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Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

teslamotors.com

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Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#121

Post by stcredzero »

robbles wrote: post #113
stcredzero wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An even bigger conflict of interest with auto dealers is that they make most of their profit from service I am old enough to remember what owning a car was like when things were changing away from mechanical devices one could understand and tinker with and becoming nondescript hunks of plastic you had to buy from a manufacturer. (I'm talking about the ignition system, as one specific example.) There was always a bit…

I agree with the idea in principle, that electric cars are a net positive for reliability and minimizing service costs. However, when you talk nostalgically about the good old days of cars being "mechanical devices one could understand and tinker with", and then turn around and talk about the new generation of electric cars being somehow equivalent, it seems a little logically inconsistent to me. Make no mistake, a T…

Tesla is just as much of a "hunk of plastic"

That is exactly my point. Did you actually read the whole comment you are responding to?

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#122

Post by peeters »

rst wrote: post #108
peeters wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the distribution mechanism in itself affect the quality? It's just a way of getting new software on the car. You can have the exact same standards of quality for an update installed over the air as one installed at a service centre.

For one thing, an OTA update mechanism is obviously more subject to third-party spoofing than an update delivered by physical ethernet from the dealership. (BTW, do Teslas apply OTA updates while the car is underway, or store them up for application when parked? If the former, then applying even a correct update to a car in motion could have all sorts of nasty consequences if it resulted in a sudden change to, say, r…

Is that true though? I mean, in my mind OTA makes it a given that the firmware is going to be fully signed and the channel will be fully authenticated. Whereas if a dealer is installing it, they could dismiss concerns with "we trust our service technicians." Seems the latter opens the door to a lot of social engineering possibilities.

But I was responding to a claim of the update being "poorly tested", not insecure. That's orthogonal to it being over the air. A poorly tested update delivered through a service center can also brick your car.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#123

Post by toomuchtodo »

Edmond wrote: post #86
toomuchtodo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't exclude myself, we all use these web services that are highly concentrated in SV, what is going to happen to our local economies? They adapt, as all economies must to the changing winds.

That is an optimistic take, the evidence so far with the move of manufacturing to low-wage countries suggests otherwise.

Isn't that what we preach here as automation puts half the US workforce out of business? Oh, what's that? I'm a Javascript engineer making $100K+/year? It doesn't last forever (i.e 98-01 tech boom, the sands move quickly underneath us).

The future is going to be not only disruptive, but destructive, to industries and people alike. How we turn out as a society will be determined by the policies we develop around handling this turbulent time in human history.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#124

Post by kyrra »

digikata wrote: post #92
kyrra wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly one-sided view on the situation. Just some random points: * Saturn tried the "no-haggle" new car buying experience. People generally liked this, though Saturn doesn't exist anymore. * "closing a dealer is hard". Dealers have to pay for the land they own. The cars on their lot tend to be bought with money from the bank (a bank really owns the cars). The dealers just have to pay insurance/interest on th…

If a dealership middle man is providing so much value to the customer, why then does it need any legislative protection? Real estate agents are a bad example, as that industry is also dug in with legislative protections against more competitive business models.

NPR said it was due to Ford and other auto makers back in the 1920-1930 bullying dealerships. Ford threatened to cancel their business contracts with dealership if the dealerships didn't buy cars that they knew they couldn't sell. During that time, Ford kept their lines running at full capacity even though demand didn't warrant it. The states decided to step in and protect their local dealerships from the megacorp that was Ford and the other manufacturers of that time.

The auto makers of back then dug their own grave with their business practices.

Another argument I've heard is about sales tax. If an auto-maker could sell direct to customers, it could (possibly) be treated as interstate commerce and avoid directly collecting the sales tax. So it's in the state interest to keep dealerships around.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#125

Post by ericd »

dangoldin wrote: post #61

So it seems you can still buy it online. Does that mean you can go into a dealership and just buy it on your phone?

Ha! Maybe they could set up QR codes to link to the pages that discuss the pricing, or just have signs all over that tell people to go to teslamotors.com on their smartphones, and to contact their legislature if they think this is a stupid rule.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#127

Post by twoodfin »

darkarmani wrote: post #80
jusben1369 wrote: post #29

Musk is massively disingenuous and rather insulting to our intelligence. But he's a heck of a salesman and makes a wonderful car. Like many persuasive people he arrives at an answer and backs into rationale but makes it appear the other way around. I'll give you just one example. The law of the land in NJ is that you can't sell in NJ unless through a dealership. That's the current law. Those laws need to change to al…

> The law of the land in NJ is that you can't sell in NJ unless through a dealership. That's the current law. Are you suggesting that Tesla is actively breaking the law in NJ right now? The rule change doesn't take place until April 1st, which is why they have to close their store by then. If they aren't operating illegally right now, then the commission has ended our ability to purchase these cars. Secondly, if you…

Are you suggesting that Tesla is actively breaking the law in NJ right now?

That's how a lot of government rule-making works. The law says something general and the specifics are left to departments and commissions. In this case, it's not clear that this particular rule is outside the plain meaning of the law; they just hadn't gotten to writing it before because Tesla presents a novel circumstance. Of course, it's difficult to hold somebody accountable for breaking a rule that hadn't been written yet, so "actively breaking the law" is probably overstating it.

Secondly, if you can only sell through a dealership, why can't Tesla just own some dealerships?

I am not an expert, but I imagine the law was written in such a way that "franchise" is defined as an entity independent of any manufacturer.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#128

Post by stcredzero »

MartinCron wrote: post #114
protomyth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris Christie wouldn't have made it through the primaries. His polling numbers among the people who vote in primaries were not that good.

Yeah, he was always a leading favorite Republican candidate among non-Republicans. Primary voters? No way.

Aw, hell, if Chris Christie is "Republican Lite," what chance in hell is there for a non-sociopath Republican candidate?

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#129

Post by GauntletWizard »

rst wrote: post #108
peeters wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the distribution mechanism in itself affect the quality? It's just a way of getting new software on the car. You can have the exact same standards of quality for an update installed over the air as one installed at a service centre.

For one thing, an OTA update mechanism is obviously more subject to third-party spoofing than an update delivered by physical ethernet from the dealership. (BTW, do Teslas apply OTA updates while the car is underway, or store them up for application when parked? If the former, then applying even a correct update to a car in motion could have all sorts of nasty consequences if it resulted in a sudden change to, say, r…

I'm sorry, but no. No, most manufacturers update processes aren't actually secure in any meaningful way. Tesla's OTA process seems to use (I've not checked it myself) web standards, encryption, and signatures to verify that the OTA update is correct. The "Physical ethernet cable" that is used by traditional manufacturers can be done by any hobo on the street, in pretty much the same time. It's really only a matter of time before a script-kiddie-ready device that you plug-in and starts the car shows up; There's no security, no signature verification, etc. on the traditional manufacturers updates.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#130

Post by Jtsummers »

kyrra wrote: post #66
digikata wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Planet Money episode[1] gives a interesting of the history of autodealers, with some additional info regarding the latest twists that had come up due the fiscal crisis too. [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-...

That's a fairly one-sided view on the situation. Just some random points: * Saturn tried the "no-haggle" new car buying experience. People generally liked this, though Saturn doesn't exist anymore. * "closing a dealer is hard". Dealers have to pay for the land they own. The cars on their lot tend to be bought with money from the bank (a bank really owns the cars). The dealers just have to pay insurance/interest on th…

Saturn went away because of GM's restructuring after 2008. It's hardly apparent that there's a conneciton between their "no-haggle" buying experience and their eventual dissolution.

EDIT: Spelling.

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