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Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

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Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#131

Post by gcb0 »

Playing devil's advocate... I'd love if Google were forced to have a physical presence after it started talking my money. I'm still using a phone with several flaws that i tried to return/complain several times but never found a phone number or email address that went answered. They just took my money and run.

Now imagine that for a 60k car.

Maybe it's just reasonable that the state protects it's citizens and demand at least one customer care or repair facility in its borders.

Imagine having to drive to California to a recall. If course that would be hard given Tesla reputation, but without enforcing a local presence, how can you be sure?

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#132

Post by thrownaway2424 »

penland wrote: post #122
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #10

For the record, you also cannot sell dildos in Texas. I don't know why people are always crowing about how Texas is the land that respects individual rights and free enterprise. It's not. It's the land of unlimited corporate malfeasance, unchecked pollution, and a ban on fire codes.

Wut? This is, umm, complete and totally false. Where do people come up with this crap?

People "come up with this crap" by being literate.

Texas Penal Code 43.21 DEFINITIONS (7) "Obscene device" means a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.

Sec. 43.23. OBSCENITY. (a) A person commits an offense if, knowing its content and character, he wholesale promotes or possesses with intent to wholesale promote any obscene material or obscene device.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.43.htm

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#133

Post by aardvark »

gknoy wrote: post #106
bobwaycott wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO, things make much more sense when you argue in fact instead of metaphor. This is true. However, are you actually arguing in fact? Your statements read as an outside agent judging the intentions and motivations of other agents. Perhaps you're part of one of the groups and actually possess insider knowledge here? Another potential outsider's reading of the bets and motivations at play (this taken from nearly 4 y…

That was a very well written explanation of what the dealers are doing (and why). Thanks for laying it out so clearly. | [F]loorplan isn't free, and it's a significant dealer cost | (which is why you should always buy the oldest car on the | lot (measured in # days it has been in dealer inventory)). I realize this is a little off topic, but can you go into more detail of why this matters? If a dealer has N cars takin…

If a car has been on the lot a long time, then there's not a lot of interest in it. The dealer is more likely to accept any offer just to get it off the lot. For a car that's newly arrived, there's a greater likelihood (or at least a greater expectation) that several customers may be interested, so the dealer is better off waiting to see if someone is willing to pay more.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#134

Post by coldpie »

bob13579 wrote: post #57
toomuchtodo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law was put in place to protect dealers who invested their own money in their infrastructure from predatory manufacturer practices. Tesla has no existing dealer network, and therefore has no need to have said non-existed dealer network protected from them.

Yes, I agree that the law is a shoddy law but that shouldn't allow Tesla to sell directly. Would small car manufacturers get special rules too? Laws are laws. Either change the law or enforce it. That's fair. Not cronyism.

I'm baffled. Who is arguing for Tesla to get special rules? They're simply not going to sell in markets that don't allow them to sell how they want to.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#135

Post by jonknee »

gknoy wrote: post #120
jonknee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe Texas even allows for in-store internet sales. Last I heard Tesla couldn't even inform people in the store how much the cars cost. Tesla also cannot deliver the vehicle to the customer, the customer must provide arrangements. Oh, no test drives either. It's absolutely ridiculous. I assume they opened the store just to have a better argument against the dealership cartel. http://stateimpact.npr.org/tex…

I wonder if they could get around the "no test drives" rule by opening a "Tesla Car Rental" chain, where you can rent a Tesla for a day. This way they are neither selling nor testing cars, but people who are interested would be able to try it out.

Regardless of the crazy dealership laws I would love to rent a Tesla for a day.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#136

Post by encoderer »

Androsynth wrote: post #98
cobrausn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's an example of government as envisioned by the founders working as intended - when someone at the state level overreaches, a federal court strikes it down (I'm hoping the same thing happens to this absurd law regarding dealer sales). This happens in more places than just Texas. Doesn't change the fact that your first statement is not factual anymore. Given time I think we (Texans) can eventually stop / vote…

> Yeah, it's an example of government as envisioned by the founders working as intended - when someone at the state level overreaches, a federal court strikes it down Jeffersonian democrats certainly were against that idea, as evidenced by nullification, which was in issue up until the civil war. Maybe the federalists, but it sounds extreme even for them. It sounds like something that the northern politicians had in…

Washington and Hamilton -- the Federalists you mentioned -- desperately wanted a strong federal gov't with supremacy over state laws. Washington wanted the powers of the federal gov't enumerated in the constitution (and many of them), and his desire was for a unicameral legislature with direct popular representation.

That our constitution ended up vague on these issues-- and the existence of the Senate with its state-appointed representitives-- is owed to negotiation and comprimise. Of course, Washington presided over the congress on these issues, he was not himself a delegate, so you don't have a lot of direct quotes on these topics but what we know has been pieced together over the years from his (limited) correspondence and 2nd party accounts.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#137

Post by ghaff »

gcb0 wrote: post #131

Playing devil's advocate... I'd love if Google were forced to have a physical presence after it started talking my money. I'm still using a phone with several flaws that i tried to return/complain several times but never found a phone number or email address that went answered. They just took my money and run. Now imagine that for a 60k car. Maybe it's just reasonable that the state protects it's citizens and demand…

I'm sure there's no law requiring that, say, a Land Rover dealer exist in your state. This has nothing to do with whether a dealer exists or not but whether a manufacturer can directly own and operate a dealership.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#138

Post by refurb »

bobwaycott wrote: post #130
gknoy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a very well written explanation of what the dealers are doing (and why). Thanks for laying it out so clearly. | [F]loorplan isn't free, and it's a significant dealer cost | (which is why you should always buy the oldest car on the | lot (measured in # days it has been in dealer inventory)). I realize this is a little off topic, but can you go into more detail of why this matters? If a dealer has N cars takin…

In it's simplest form, non-excessively peppered with financial terminology and equations: Floorplan is a line of credit dealers use to purchase their retail inventory. Each vehicle on the lot subjects the dealer to finance charges that begin accruing from the moment the dealer takes possession of the vehicle. So, say that the floorplan fees and interest are $100/day per vehicle (for simplicity's sake). The longer a c…

A question about floorplans:

Is the floorplan cost flat? I ask because if you take into account both sunk costs and the fact that two identical models would have the same floorplan cost per day, why would they care to sell the older car first?

Let's say you have two cars on the floor: Car A - just arrived Car B - sitting for 100 days

The cost of the floorplan is $10/day (let's say)

If a customer comes in and buys car A and then car B sits for another 10 days, how is that different than a customer coming in and buying car B and letting car A sit for 10 days? In the end it should cost the dealership the same. It's all about moving inventory, not necessarily moving specific inventory.

I assume I'm missing something here, can you explain?

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#139

Post by Florin_Andrei »

stephenhuey wrote: post #61
Rudism wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading some time ago that Tesla's loop-hole for opening storefronts is that they don't actually sell cars to people there... they just inform people about the cars and answer their questions. When it's time to actually buy one, they sit you down at a internet terminal and you order over the web just as you would if you were purchasing from anywhere else.

Correct. They do not sell cars at the Houston Galleria store: http://www.teslamotors.com/houstongalleria

So it's basically a showroom.

Re: Texas won't allow Tesla to sell electric cars directly

#140

Post by skaevola »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #113
skaevola wrote: post #77

This article is misleading - Tesla can and does sell cars in Texas (online), their "physical stores" just can't sell them. Also, Tesla wasn't denied the right, their bill was not voted on (an omission rather than an action). They'll undoubtedly bring it back up next session.

> They'll undoubtedly bring it back up next session. Sure... in 2015. That is between 1.5 and 2.5 years away. That they don't meet again until 2015 is really crappy. How do they ever get stuff done?

It's kind of silly, but people here think that annual legislative sessions will lead to a larger government. It's a real problem for budgeting, however.
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