensed with being the “King of the Hill”.
Electing the former President of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus is another of the weird contradictions of the Texas polity.
I have stopped buying new cars, but the last three I did purchase the first thing I said to the salesman was once I started any type of negotiation to purchase that I would walk out after exactly two hours. I walked out of around five dealerships over that time period. I did feel like I got better deals on those last three cars.
It means "closed union shop"
Many States engage in this anti-free market behavior. Like the old Association of Licensed Automotive Manufacturers (ALAM) that controlled the production and pricing of early autos, this is another example of the corrupt unionista / political alliance.
If you're talking about the Tesla Model S (the sedan), you're talking about a full-size car weighing in at just under 5,000 lbs, very close to the weight of an F-150. It's not exactly a golf cart.
Why should the state be involved in blocking Tesla from selling direct to the public?
This sounds like the automobile lobby is throwing its weight around to block competition. Does the public benefit, or is it the established car dealers who benefit from this policy?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.