NY auto dealers trying to shut down Tesla Motors in NY • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by pdog » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 3:54 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #100

jumanji89 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Special deals? Can you point some out? All that I am aware of are programs that were offered to many companies. SpaceX's relationship with NASA is not special, other companies are/have been in the COTS program. The tax benefits/rebates/carbon trading shit that Tesla benefits from is available to any car company that wishes to participate. My understanding is that Solar City is in more or less the same situation as Te…

Well, there's the "2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act"...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30digi.html

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

#122

Post by notdrunkatall » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:07 AM UTC

dram wrote: post #108

sigil wrote: post #97

"My dear colleagues, every day great quantities of wood come into Paris, and draw out of it large sums of money. If this goes on, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poor people? [Bravo.] Let us prohibit foreign wood. I am not speaking for myself, for you could not make a tooth-pick out of all the wood I own. I am, therefore, perfectly disinterested. [Good, good.] But here is Pierre, wh…

May I add: "To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them. To deceive them, it is necessary to persuade them that they are robbed for their own advantage, and to induce them to accept in exchange for their property, imaginary services, and often worse. Hence spring Sophisms in all their varieties. Then, since Force is held in check, Sophistry is no longer only an evil; it is the genius of evil, and requires a ch…

Damn.

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

#123

Post by jlgreco » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:08 AM UTC

pdog wrote: post #121

jlgreco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Special deals? Can you point some out? All that I am aware of are programs that were offered to many companies. SpaceX's relationship with NASA is not special, other companies are/have been in the COTS program. The tax benefits/rebates/carbon trading shit that Tesla benefits from is available to any car company that wishes to participate. My understanding is that Solar City is in more or less the same situation as Te…

Well, there's the "2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act"... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30digi.html

"The company is requesting $400 million in low-interest federal loans as part of the $25 billion loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year."

"The tax benefits/rebates/carbon trading shit that Tesla benefits from is available to any car company that wishes to participate."

?

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

#124

Post by sliverstorm » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:22 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #110

jusben1369 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> There are too many competitive new entry level entrants from Honda, Nissan, Ford etc. I completely lost you there. Where are these competitive new entry level models? e.g.: The Nissan Leaf absolutely does not compare with the Model S in range, speed, style, ecosystem, internals, etc, etc. There really is no EV competition for Tesla. There is competition from non-EV luxury vehicles, but Tesla is beating most of them…

Of course the Leaf doesn't begin to stack up to the Model S in those ways. The Leaf is $35k; the base Model S starts at $70k. It is literally twice as expensive.

Would you be impressed if I told you all the ways a BMW 7-series was superior to a Corolla?

Besides, your parent said:

... entry level entrants ...

I would argue that the Leaf is far, far, FAR more of an entry level electric car than a Tesla. Silicon Valley sometimes makes us think otherwise, but most of the USA isn't full of people who can easily afford a $70k+ vehicle.

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

#125

Post by sliverstorm » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:26 AM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #105

joezydeco wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Planet Money podcast: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-... and this paper (PDF) http://faculty.som.yale.edu/FionaScottMorton/documents/State... Should be a useful primer. It explains how the dealership/franchise structure came to be, and why automakers prefer this model today.

I listened to the podcast. So it boils down to the fact that in the past manufacturers had really rough relations with dealers, and the later passed tons of protection laws which gave them essentially a solid monopoly. And most of those reasons have no meaning today. Though I didn't get the part that fighting that now is futile (there were not enough details in the story). If enough people will be against these laws…

Your parent didn't say fighting it was futile. Your parent said automakers prefer this model today.

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

#126

Post by apendleton » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:34 AM UTC

pdog wrote: post #121

jlgreco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Special deals? Can you point some out? All that I am aware of are programs that were offered to many companies. SpaceX's relationship with NASA is not special, other companies are/have been in the COTS program. The tax benefits/rebates/carbon trading shit that Tesla benefits from is available to any car company that wishes to participate. My understanding is that Solar City is in more or less the same situation as Te…

Well, there's the "2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act"... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30digi.html

This article doesn't describe what actually ended up happening. They didn't get any money as part of the auto bailout. They did get a loan the next year under a separate program that funded high-efficiency vehicles under DOE, but unlike the auto bailout they had to demonstrate financial solvency to be eligible, and Musk (granted, not a neutral observer) has said they didn't need the money to keep the doors open; it just allowed them to accelerate production of the model S. For what it's worth, they've already paid it all back, ahead of schedule.

In any event, given that they were neither the only green company to get loans under this program, nor the only car company to get loans of any kind in light of the bailout, this hardly strikes me as a "special deal from the government." The grant program existed, they applied for it, they got an award.

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

#127

Post by jpwright » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 4:37 AM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #92

nrivadeneira wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Apple Store an analogy to Tesla establishing dealerships? As far as I know, Apple Stores are owned and operated directly by Apple and are thus direct sales, while dealerships are third-parties/franchisees that buy from the manufacturer and re-sell to the consumer.

You're super literal. Imagine completely re-designing the car dealership experience so that it becomes a positive to the buying experience vs a negative. Secondly, who said the dealership has to be a franchise? Lastly, franchise's (even if you did that) have to follow some pretty strict guidelines. So you could drive the process hard.

That's a non-sequitur to the debate about whether car companies should be forced to sell through third-party dealerships. Tesla already has dozens of showrooms across the country, and yes, they are Apple-Store-esque.

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

#128

Post by jarrett » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 6:33 AM UTC

echohack wrote: post #71

jarrett wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 la…

> First, it's not the (de facto) national language, which infringes on one's fundamental right to read the laws of the land... Legaleese requires you to take years of law classes to even understand, and makes the same problem. I think it's more accessible to run something through a compiler...

I've never taken a law class, but I've read and understood many, many statutes and contracts. I'm sure you could too.

Does that mean all legal drafting is clear? No. But much of it is sufficiently clear for a literate person to understand. By way of example, I've chosen a passage from the Illinois criminal code, more or less at random:

"Theft of property not from the person and not exceeding $500 in value is a Class 4 felony if the theft was committed in a school or place of worship or if the theft was of governmental property."

This is a typical example of legalese. It bakes several conditions into one sentence: 1) not from the person, 2) value under $500, 3) in a school, 4) in a place of worship, 5) on government property. Most legal writing I've encountered is at roughly this level of complexity.

Certainly, there's a lot of logic packed into that one sentence. There's much more to parse out than there is in a typical newspaper sentence. But I'm willing to bet most people can read that law and understand what it means. (Not that you'd necessarily know what a Class 4 felony is. But you'd know some of the circumstances under which a theft qualifies as one.)

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

#129

Post by btilly » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 7:57 AM UTC

echohack wrote: post #71

jarrett wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 la…

> First, it's not the (de facto) national language, which infringes on one's fundamental right to read the laws of the land... Legaleese requires you to take years of law classes to even understand, and makes the same problem. I think it's more accessible to run something through a compiler...

The problem is that legalese is specially designed to make meaning today out of decisions made a century ago based on laws written over 2 centuries ago which inherit from a common law framework that came to this continent about 3 centuries ago and dates back to precedents that predate the modern English language.

If we were to make everything be written in normal English, the same problem would eventually re-emerge.

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

#130

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 8:25 AM UTC

darkarmani wrote: post #103

lostlogin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's do exploit and undermine local laws and use their bottomless pockets to grind down opposition. This isn't the same as what you are talking about I know, but its on the spectrum. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=...

I didn't see anything in that article talking about exploiting or undermining local laws. In fact the whole article talked about outrage at local politicians. Not to say they don't, but the admirable qualities about the McDonald's corporation is that they are hyper-rational about business efficiency and public image. I don't see anything in the article illustrating that they were acting in a dirty manner.

Sorry, not the best link to illustrate the situation, it runs over many years. They were denied the right to build there, so they applied for something that would have minimal impact, got it accepted. Then applied for something else, with slightly more impact, got it accepted. Every step was careful, measured and calculated to go unnoticed by locals. Eventually they turned and said, well hey, if I can build X surely Y (McDonalds) will be fine. There is also a history of McDonald's not abiding by their council consents (not collecting rubbish generated, opening for longer than agreed to, noise violations etc), but they can afford the fines. Nothing illegal was done in this instance, they just managed to bypass local feeling and played a perfect game. Key takaway I guess, is that out of 872 submissions to the council regarding the plans, 860 were opposed to it. completely. http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/news/editorial-the-battle-of-...