The entire car dealership system is parasitic so, big surprise they're a big constituency for this type of politician.
Birds of a feather.
Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
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Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We rely heavily on dealerships for anything from borrowing specialty tooling, local parts departments, knowledge and advise etc. What makes it impossible for the manufacturer to provide such things? If Ford chose to do away with dealerships, they couldn't provide regional parts and training facilities? (Hell, they'd probably already need to buy out a dealership or two for every major city or region already, anyways…
Yes and then they'll need a place to store new cars, on lots, and people, to facilitate the handover of keys and handle loans and so forth. back to square one
That was always the case; Tesla has showroom and service facilities all over the place, and handles financing. That's the model the big traditional manufacturers want to move towards.
It's not back to square one; it removes a middleman layer, one that most folks hate dealing with. You buy a car at a set price that's the same for everyone from a salaried employee, not from an intermediary who'll make up a price and pocket a commission off screwing you if you're not good at haggling.
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the 'no pure politics discussion' rule is kind of out the window when the article is literally just about politics, from a site with "politics" in the literal name and url. :P
It's not a hard and fast rule, as many subjects have a political component. Even sites with "politics" in the name may discuss issues relevant to HN (in this case, direct sales of autos, a topic discussed here many times)
Sure, but this article is not a general discussion of the merits or demerits of direct sales, it's about a law being passed by a political frontrunner, for political reasons.
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#104I buy that dealerships are paying off state government officials as part of their lobbying efforts. Putting on my cynic hat, my question is, why aren't automakers? I mean, other than Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, who presumably have no dealership footprint to protect. I know Ford also wants to sell direct-to-consumer, and I have no doubt they've got no ethical issue with lobbying politicians. So, why not shell out a few…
One guess, dealerships are local and have a much stronger interest to support local candidates as opposed to auto manufacturers who have a national or global presence. Dealerships are also far greater in number, hundreds if not thousands in every state.
It may also not be such a big deal for most automakers like Ford, which have historically always sold through dealerships. It would likely cost more than a few million in lobbying to undermine these laws, and multiply that by 50 states, it may be a battle not worth fighting. Unlike Tesla, which has always sold direct-to-consumer, and has notably never paid for advertising, direct-to-consumer is very much their business model, so they have a much stronger interest in maintaining the status quo.
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Florida also recently passed a special law for SpaceX removing liability for launch related deaths of employees or something. A few weeks after the flight termination system failed for 40 seconds.
Do you think Elon Musk turned into a hardcore Republican just for the political favors? It just seems so blatant. There has to be some kind of conflict of interest here. Elon was literally blasting out the DeSantis presidential announcement to his millions of Twitter followers, and he continues to act as a mouthpiece for Republican ideology.
> Do you think Elon Musk turned into a hardcore Republican just for the political favors?
I think people with enough money to have major political influence play “teammates” with any party who gives them what they want.
Striking down the McCain-Feingold act was a major blow to American politics. Quid pro quo is only illegal if bribery can be proven, so it effectively has no teeth even though we can all witness the corruption in plain sight.
There’s hardly any serious politicians to vote for at the national stage, because winning is the only priority and corruption is how you win. McConnell stated this plainly when he went after the McCain-Feingold act.
"We do it because we'd like to win. We'd like to win. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to win," McConnell says.[1]
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938449068/essential-mitch-the...
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#106USA, the land of the no so free.
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did they make sense decades ago? What changed?
There used to be a very few number of car companies who held a lot of power over dealerships and used to abuse that power, which led to laws protecting dealers in ways that at least arguably made sense at the time, but don't anymore.
Do we now have lots of new car company? ( i don't think so )
Does car company now have less power? ( with subscription and OTA updates , I think they have more power than ever)
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
That provides an explanation for why the consumer might choose to buy from a dealership, but not a reason for why they must. In fact, said bill still allows Tesla to sell direct-to-consumer, so the lawmakers couldn't even find a reason to not let consumers make a choice in the general case, only if buying from a set list of manufacturers.
> That provides an explanation for why the consumer might choose to buy from a dealership, but not a reason for why they must. The same could be said of basically anything. Consumers could choose to do anything. Suppliers anything. Now we are anarchists. yay! But we don't we live in a heavily regulated society, and what seems to work fairly well is having a dealership system. Now we could just remove the word dealers…
The same is said about everything, although we recognize that the concentration of capital enabled by giving certain actors in the economy an unequal advantage is more efficient for the economy as a whole than it is for everyone to be equal.
But dealerships run contrary to that. They see distribution of capital away from the OEMs in an equalizing way. This is recognized and understood by lawmakers, which is why the Teslas of the world are still free to do as they please. The question is really: What's special about GM, Ford, etc.?
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#109The single greatest politically backward thing in America is how the republican party has positioned itself as a pro free market party by, as best as I can tell, often championing precisely the opposite.
Not to mention that the concept of a free market stands in contradiction with the heavy Republican appetite for social restrictions.
It’s debatable where restriction should be placed, but a “western” market will always have some: trade in people, trade in arms, restricted trade of items to minors. Are there laws restricting commerce based on social restrictions that are not falling into one of those three categories?
Re: Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
#110USA, the land of the no so free.
USA, land of the useless middleman