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Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

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Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#241

Post by mcv »

protomyth wrote: post #77
nlh wrote: post #24

His best line: > The rationale given for the regulation change that requires auto companies to sell through dealers is that it ensures 'consumer protection'. If you believe this, Gov. Christie has a bridge closure he wants to sell you! Unless they are referring to the mafia version of 'protection', this is obviously untrue. Nicely done, Elon. Nicely done.

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.

You've got a good point. If he wants to appease Christie, this is not the way to do it. But if he wants payback, well, keep twisting that knife.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#242

Post by jasonlingx »

FD3SA wrote: post #212
mikestew wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I remember those times, too; perhaps less nostalgically than you do. Take your ignition system example. Sure, one could dig in there and replace and adjust the points. But you did it because you had to, you had to do it regularly, and it would be adjusted correctly exactly once: after you did the job. From there, the points immediately started wearing and it would not be exactly right until you did it again. So…

I heartily believe there's a market for both. Compare a Macbook Pro with a custom built Linux desktop. The MBP is very user friendly, plug n play, and has very little customization capacity. The custom Linux desktop is an absolute tinkerer's paradise, with everything from hardware to software being open for customization. The car equivalent of these used to exist for daily drivers, but are now relegated mainly to clo…

> Compare a Macbook Pro with a custom built Linux desktop. The MBP is very user friendly, plug n play, and has very little customization capacity. The custom Linux desktop is an absolute tinkerer's paradise, with everything from hardware to software being open for customization.

It's not fair to say Macs are less customizable or less of a tinkerer's paradise just because they are more user friendly.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#243

Post by DavidAdams »

larrys wrote: post #84

"An even bigger conflict of interest with auto dealers is that they make most of their profit from service, but electric cars require much less service than gasoline cars. There are no oil, spark plug or fuel filter changes, no tune-ups and no smog checks needed for an electric car." Well then what about BMW with bumper to bumper service as only one example. That's a high end car that you don't pay for service for (i…

Keep in mind that when a car has a warranty or includes free service for X years, the dealership that performs that service is still paid. It's sort of like a medical insurance model, where you don't get a bill, but if your engine blows out, the manufacturer still pays the dealership for all of the labor (at a pre-negotiated rate) to do the service. Dealers love those kinds of arrangements because it trains people to get their service at the dealer, so even after the warranty is over, they keep coming back for overpriced maintenance and repairs.

When a dealer sells you a "lemon" that racks up thousands of dollars in warranty-covered repairs it's actually a bonanza for them.

The conflict of interest Musk is referring to is that dealers won't want to sell extremely maintenance free cars because their revenue on the back-end would be miniscule.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#244

Post by jdlshore »

protomyth wrote: post #77
nlh wrote: post #24

His best line: > The rationale given for the regulation change that requires auto companies to sell through dealers is that it ensures 'consumer protection'. If you believe this, Gov. Christie has a bridge closure he wants to sell you! Unless they are referring to the mafia version of 'protection', this is obviously untrue. Nicely done, Elon. Nicely done.

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.

Is this just your opinion, or do you have something to back that up? Because I thought it was a pretty effective piece of writing.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#245

Post by vampirechicken »

mathattack wrote: post #231
grellas wrote: post #211

Paternalistic meddling with free consumer choices is always fraught with peril. Sometimes it is necessary to protect important principles in society. You can't discriminate based on race - that limits choice but who would support the contrary? You can't defraud people in selling products - ditto. You can't buy land to build a smokestack plant in a quiet residential neighborhood - ditto. Many other examples might be c…

New Jersey has a lot of these strange laws. They also force you to have full service at the gas station. The lobbies force the issue.

The last time I was in NJ, the full-service gas there was the same price as the self-serve in suburban NY. Maybe that's changed, but given the hug number of commuters in NJ, I conclude it likely that holy hell would have been raised of full-serve was significantly more expensive.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#246

Post by MichaelGG »

mediaman wrote: post #216
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.

You always have the choice whether to install updates. If you don't want the update, just decline it.

If you don't trust the manufacturer and their software, why would you think declining an update would prevent them from "0wning" you?

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#247

Post by mcv »

Systemic33 wrote: post #230

So much for the american "free market"... What a joke. As a european, i can't even comprehend how ludicruous it sounds that a business can't sell it's goods directly. It's so outrageously wrong, that I can't find words that fit adequately.

I agree, it sounds ludicrous. But there are plenty of ludicrous instances in the EU where free trade gets banned by some stupid law legalizing a monopoly. As much as I'd like it to be, the EU is hardly perfect in this.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#248

Post by SilasX »

gtaylor wrote: post #188
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.

As a consumer who may consider a Tesla in the future, I like and appreciate this dig. Christie did something underhanded again, let's bring it up to strengthen Tesla's claim that something fishy happened.

I can't agree with calling this underhanded on Christie's part. The law, while stupid, actually is the law, not a creation of the governor's or regulator's discretion. See his justification:

"This administration does not find it appropriate to unilaterally change the way cars are sold in New Jersey without legislation and Tesla has been aware of this position since the beginning."[1]

It would be far more underhanded for the governor to exempt a single organization from the rules. Yes, the rules are stupid, but tomorrow it's going to be a time when you do agree with the law, and it amounts to giving a bad guy some special privilege.

[1]http://www.itproportal.com/2014/03/13/new-jersey-bans-the-sa...

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#249

Post by oh_sigh »

vampirechicken wrote: post #245
mathattack wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Jersey has a lot of these strange laws. They also force you to have full service at the gas station. The lobbies force the issue.

The last time I was in NJ, the full-service gas there was the same price as the self-serve in suburban NY. Maybe that's changed, but given the hug number of commuters in NJ, I conclude it likely that holy hell would have been raised of full-serve was significantly more expensive.

States impose different taxes on their gas. Presumably if NJ allowed self-pump, those prices would be slightly lower.

However, in the grand scheme of things, the eliminating the payroll costs from the gas price in NJ would barely have any impact.

At a normal gas station which is neither busy nor desolate, an attendant may be able to serve, let's say, 30 cars an hour. If they each get $20 worth of gas, and the total cost of the employee per hour is $20, then the prices would go down only a fraction of a percent if he was eliminated.

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