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Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

teslamotors.com

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Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#91

Post by jusben1369 »

jusben1369 wrote: post #29

Musk is massively disingenuous and rather insulting to our intelligence. But he's a heck of a salesman and makes a wonderful car. Like many persuasive people he arrives at an answer and backs into rationale but makes it appear the other way around. I'll give you just one example. The law of the land in NJ is that you can't sell in NJ unless through a dealership. That's the current law. Those laws need to change to al…

Here's another view worth reading: http://mashable.com/2014/03/12/new-jersey-tesla-dealers/

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#92

Post by digikata »

kyrra wrote: post #66
digikata wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Planet Money episode[1] gives a interesting of the history of autodealers, with some additional info regarding the latest twists that had come up due the fiscal crisis too. [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-...

That's a fairly one-sided view on the situation. Just some random points: * Saturn tried the "no-haggle" new car buying experience. People generally liked this, though Saturn doesn't exist anymore. * "closing a dealer is hard". Dealers have to pay for the land they own. The cars on their lot tend to be bought with money from the bank (a bank really owns the cars). The dealers just have to pay insurance/interest on th…

If a dealership middle man is providing so much value to the customer, why then does it need any legislative protection? Real estate agents are a bad example, as that industry is also dug in with legislative protections against more competitive business models.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#93

Post by stcredzero »

300bps wrote: post #9
caycep wrote: post #6

Throwing it down publicly to Chris Christie - now that is confidence!

Chris Christie all but had the Republican presidential nomination sewn up before the bridge closure scandal. Between that and this nonsense, his reputation as a "non-politician" has been tremendously tarnished.

Given that everyone in the US, starting at least a level below State Governor, is basically required to play political hardball just to survive, why does anyone in the US believe anyone's "non-politician" or "non-insider" political marketing?

Even Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi knew how these things worked.

The best one can hope for are high functioning sociopaths who are somehow invested in the betterment of society -- basically Sherlock with better packaging. That's not to say there aren't real heroes and statesmen out there. Just good luck with distinguishing them from the hordes of sociopaths.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#94

Post by MartinCron »

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.

I literally gasped when I read that line. I can't speak to it's political effectiveness, but it's good writing.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#96

Post by flyinglizard »

Look beyond this local issue, and you'll see how we're in the middle of a huge power shift. It used to be that businessmen like Musk had to lobby, pressure and bribe, now they just need to appeal directly to the public, completely bypassing the political system in the process.

It hasn't started with Musk, of course. The most obvious display of such power was the website blackout that led to the SOPA repeal. That showed politicians who really holds the power. These companies barely flex their muscles either; just imagine what would happen if Google decided to get into public shaming in its homepage for entities trying to block its Fiber initiative.

The public no longer believes politicians, but they all believe Zuckerberg, Page and Musk. That makes for an interesting future.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#97

Post by nazgulnarsil »

Edmond wrote: post #86
toomuchtodo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? They adapt, as all economies must to the changing winds.

That is an optimistic take, the evidence so far with the move of manufacturing to low-wage countries suggests otherwise.

Oh no! I might take a slight hit to my standard of living while the developing world massively increases theirs!

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#98

Post by oddevan »

smacktoward wrote: post #53

> The evidence is clear: when has an American startup auto company ever succeeded by selling through auto dealers? The last successful American car company was Chrysler, which was founded almost a century ago, and even they went bankrupt a few years ago, along with General Motors. Since the founding of Chrysler, there have been dozens of failures, Tucker and DeLorean being simply the most well-known. In recent years,…

You make a valid point. In Musk's defense, I can't think of any car manufacturers that have used direct sales on this scale, so while the correlation does not prove causation here, it doesn't disprove it either. He seems to simply be stating that this aspect of their business model (direct sales) is a key part of Tesla's business and one that he believes is essential to its survival.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#99

Post by MartinCron »

smackfu wrote: post #49
peeters wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the distribution mechanism in itself affect the quality? It's just a way of getting new software on the car. You can have the exact same standards of quality for an update installed over the air as one installed at a service centre.

The easier it is to update software, the less important that it is bug-free.

I would say that the easier it is to update software, the more likely it is to be bug free.

It's easier to test one change in isolation than to try to figure out which of these 20/200/2000 commits broke things.

Re: Elon Musk: To the People of New Jersey

#100

Post by ericd »

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.

I think it does a good job of reminding everyone that there's a trend of corruption in his opponent's administration, which is a pretty useful political trick.
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