Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meh. I only need so much money.
I'm only kidding dude!
I know :) I'm just giving you a hard time!
Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
81–90 of 93 posts
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#82Money 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.
I'd say it's legitimate. If you're the youngest successful American car company and the only one from this millennium I'd say it's not wrong to do. It's similar to how Stanford is thought of as a relatively new school because it was organized in 1891, much more recently than rival schools.
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#83Wow. In "The Land of the Free" a company cannot sell its own products as it pleases and is potentially forced to go through middlemen that provide no added value other then forcing folks to haggle?
This is not medicine we're talking about (where I can see pharmacists as an important part of the system).
How can it even be suggested to be illegal to open up a store and sell your own product? Should Apple be barred from selling their own products in Apple stores and go through Walmart instead?
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#84Earlier 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.
Just download the Vinny app and know what wholesale price is http://myvinny.com/
Do they follow the black book value?
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#85Will 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…
Go to carmax. full disclosure: I work in the automotive industry. (Although not for them)
Or get an auto broker through your credit union.
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#86Earlier 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.
Just download the Vinny app and know what wholesale price is http://myvinny.com/
Wow, this looks great. Too bad I use Android. I'm in the market for a used car so this would be really useful.
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#87Earlier 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.
I don't care if Houston is 'Liberal'. I prefer pragmatic and reasonable. If the two go hand and hand, so be it, but I don't think that's always the case.
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#88> 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.
> I think the idea is that if the manufacturer was the only one selling
But aren't they the only ones selling tesla cars to the dealers anyway? Couldn't they just inflate their prices to the dealers?
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
No, the tea party as a group lines up with Texas on immigration, guns, taxes, gays, science, religion, etc etc. Country Club Republicans stay in the enclaves.
I still can't figure out why you think 'lives in Texas' means something other than 'Texan', other than successful left-wing advertising and right-wing propaganda. Texas is pretty much a microcosm of the US with an independent streak and a strong geographical affinity.
Re: Tesla's fight with America's car dealers
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just download the Vinny app and know what wholesale price is http://myvinny.com/
Do they follow the black book value?
They use the dealership feeds, so they have every transaction of the car, and compare that to other prices of comparable cars in your area, and show you all that data.