Posted on 10/22/2014 4:31:03 AM PDT by LogicDesigner
Michigan’s Republican governor signed legislation on Tuesday that officially bans Tesla Motors and any other carmaker from selling directly to consumers in the state.
But Rick Snyder, who is seeking re-election next month, maintained in a letter to lawmakers that the bill simply clarified the state’s existing law and that such direct sales already were not legal in Michigan, home to Detroit’s big auto companies.
Now, state law requires that Tesla, or other car companies, must sell vehicles through networks of franchised dealers. If the company doesn’t have its own network, the state requires it to sell vehicles through another car company’s dealership network.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The only other case I’m aware of is Top Gear and they have openly admitted they falsified segments of their shows on the Model S and the Nissan leaf for “entertainment purposes” I assumed you were talking about the NYT case because that at least pretended to be a hard news story. If there is a third Tesla dispute with a reviewer, I’m not aware of it. Also, I’m not sure “strawman” means what you think it means, because I was referencing an actual thing that happened.
So looking out for your company alone is dishonest
The law is anti competition, anti consumer, and anti capitalist
You’re supporting that makes you the same
It is the legislatures responsibility to slap down such proposals
So are you going to show me where Top Gear admitted to falsifying anything?
“Note, my wife pursued here in Germany an Audi-TT about seven years ago....via an on-line middleman (no dealership). The guy had a direct connection to Audi, and she saved about $7,000 off the listed price that the dealers wanted. This on-line middle guy basically charged around $500 for his profit and roughly two hours of work was involved in his case. We rode the train down to the factory...they put a full-tank in (compliments of Audi itself), gave us a full-tour of the factory, and gave us a pretty decent free four-course dinner at the factory executive dining facility. There’s not a penny that went to the political player or franchise owner.”
I bought a brand new car in Germany 44 years ago, from an agency, from the brand’s regional inventory storage.
Had I wanted a different brand, that would have required an order, and the wait until it was built and delivered.
Both dealers, or agencies had zero new car inventories.
Not many years ago, one could buy Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Volvo for overseas delivery. The car will be built specifically for you, and you pick it up at their factory or elsewhere if you like.
You can still get that kind of deal with Volvo. They will build the car. You fly in....drive it around for whatever period you desire, and then they ship it back to the states (all included in the price negotiation), although if you aren’t a GI....you don’t get the VAT off, and that’s a harsh element to the deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/22/bbc_top_gear_tesla/
Here’s the link to the BBC spokesman confirming that the scene of the Tesla being pushed back to the garage as if it had run out of power was staged. The Top Gear claim that the Roadster had only a 55 mile range is demonstrably false.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/aug/05/top-gear-bbc
In this article Top Gear spokesman are quoted as admitting that they staged the Nissan Leaf running out of electricity, by deliberately running the battery down to 40% before starting their trip and then when they still had enough juice left to make it, they drove around in circles for 10 miles to deliberately make it appear that the car had died on the side of the road short of its destination.
I love Top Gear, but they have clearly been caught playing fast and loose with the truth when it comes to EV’s.
LOL George Monbiot, one of the sources of the term “Moonbat” LOL.
Yeah, he’s trustworthy. lol
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/bbc-responds-to-teslas-top-gear-complaints/
I don’t know who Monbiot is, but you can simply use Google and find multiple sources quoting the show and the BBC admiting that the Tesla did not run out of juice and that the pushing scene was staged.
Similarly a simple search will show multiple sources confirming that Top Gear staged the Leaf running out of charge as well.
I’ve posted two new articles from Autoblog. If you’re not convinced, I am sure I can post a dozen others in which BBC or Top Gear representatives are quoted admitting that the cars running out of power were staged.
So the only “baloney being spread” that you can come up with about electric cars is “That they’re anything more than a rich man’s toy”?
And then you immediately state:
“Actually Mahindra has a much better idea. They’re opening a factory near Ann Arbor to build electric scooters”
And THEN you’re trying to disprove the assertion that electric cars are a rich man’s top with the argument that electric SCOOTERS are a better idea?
That’s some really weak tea, dude. Really weak.
Mahinda is the smarter idea because they aren’t lying about range, wildly overpricing their product or looking for a special carve out in the law for themselves. I realize the cult of tesla doesn’t allow thought any more than the cult of Obama but progressives are progressives are progressives.
The actual video is here and it proves that whiny tax leech Musk lied about the Tesla segment in the first place. They never claimed it ran out of power, only that power was getting low and they stopped running it because it overheated. The case was dismissed because Tesla never had one.
In fact, Clarkson actually gave it a pretty favorable review that included some pesky facts that the sales crew here at FR doesn’t want people to think about. Its overpriced, battery power simply isn’t advanced enough for reliability, and the company needs more years under its belt.
The entire segment as aired can be found here.
http://www.plugincars.com/tesla-sues-emtop-gearem-over-roadster-lies-106990.html
I don’t think that is the full segment. I’ve seen it before and there was a scene of them pushing it into the garage and one in which Clarkson calculated the range at 55 MPH. Admittedly, it probably had more favorable portions than otherwise, but I do think Clarkson was deliberately misleading on a couple of important points. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as what they did to the Leaf. (Running it down to 40% before starting a road trip and then running it around in circles at the destination until they could finally kill the battery and say, “I told you so.”)
I don’t defend any company getting a government backed loan or having its product subsidized. However, that’s the world we live in unfortunately.
On the price. Admittedly, it is out of reach of most, but in the segment it is trying to compete in, it’s in line with cost of other large luxury sedans. The worth of a thing, is the price it will bring and they are selling all they can make at the moment at 100-120 thousand a pop. Now, they will never be a mainstream car company until they can produce a car with similar range, for 35K or less like they are claiming to do in 2017. I’m not sure I agree with the battery reliability claim. They have Roadster’s running since 2007 on the original battery and the Model S has been out for a couple of years now. There haven’t been many battery problems and they just increased the battery warranty to 8 years unlimited miles. A lot of the first generation Prius’ are still running on the original batteries. I think the problem with the batteries is the cost and not the reliability so much. The cost still needs to at least be cut in half, to make electric cars price competitive with ICE cars. More years will help Tesla in some respects. They seem to be refining their products at a rapid rate and in another few years, the battery tech and the autopilot tech, will be considerably more advanced. However, they have been doing it for almost ten years now.
Tesla, GM, Ford etc. should all succeed or fail on their own merit and the market should determine that. The only thing I object to is the attempt to deny them access to the market unless they employ some politically connected car dealers as middle men. If someone wants to start a car company and sell door to door, they should be allowed to do so. Of course, if Tesla ever does go the franchised dealer route, then they shouldn’t be able to undermine their own dealers, but if they don’t have any dealers that have relied on promises from Tesla, then they should be able to sell their product as they see fit.
Nice CA memo generated by a Michigan politician. Clearly many people thought the word change did make a difference or they wouldn’t have removed the word at the last minute. The attorney general memo, allows the governor to claim he didn’t do anything while still making his cronies / donors happy
It just shows that Tesla is lying....as usual.
My nonprofit power company buys nonprofit wholesale power for 4 cents. That doesn't count distribution costs and line maintenance. Should Tesla owners get that all for free plus a price lower than wholesale? Gasoline taxes are 20 cents in Virginia (up to 50 cents in NY, Calif) plus 18.4 cents federal. That's 15 to about 30 percent. Tax on electricity here is 1% plus a local fixed fee of $3. So we should subtract those taxes from the prices for a more fair comparison. It also points out that Tesla owners are not paying for their share of road maintenance.
Gas prices have been a lot higher than they are now and will likely be higher again
Natural gas has been much higher (relatively) than gasoline has and is likely to go higher again. Since the government is squeezing coal plants out of business with excessive regulations, the natural gas percentage and price volatility will rise.
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