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NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

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Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#61

Post by pedrocr »

jusben1369 wrote: post #56

I applaud Tesla for trying super hard to disrupt the current selling model that's existed for decades. I understand why existing participants in the market wonder why this new competitor can play by a different set of rules. The irony is that once (if) Tesla starts selling cars in significant volume their purely direct/internet/word of mouth model will break down and they'll probably find themselves....... establishi…

>The irony is that once (if) Tesla starts selling cars in significant volume their purely direct/internet/word of mouth model will break down and they'll probably find themselves....... establishing dealerships!

How come? In my experience dealerships provide a horrible experience, where you're always thinking "how am I being ripped off here?". What value do they provide that is suddenly required once you reach scale?

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#62

Post by doughj3 »

agildehaus wrote: post #4
untog wrote: post #3

Any evidence to back up Musk's claim? Being a Senator's employee must be annoying sometimes. "Hi, I'm calling to defend Telsa Motors because its CEO told me to. No, I do not know anything more about the topic I am calling about"

He referenced the bill shortly thereafter: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S05725&term=2013 http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A07844&term...

Just wanted to also share the link on NY's OpenLegislation[1], an open source project[2].

[1] http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/A7844A-2013 [2] https://github.com/nysenate/OpenLegislation

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#63

Post by jarrett »

just2n wrote: post #29
agildehaus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referenced the bill shortly thereafter: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S05725&term=2013 http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A07844&term...

English, specifically whatever dialect that is, is a horrible medium for encoding laws. Further, the diffing format used there is atrocious. Law is code. Why haven't we fixed this yet?

> Law is code. Why haven't we fixed this yet?

Properly drafted English-language laws do read as code. It's like how you can describe formal logic in English: "All Americans wear hats. I am an American. Therefore I wear a hat."

I take it you're arguing for something like Lojban, though. I see two problems there. First, it's not the (de facto) national language, which infringes on one's fundamental right to read the laws of the land. Second, and probably more incurably, these types of languages don't remove the most important kinds of ambiguity in laws.

Most disputes over ambiguity in legal text do not arise from syntactic ambiguity. It's not usually confusion over what words the "not" modifies, or which "if" is nested within which. Rather, most problems arise from semantic ambiguity, i.e. the meaning of the individual words. What constitutes a "bank," exactly? What does it mean to do something "in a reasonable period of time?" If you're "bearing" arms, where exactly are you bearing them?

You might argue that the problem then comes down to defining your terms well. That's certainly a noble goal when drafting legal text. But one of the principle goals of legal drafting is to make the text flexible enough to apply to specific circumstances that the authors could not have foreseen. This, of course, is in constant tension with the need to be precise. The more precise you are, the easier it is to interpret the law, but the more likely it is that someone will find a loophole arising from the excessive narrowness of your language.

A language like Lojban won't alleviate these difficulties, unfortunately.

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#64

Post by jusben1369 »

pedrocr wrote: post #61
jusben1369 wrote: post #56

I applaud Tesla for trying super hard to disrupt the current selling model that's existed for decades. I understand why existing participants in the market wonder why this new competitor can play by a different set of rules. The irony is that once (if) Tesla starts selling cars in significant volume their purely direct/internet/word of mouth model will break down and they'll probably find themselves....... establishi…

>The irony is that once (if) Tesla starts selling cars in significant volume their purely direct/internet/word of mouth model will break down and they'll probably find themselves....... establishing dealerships! How come? In my experience dealerships provide a horrible experience, where you're always thinking "how am I being ripped off here?". What value do they provide that is suddenly required once you reach scale?

Short answer: Think "the Apple Store" of car dealerships. Long answer: I don't think the mass market is in Tesla's future anymore. They're too late. There are too many competitive new entry level entrants from Honda, Nissan, Ford etc. I don't think Musk cares. He strikes me as a guy with a mission - to get us off fossil fuels - and he's doing that. I think his deal to supply the motor industry shows you where Tesla will be. Kind of like an "Intel Inside" strategy (total wild guess)

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#65

Post by jforman »

just2n wrote: post #29
agildehaus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referenced the bill shortly thereafter: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S05725&term=2013 http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A07844&term...

English, specifically whatever dialect that is, is a horrible medium for encoding laws. Further, the diffing format used there is atrocious. Law is code. Why haven't we fixed this yet?

Because law is not expressible as code. The phrase, "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" is captured in human language for good reason — it contains embedded values and cultural assumptions that cannot be written objectively.

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#66

Post by leephillips »

peterwwillis wrote: post #55
cobrausn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to restate it in such a way that it isn't so easily missed.

His tweet makes the claim that 'auto dealers' specifically are the ones trying to get the bill passed. I was even so quick as to use the wrong terminology 'automaker', which is a different thing entirely. Auto dealers are basically the guys trying to screw you over on the price of a new car. In other words, NOT Ford, or Toyota, or Volvo. But the guys selling the cars. This is equivalent to, for example, mistaking the…

"Who the fuck knows?"

Anyone who's following this issue, even cursorily. In my state of Virginia, it's no secret that the auto dealers have formed a cartel and are leaning on every level of government to forbid Tesla from selling cars here. This activity is not remotely secret, and is known to be happening in several states. There may be other groups pushing this anticompetitive legislation in NY, but the chance that the dealers are not is vanishingly small.

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#67

Post by moens »

ttcbj wrote: post #57
just2n wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English, specifically whatever dialect that is, is a horrible medium for encoding laws. Further, the diffing format used there is atrocious. Law is code. Why haven't we fixed this yet?

I recently read Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses. RM built most major highways and parks in NY state, and effectively became an absolute ruler in his domain. For 40 years he exercised near total control. It made me understand the political process completely different way. For RM, the 'broken' differencing format was a feature, not a bug. It allowed him to slip though all kinds of law changes without people un…

"...politics is really about obtaining and wielding power. The people who thrive in politics are more interested in power than ideas."

This should be the preface to every history book. BTW, s/politics/business/ and it is still true.

Not to say that politics and business are not interested in ideas... they are, but not fundamentally. Ideas are only a means to power. Understand this and you will understand much about an idea you wish to see implemented.

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#68

Post by frogpelt »

Dealers in North Carolina are attempting a similar tactic.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/13/north_car...

UPDATE: Actually it appears Tesla is having a rough go of it in a lot of states, Colorado being the first one to oppose their efforts:

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20130525/APF/130525068...

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#69

Post by analyst74 »

jumanji89 wrote: post #50
leetrout wrote: post #6

Because the government is completely ran by corporations and Musk isn't in "the club" (yet). Gone are the days where the consumer is uneducated and the supplier doesn't have a way to easily and effectively communicate with customers everywhere from anywhere. There's a pretty good doc on Netflix, "Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream", which covers some of the financial backing of congress and how it affec…

Are you telling me Space X, Tesla, and Solar City haven't had any special deals with the government? This is the funniest thing I've read on HN.

You should understand that government is not a single entity. Having friends in the energy department doesn't translate to the whole government.

It's not a dictatorship after all.

Re: NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY

#70

Post by dpeck »

just2n wrote: post #29
agildehaus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He referenced the bill shortly thereafter: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S05725&term=2013 http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A07844&term...

English, specifically whatever dialect that is, is a horrible medium for encoding laws. Further, the diffing format used there is atrocious. Law is code. Why haven't we fixed this yet?

The view that law is code is a common fallacy. In the law there is seldom a right answer, merely answers that can be argued to be more right than others in the given context.
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