Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

Post by _blz2 » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

Edmond wrote: post #165

darkarmani wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we should start asking questions about economic value flow. If people live in one place yet all their economic activity is directed to some place on the other side of the country, what is the long term effect of this on their local economy? What do you mean? Isn't there economic value in owning a Tesla? Just because the money flows the other way doesn't mean there isn't value in owning the product.

The problem isn't with owning the Tesla but rather that the economic transaction involved in acquiring the Tesla would leave nothing to NJ (except perhaps sales tax). When you have a dealership, you have local folks working there thus some of the money that car buyers spend gets circulated locally, which would not be the case if all you have to do is point and click to get your car delivered. This is a serious concer…

Post by gutnor » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 9:16 PM UTC

mrt0mat0 wrote: post #7

It blows my mind that in a country that preaches a free-market economy, the government is preventing a company from selling a superior product. I'm pretty sure people will still buy the car if they want to, and in time, those car companies will go under anyway, but why slow down progress?

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 9:18 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #112

protomyth wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although personally satisfying for the writer, that is a pretty good example of something never to write in a letter that you want to positively influence a situation. Referring to a scandal by a politician when lobbying isn't really going to work, and all letters addresses "to the people" are lobbying.

that is a pretty good example of something never to write in a letter that you want to positively influence a situation. Right. It does close the door to Christie deciding to do a turnaround and adopt the issue as a crusader for the people. Actually, considering that Gov. Christie is a politically powerful man with an apparent history of underhanded retaliation, I think it's really the last thing you want to do.

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #89

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 hope that emerging manufacturing technologies will allow what has happened to software over the last 25 years to happen to hardware over the next 25 years. It is possible to run a completely open software stack, and very easy to run an almost-completely open software stack. My hope is that open-source hardware (both electronic and mechanical) will be abundant enough in the future that I could feasibly fabricate a n…

Post by batoure » Fri, Mar 14, 2014, 9:23 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #172

marssaxman wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry if my reference was unclear - I meant "0wned" in the hacker sense, in that ultimate control rests not with you, the owner, but with the manufacturer, who in the case of Tesla can apparently just pump new code out which your car will install. That seems seriously creepy and weird to me. When I buy a car, its previous owner should have no further control over it. OTA updates for a car sound really wrong.

Here is the changelog: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showwiki.php?title=Model%20S%... These changes sound worthwhile to me, even if the mechanism is creepy.