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Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

teslamotors.com

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Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#11

Post by skaevola »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #4
YooLi wrote: post #3

"Texas Bans the Sale of Tesla Vehicles" Title is misleading. Texas didn't ban the sale of Teslas but rather Teslas are incapable of being sold due to legislation that was added back in 2003. Still a problem, but it should at least be presented correctly.

Sorry, that's my bad. I read it elsewhere[1], went to Tesla's site for official news, and couldn't find anything other than Advocacy. I'll try to change it. I put up the original title in the spirit of the guidelines, because "Advocacy: Texas" doesn't by itself mean anything in particular. And I haven't seen this story on Hacker News. [1]: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/nightline-fix-abc-news/why-texas...

You can buy a Tesla in Texas. You have to order it online and (as the page says) it will be delivered by a 3rd party. You can see plenty of them in Austin. Tesla also maintains two "showrooms", one in Austin and one in Houston where you can see the car, but cannot test drive it or discuss pricing.

Tesla is not allowed to run its own dealerships in Texas, because the auto dealer's union has laws which prevent car manufacturers from running their own dealerships.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#12

Post by cobrausn »

So, this might seem a silly question (I find the ban ludicrous but this is worth asking).

Why not just allow certain dealers, approved by Musk himself for all that matters, to become 'authorized Tesla dealers'? Why does Tesla insist on direct-to-consumer sales, even to the point of not being able to do so in large marketplaces?

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#13

Post by jleader »

wmf wrote: post #2

This page refers to April 9th (2013?) in the future tense, so it's probably pretty old news.

According to http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/HB3351/ and http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/SB1659/, the bills haven't progressed any further since then, I don't know if that means they're dead, or if that's just how slowly the Texas legislature proceeds.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#14

Post by skaevola »

cobrausn wrote: post #12

So, this might seem a silly question (I find the ban ludicrous but this is worth asking). Why not just allow certain dealers, approved by Musk himself for all that matters, to become 'authorized Tesla dealers'? Why does Tesla insist on direct-to-consumer sales, even to the point of not being able to do so in large marketplaces?

Musk clearly wants Tesla to sell all of their products themselves ala Apple. His stated reason was that car dealer's cannot properly advertise the benefits of electric cars without undermining their gasoline car business and so he doesn't trust them to properly sell the car.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#15

Post by skaevola »

nicklovescode wrote: post #5

"Prior to the filing deadline, Tesla Motors reached out to Sen. Craig Estes (R-Wichita Falls) and Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) who agreed to file bills on our behalf. These bills would permit U.S.-based manufacturers of 100% electric- or battery-powered vehicles to sell directly to Texas consumers." A silly band-aid to ridiculous legislation.

This bill failed in the last legislative session. The next session begins in January 2015, and a similar bill will likely be re-introduced.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#16

Post by skaevola »

jleader wrote: post #13
wmf wrote: post #2

This page refers to April 9th (2013?) in the future tense, so it's probably pretty old news.

According to http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/HB3351/ and http://openstates.org/tx/bills/83/SB1659/ , the bills haven't progressed any further since then, I don't know if that means they're dead, or if that's just how slowly the Texas legislature proceeds.

The Texas legislature meets for 140 days every odd year. The bill was not passed in this session (which is to say it failed). It will likely be reintroduced in 2015 when the Texas Legislature meets again.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#17

Post by jleader »

cobrausn wrote: post #12

So, this might seem a silly question (I find the ban ludicrous but this is worth asking). Why not just allow certain dealers, approved by Musk himself for all that matters, to become 'authorized Tesla dealers'? Why does Tesla insist on direct-to-consumer sales, even to the point of not being able to do so in large marketplaces?

Probably similar to the reasons Apple introduced the Apple Stores. As explained in the article, Tesla feel that typical dealerships aren't set up or motivated to do the education necessary to sell all-electric cars, so they want to do that themselves.

Also, a large consideration in buying an unusual new type of car is service and support. If I was buying a dealership's #3 brand, I'd expect that in a few years they'd drop that brand, and I'd have to look elsewhere for warranty service (this has happened to me twice now with Subarus, for example). Tesla's addressed this by setting up a separate Texas-only subsidiary to handle service, but apparently they can't legally do the same for sales.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#18

Post by jleader »

mercuryrising wrote: post #8

Someone in California should figure this out - I checked quick on CA's DMV website but couldn't find an email to ask someone. If you buy a car in another state, California will charge you the difference in sales tax to bring it up to California's tax rate, netting them more tax revenue. What happens if you bring in a car that you paid a higher tax rate on? Would they refund you the difference? Would you get double ta…

I am far from a tax expert, but my impression was that excess sales tax paid in another state can be claimed on your California state income tax return?

It sounds like the customer can talk to the repair place, it's just that the repair place can't contact the customer, or even advertise themselves as a Tesla repair place.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#19

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

Elon, just install a bunch[1] of superchargers on I-10.

[1] And I do mean a bunch.

EDIT: I just noticed. This is an old press release. The lege' is out of session. Be sure and pester representatives if another special session is called.

Re: Tesla is unable to sell its vehicles directly to the public in Texas

#20

Post by leetrout »

skaevola wrote: post #14
cobrausn wrote: post #12

So, this might seem a silly question (I find the ban ludicrous but this is worth asking). Why not just allow certain dealers, approved by Musk himself for all that matters, to become 'authorized Tesla dealers'? Why does Tesla insist on direct-to-consumer sales, even to the point of not being able to do so in large marketplaces?

Musk clearly wants Tesla to sell all of their products themselves ala Apple. His stated reason was that car dealer's cannot properly advertise the benefits of electric cars without undermining their gasoline car business and so he doesn't trust them to properly sell the car.

As a Prius owner I can attest to this, even if just a little. The dealerships I talked to over the past 4 years were excited to sell me a Prius when I called over the phone (and when demand was so high they had to order them and you agreed to MSRP to place said order).

However, showing up on the lot, they generally didn't have one to show you (again, the demand issue) and would push me towards an in stock Camry or similar.

Even when I made it explicitly clear I wanted a Prius there was a bunch of FUD acted out by the sales reps. "Yea, the sticker says 45mpg, but that's only in the city where you can use the battery". "Hey Jon, what'd that lady say she got on her commut? 37mpg?" I was truly shocked. I will also note that this happened more at multi-franchise dealerships.

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