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Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

money.cnn.com

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Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#51

Post by yaliceme »

maeon3 wrote: post #9

Will Elon Musk fold under the pressure and cooperate with the dealer network when they offer to sell at low to no markup to bring him into the extortion racket of Car Dealers? I loathe buying cars so much because of the snakes that run those Dealerships. They want the car buying process to be so excruciatingly painful so people will leave money on the table to "Just take my money and make the pain go away". How far a…

Planet Money did a great podcast on the history and political power of the dealer system, and why buying a car sucks so much - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buyi...

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#52

Post by nickpinkston »

nknighthb wrote: post #45
rthomas6 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this unless you have absolutely zero tolerance for negotiating a price. Why could I not simply print out a Carmax price of a used car in which I'm interested, then take it to any other used car dealer with a comparable car? "Can you beat this price?" "Yes." --> I just beat the Carmax price. "No." --> I leave with my money (this one won't happen).

Car dealers are genetically incapable of giving such a direct answer. You can either deal with their evasive swindling and haggle anyway, or just assume the answer is "no".

If you can't haggle for a better priced car, have fun trying to close real deals / acquisitions...

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#53

Post by [deleted] »

rthomas6 wrote: post #44
msluyter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want the car buying process to be so excruciatingly painful so people will leave money on the table to "Just take my money and make the pain go away". Well, this is why I bought my last car used from Carmax. Sure, you probably spend more than you you might spend if you were willing to go to a dealer and haggle, but I found it to be worth the premium.

I don't understand this unless you have absolutely zero tolerance for negotiating a price. Why could I not simply print out a Carmax price of a used car in which I'm interested, then take it to any other used car dealer with a comparable car? "Can you beat this price?" "Yes." --> I just beat the Carmax price. "No." --> I leave with my money (this one won't happen).

[deleted]

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#54

Post by Contero »

darkarmani wrote: post #49

> The traditional dealer franchise system is best for car buyers, Wolters insists, because it preserves competition between dealerships selling the same products. I'm not sure I understand this argument. If I follow this argument to completion, what they are basically saying is that when you have lots of middlemen selling the same product, that "preserves" competition between them, limiting the amount of additional c…

I think the idea is that if the manufacturer was the only one selling, that they could inflate their prices higher than what the middleman overhead would be since they're the only one offering that product.

Why he thinks competition between brands isn't enough to counteract this I have no idea.

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#55

Post by ckrailo »

gnoway wrote: post #29
bdclimber14 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your latter point, it's certainly possible. You could replace "Ford or GM" with a large 90s computer manufacturer, e.g. HP, but Apple eventually decided they wanted to via Apple stores.

I don't know that Apple is a good model. They have high volume of relatively inexpensive gadgets that they've managed to convince people should not last very long. The lifetime and service expectations of a car are completely different. If I bought a car and the battery went dead, and the manufacturer's solution was 'ship it to us and we'll send you a replacement in x days' that would be a unacceptable. Likewise, peo…

Assuming you have an Apple Store nearby, the dead battery issue is dropping off your laptop at the store, going to lunch, and then picking up the repaired product.

Dealerships are more like Geek Squad.

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#56

Post by austenallred »

msluyter wrote: post #18
maeon3 wrote: post #9

Will Elon Musk fold under the pressure and cooperate with the dealer network when they offer to sell at low to no markup to bring him into the extortion racket of Car Dealers? I loathe buying cars so much because of the snakes that run those Dealerships. They want the car buying process to be so excruciatingly painful so people will leave money on the table to "Just take my money and make the pain go away". How far a…

They want the car buying process to be so excruciatingly painful so people will leave money on the table to "Just take my money and make the pain go away". Well, this is why I bought my last car used from Carmax. Sure, you probably spend more than you you might spend if you were willing to go to a dealer and haggle, but I found it to be worth the premium.

Just download the Vinny app and know what wholesale price is http://myvinny.com/

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#57

Post by onedognight »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #13
jonknee wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas likes to boast about smaller government and more personal freedom. Except with cars apparently. If the tea party were a state it would be Texas and Austin would be forced out.

> If the tea party were a state it would be Texas ... You appear to have internalized the meme that Tea Party is a synonym for Country Club Republican. This is probably not accurate.

> You appear to have internalized the meme that Tea Party is a synonym for Country Club Republican.

What does "Country Club Republican" mean to you? To me it means one who goes against their core values for the sake of a rich special interest at the expense of the masses. Here[0] every single House Tea Party member votes to protect oil subsidies despite this contradicting their core beliefs[1] in: "Protecting Free Markets", "Eliminating Excessive Taxes" and "Eliminating the Deficit Spending". In this case using taxes and/or debt to fund a non-free market.

[0] http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/01/147597/house-go...

[1] http://www.teaparty-platform.com/

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#58

Post by jff »

jonknee wrote: post #42
theevocater wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Houston (I'm assuming you are talking about Houston) is a really progressive place. I do love Austin (its a young city and I'm a young person) but its not some shining light in the center of Texas. It's really not that different than any other big city in Texas.

Houston was just about split in the last election (Obama won Harris County by 585 votes). Austin went heavy for Obama (60.2% to 36.2% or just under 100k votes). Houston has quite a ways to go before being liberal. The hispanic vote makes Texas as a whole pretty interesting though.

"Liberal", "good", and "Democrat" are not necessarily synonyms.

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#59

Post by pnathan »

nostromo wrote: post #7
auctiontheory wrote: post #2

I love how Texas, of all places, puts up the most regulatory hurdles against a new technology and business model.

I grew up in Idaho. People there will talk about how important limited government is... until you mention farm subsidies. Suddenly they'll speak convincingly about the benefits of centralized markets, price controls and protectionist trade policies with no sense of irony.

> Suddenly they'll speak convincingly about the benefits of centralized markets, price controls and protectionist trade policies with no sense of irony.

Well, maybe a farmer. This Idahoan doesn't hold with the farm subsidy system currently going.

Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers

#60

Post by nknighthb »

nickpinkston wrote: post #52
nknighthb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car dealers are genetically incapable of giving such a direct answer. You can either deal with their evasive swindling and haggle anyway, or just assume the answer is "no".

If you can't haggle for a better priced car, have fun trying to close real deals / acquisitions...

Not everyone does such things, and I'm sure among those that do, you'll find many who don't care to waste hours with used car slimesmen to save a few pennies.
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