31–40 of 410 posts
... and Christie can argue that allowing Tesla creates a slippery slope whereby Ford and GM and other companies end up crushing the franchisees that the law intended to protect.
Musk is trying to find a middle ground that just doesn't exist unless you accept governments creating one-off laws that specifically recognizes individual corporations.
While I don't necessarily support the NJ move, 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?
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?
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?
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.
> 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. Also, all Tesla Model S vehicles are capable of over-the-air updates to upgrade the software, just like your phone or computer, so no v…
It is a terrific salespitch, especially in how it raises the subject of OTA updates while adroitly waltzing you past the obvious worry that a poorly tested OTA update will brick your car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought he did a good job explaining why those laws were put in place and why they're not needed to be applied here. Even if you don't agree it's a monopoly, clearly in this case the law is not being applied as it should be.
I was impressed by the fact that he bothered to offer an explanation of why the law was introduced and what purpose it served; it makes for a more compelling argument than some cookie-cutter rant about Big Evil Corporations wrapping their rent-seeking tentacles around the government.
That's some good writing by Elon, by the way. Perhaps it went through an editor or two, for typos and such, but I have to say I find his style engaging... (Disclaimer: If I had the money I'd buy a tesla, and I am an investor.)
I 110% percent guarantee it did. No CEO of a decent sized company would not.
It's amazing how much building a new company in a supposedly free market requires arguing against politicians who claim to champion free market economics, but who actually use government to give cushy monopolies to incumbents with big lobbying budgets.
"Crony capitalism" isn't an accurate term for this; it's more like economic central planning by way of lobbyists instead of communist bureaus.
1. http://www.spacex.com/press/2014/03/05/elon-musks-statement-...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-05/musk-makes-washingt...
> 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. Also, all Tesla Model S vehicles are capable of over-the-air updates to upgrade the software, just like your phone or computer, so no v…
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 of a sinking feeling for me along with a sense that the world was being dumbed down and manipulated for profit. As programmers and technical people, we should be able to see many parallels!
That said, dumbing down the world in some ways is not necessarily a bad thing and can be exceedingly positive. One might miss the twisty, dusty country road in leisure time, but curse it when it's raining and the road has turned into an impassable morass. Reliable, boring, convenient transportation is great sometimes, like when you're driving someone going into labor to the hospital.
Maintenance free electric cars that drive themselves will be one of those positive simplifying things.
> 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. Also, all Tesla Model S vehicles are capable of over-the-air updates to upgrade the software, just like your phone or computer, so no v…
It is a terrific salespitch, especially in how it raises the subject of OTA updates while adroitly waltzing you past the obvious worry that a poorly tested OTA update will brick your car.
This is possibly true (though I'd be surprised if they didn't have serious precautions in place to prevent a total firmware brick, even fairly cheap electronics are difficult to really brick these days, with multistage/multipartition bootloaders and such).
However, given the amazingly large amount of costly meatspace work they would cause themselves by sending out an OTA that bricks cars, I'm sure they are well motivated to avoid that possibility.