Tesla's fight with America's car dealers • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by philhippus » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:21 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

blhack wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to carmax. full disclosure: I work in the automotive industry. (Although not for them)

I'm going to second this. I've bought two Jeeps, two Corvettes, a Buick, a Camry Hybrid, an Infiniti G37, and my wife's Lexus CT200h from Carmax (over ~12 years). The experience has always been extremely pleasant. I hate to haggle. Hate it. Carmax is awesome if you're looking for a used car.

I understand the aversion to haggling but, consider that it is one of the most economic uses of your time. If you haggle for 10 minutes and get $50 off, you are working at a rate of $300 per hour for the duration of the haggle. Not money to be sniffed at by any measure.

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

#62

Post by nickpinkston » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:32 PM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #60

nickpinkston wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's good practice though!

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

#63

Post by revelation » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:45 PM UTC

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…

This story was recounted in a yesterday article on the topic:

"I sat down in Palo Alto with Elon Musk, hat in hand, and said we want to partner with you, you can have it exactly as you want it — 'Tesla of Austin,' " said Wolters of the Texas dealers association. "You can do it just as you want to, within our law, you just can't own the showroom."

Musk, Wolters recalled, didn't cotton to the suggestion, leaving the room quickly, but not before pledging to spend an inordinate amount of money to battle automobile franchise laws.

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

#64

Post by revelation » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:50 PM UTC

Contero wrote: post #54

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.

Exactly. Price differences for the very same product is not competition, its market inefficiency.

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

#65

Post by revelation » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:54 PM UTC

atourgates wrote: post #19

axus wrote: post #6

The article brought up the point that Tesla owns all of the service centers. I don't care if Tesla owns all the dealers, but having a monopoly on Tesla repair would be bad for consumers. If the process for becoming a "Tesla mechanic" allowed competition with the Tesla service centers, that would be OK.

Do the provisions of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which basically say you can get your car serviced anywhere you want without voiding your manufacturers' warranty, not apply to Teslas?

I think we are up for another fight on this topic very soon, but not only with Tesla. There are existing laws that force manufacturers to provide standardized maintenance interfaces, provide guidelines to shops etc., but increasingly cars are controlled by propietary computer systems.

And the whole thing takes a turn for the absurd when you consider electric cars. Sure, force manufacturers to provide documentation on how to replace a bumper.. but its purely naive to think you could have just any mechanic service a completely computer controlled high-voltage battery compartment.

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

#66

Post by mikeash » Mon, May 20, 2013, 11:57 PM UTC

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...

Note that it's not "can't", but "don't find it worthwhile". I might pour my heart into a big acquisition while simply walking away at the first sign of hassle when trying to save $500 on a car.

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

#67

Post by adventured » Tue, May 21, 2013, 12:00 AM UTC

In a sane system, America's car dealers would be viewed as an illegal cartel that interrupts trade and would be abolished. Indeed, a trade-interrupting cartel is exactly what they had in mind as they pursued a legislative agenda for decades to make it nearly impossible to sell new cars in the US without going through their system.

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

#68

Post by adventured » Tue, May 21, 2013, 12:05 AM UTC

lquist wrote: post #26

Money can't buy press like this. Suddenly Elon Musk is the underdog fighting the vested interests that be and Tesla is the little engine that could.

Fortunately for Tesla, they have a good decade of playing the underdog card ahead of them. Ford and GM do $280 billion in sales combined.

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

#69

Post by nathantotten » Tue, May 21, 2013, 12:33 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #68

lquist wrote: post #26

Money can't buy press like this. Suddenly Elon Musk is the underdog fighting the vested interests that be and Tesla is the little engine that could.

Fortunately for Tesla, they have a good decade of playing the underdog card ahead of them. Ford and GM do $280 billion in sales combined.

It isn't Ford and GM fighting this, it is the dealers. I actually doubt that GM and Ford care much about protecting the dealers. My guess is, or should I say hope, that GM and Ford executives are looking at Tesla and thinking about how they might make more money with that business model in the future.

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

#70

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, May 21, 2013, 12:47 AM UTC

philhippus wrote: post #61

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to second this. I've bought two Jeeps, two Corvettes, a Buick, a Camry Hybrid, an Infiniti G37, and my wife's Lexus CT200h from Carmax (over ~12 years). The experience has always been extremely pleasant. I hate to haggle. Hate it. Carmax is awesome if you're looking for a used car.

I understand the aversion to haggling but, consider that it is one of the most economic uses of your time. If you haggle for 10 minutes and get $50 off, you are working at a rate of $300 per hour for the duration of the haggle. Not money to be sniffed at by any measure.

You know how long I had to haggle at a shady Toyota dealership to get my brother his Yaris? 4 hours. 4 HOURS. Haggling does not take 10 minutes at a car dealership once you get to a certain point in the process.

I make enough money that I can throw it away on not haggling for a car. Carmax can keep whatever I left on the table by not dealing with a douchebag car dealership.