Sometimes it is necessary to protect important principles in society. You can't discriminate based on race - that limits choice but who would support the contrary? You can't defraud people in selling products - ditto. You can't buy land to build a smokestack plant in a quiet residential neighborhood - ditto. Many other examples might be cited. In all such cases, the law intervenes to limit private choices. And there are few who would not applaud most such limits. Private choice is not the end all and be all of a society.
Yet, in a free society, private choice should be the overwhelming norm and it should require surmounting very large barriers before legal meddling can limit the choices people can make to serve their own best interests.
Unfortunately, in old-line industries, this idea got flipped and, for years, private choice succumbed to whatever a combination of big government, big corporations, and big unions dictated to the public. Back in the day, writers such as John Kenneth Galbraith even used to celebrate the idea of a "new industrial state" in which the old private competition would yield to ever increasing concentrations of power among government, industry, and labor, who would in turn find ways to "cooperate" with one another in ushering in a more enlightened form of carving up markets and their benefits than mere freedom and competition might provide.
Well, the bureaucratic edict in New Jersey is a relic of that old thinking, perhaps perversely and cynically applied to buy off lobbyists and influencers but rationalized nonetheless by the old paternalistic thinking that the consumer is ultimately best served by having his betters making his buying choices for him rather than being allowed to make them for himself.
Other than in this cynical sense, there is no possible way in which this outrage can possibly be characterized as "protecting" the consumer.
Perhaps the main contribution made by the tech revolution since the 1970s is that it ushered in an era of huge freedom in how people managed their private lives. The internet in particular has been a huge liberating force and so young people especially have come to take it for granted that they can freely make all sorts of choices without having to feel burdened or restricted by the heavy hand of the law. Of course, exceptions can and do remain because abuses can pop up in all sorts of ways without any legal restraints. But, that said, the overwhelming presumption today is that, yes, I can do pretty much what I feel is best for me unless there is a very good reason why I should be restricted from doing so.
And that means, if I live in New Jersey, I should be able to find a local Tesla outlet in which I can buy my electric car if I want. The thought that some politician or bureaucrat should be able to dictate serious limits on that choice is repugnant to anyone who thinks that way. And, in my view, rightly so.
Unfortunately, where the old political pull persists, the law can be abused to protect old-line market players under some guise or other that is a mere pretext for guarding them from competitors who might offer something better and wind up dislodging them in a free market. Legal regulation is not to be rejected out of hand, of course. Maybe the old-line taxi services ought not to have their business cherry-picked by new market entrants who do things differently. Maybe there ought to be some limits in an urban context on absolute free space-letting if this creates nuisances or the like. The line can sometimes be tricky to draw and can require careful and fair-minded judgments given the interests at stake. But how often do we have situations where nothing of the kind happens and instead the issues are decided, in essence, by who pays off whom and who has what degree of political or bureaucratic pull that can be used to protect systems and structures that are far inferior to what the new competition might offer.
I believe that, in these sorts of cases, the tech impetus will ultimately prevail and push things toward broader and freer areas of choice for consumers. Even with this rear-guard action in New Jersey, Teslas can be bought direct from the manufacturer just a short distance away or via remote ordering. And tech-inspired sales and distribution methods in this and a broad swath of other fields will mean that those seeking to limit consumer choice by protecting local turf through bureaucratic pull will be fighting what will ultimately prove to be a losing battle. As consumers, we are not bottled up anymore. If we don't like something that is really stupid, we can more and more work around it using other solutions.
And so we can, I think, basically see that what the local commission is trying to do in New Jersey is much more a last gasp for the old ways as opposed to being a harbinger that will limit Tesla (or any similar new-wave competitor) from accomplishing its goals. Tesla is right to oppose and fight it (and presents a compelling argument for its view). But the action stands out as so bizarre precisely because it is so out of step with the tech impetus that rules our day. It will stand legally (courts are loathe to intervene in such matters). But the longer-term political winds are against it, in my view, and it will prove a temporary obstacle at most as the modern tech impetus advances.
Actually I'd say that governments typically get away with paternalistic medding with free consumer choices.
Elon Musk has the right of this argument, and it's heartening to see a CEO take aim at the politicians that are doing that paternalistic meddling.
But I don't see Tesla's CEO fighting back against paternalistic governmental meddling that artificially raises the price of gas cars while producing artificial revenue for Tesla:
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/04/cant-afford-a-new-car-wa... By the government’s own account, the stringent new CAFE standards will increase the average cost of a new car by $3,000 in 2025. The Energy Information Administration warned that new cars priced under $15,000 may no longer be available by 2025.
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/teslas-secr... If a company comes up short, it has to pay a penalty of up to $5,000 per credit. Or it can buy credits from a company like Tesla, which happens to earn a lot of credits on every car it makes. Tesla has sold enough credits to post its first profit.
So here the government is ensuring a more efficient and free market, not doing any "paternalistic meddling".
Tesla is benefiting from government intervention much more directly. I'm surprised that nobody else has mentioned this yet.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20...
Elon Musk is a hypocrite and no friend of free market capitalism.
Contrary to Mr. Musk's assertion of conspiracy, what seems to have happened here is that there were some unfortunate laws on the books that weren't being enforced. Various business interests (ie the car dealers) complained to the Motor Vehicle Commission. The MVC created a new regulation to reflect the laws already on the books.
Unfortunate? Yes. Should that law get repealed? Absolutely. Should the Governor get involved and push to get the law fixed? Yes.
Conspiracy? No. Suggestions of mafia-like behavior? Childish and insulting, but definitely gets headlines and attention.
What if the law had suggested that Office and Automotive equipment could not be sold directly (perhaps harkening back to a time when the Large Automotive and Office Equipment resellers had built up their distributorship); are you seriously suggesting that means Apple Stores should have been shut down in New Jersey?
(This is probably not that interesting to most people, not even those who live in New Jersey, but it might be some evidence for - or, perhaps, against... - the idea that this is a strange law.)
I understand Galbraith is a Libertarian boogeyman and Adam Smith is viewed as the opposite, but they share a heck of a lot in common. It's sad to see such easily refuted ignorance elevated to the top of HN comments threads.
If someone refuses to serve or otherwise interact with me on account of my race, I would not use the threat of deadly force to change his behavior, nor would I advocate that anyone else do that on my behalf.
That is not to say that I approve of racial discrimination, or that I would do absolutely nothing about it. I am only stating what I would not do about it.
Gotta hand it to Musk - that's some smooth salestalk in what is supposed to be just voicing a public opinion against shady politics. I was halfway through the third sentence when I caught myself thinking - "indeed, that does sound like such a better dea--- Hey wait a minute!". Musk, you sneaky bastard! Never missing a chance to remind me why I want a dang tesla.
He is right and it's a terrific salespitch. That's the best kind of right.
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.
Synchronizing three Weber carbs? Oh, yeah, good times. Good times that involved poisonous mercury to boot. Port fuel injection, please.
Don't get me wrong, there was a time I liked working on cars, too. So much so, I was a professional ASE-certified mechanic for a while. I also like my Scion xB that in 70K miles we've done nothing to except insert gas, change the oil, and put a set of tires on it. I don't miss having to slap new points and plugs in it before a weekend trip.
And for the Tesla tie-in, our Leaf is about as much of an appliance as you're going to get in a car. There's something to be said about a car whose maintenance schedule doesn't fill a page.
> Reliable, boring, convenient transportation is great sometimes, like when you're driving someone going into labor to the hospital.
Or great even for something as simple as getting to work in the morning. I've owned my share of Triumphs and Fiats. I enjoy my dumbed down existence that doesn't involve a late-night session under the hood because I have to be at work the next day.
I mean, I see your point. But if most folks are like the cranky, older version of me now, if they wanted finicky transportation that needs constant maintenance they'd buy a horse.
However, when you talk nostalgically about the good old days of cars being "mechanical devices one could understand and tinker with", and then turn around and talk about the new generation of electric cars being somehow equivalent, it seems a little logically inconsistent to me.
Make no mistake, a Tesla is just as much of a "hunk of plastic" when it comes to fixing or modifying it yourself. Expecting any complex piece of modern electronics to be similarly hackable to a car from the last century is a little unrealistic.
EDIT: sounds like we're basically in agreement on this. I misunderstood the previous comment.
It is possible to run a completely open software stack, and very easy to run an almost-completely open software stack.
My hope is that open-source hardware (both electronic and mechanical) will be abundant enough in the future that I could feasibly fabricate a new ECU from scratch, or 3D print a new evaporator for my AC.
It's much the same as computers. The original Apples were understandable devices. The lack of miniaturization meant that hackers could figure out how everything was working and play with it. That activity would be ridiculous with modern-day CPUs/components as the complexity has increased by orders of magnitude and the miniaturization has reached levels where specialized equipment is needed to look at what's going on that costs well beyond what can fit in a hobbyist's budget. Yet modern-day computers are still programmable and people are still learning and hacking. The only difference is that this learning is happening a few abstraction levels removed from the actual hardware. The same will be true with cars, provided manufacturers are as cooperative as Tesla seems to be.
Musk is too smart to know hes comparing oranges to apples.
He is only partially right. I say to Mr. Musk - I will agree with your complain when you sell me your car for $18,000 - an average price for an average car in the US. Why it doesnt cost $120,000, like your models, you ask? Well, exactly because of what you mentioned: they use cheaper parts with less engineering that are bound to break faster and then they will make up some profit on the parts. That's why Mr. Musk, they profit from service on car that is TEN times less expensive than your car.
If you asking me I prefer to pay cheaper upfront and be able to treat it like a pair of shoes that I will be able to exchange for a newer model in 2-3 years, when this gets me bored or wears out.
Other than that -- always love to hear brilliant people sticking it out to the lobbyists and corrupted over-bureaucratized politicians! At this stage of things within US, Musk is sticking it to so many groups (building rackets "10-times cheaper than otherwise tax payers would've paid") and pissing off so many powerful people, that I wouldn't be surprised to see him dead sooner or later (although of course I wish him all the best!)
Turns out the Model S at $1,466 as optioned is more expensive than a Leaf. :) Not that I wouldn't kill for a 300 mile range...
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-autos-303-dea...
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.
We trust the manufacturer to correctly service our cars, manually or OTA.
> 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.
Right. It does close the door to Christie deciding to do a turnaround and adopt the issue as a crusader for the people. Actually, considering that Gov. Christie is a politically powerful man with an apparent history of underhanded retaliation, I think it's really the last thing you want to do.
Chris Christie's administration closed 3 lanes of the George Washington Bridge for a bogus "traffic study", making tons of Traffic. It was political payback against the city of Fort Lee who has a mayor who wouldn't endorse Christie when he was running for governor. Christie says he didn't know about it but some in his administration have left or been asked to leave over it.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/chris-christie-b...
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...
> In public choice theory, rent-seeking is spending wealth on political lobbying to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating wealth. The effects of rent-seeking are reduced economic efficiency through poor allocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, national decline, and income inequality. Current studies of rent-seeking focus on the manipulation of regulatory agencies to gain monopolistic advantages in the market while imposing disadvantages on competitors.
You go to the dealer specifically asking for an electric car and the salesman tries to make you change your mind to another vehicle. Considering the bonus structure at most dealerships, there is no incentive to sell an electric vehicle.
First, the dealership may choose not to participate in selling electric models at all.
Second, there is usually only one or two people allowed to sell an electric vehicle because your salesperson was not trained. Who wants to lose a customer and a bonus to another salesman?
Third, it takes longer to sell an electric vehicle because you have to explain everything that gas car owners already take for granted. You make less money by spending more time. This also leads most salesmen to push for 10% over MSRP, harming sales.
Finally, some very corrupt dealers go so far as to deliberately discharge their vehicles and leave them that way so they won't have to try selling them. Dealers have little incentive to sell the entire lineup of manufacturer vehicles if they have to train and hire more sales staff for one model. Some dealership owners may even may be politically opposed to the idea of electric vehicles.
Big businesses and the politicians who love them often rely heavily on erasing the perception of that difference.
There is some bias there. You judge Tesla a better product, so of course all the regulation that are against its sales are going to feel unjust.
I have difficulties to really follow this whole stuff (I live in EU, the whole buying a car in the US seems a very 'exiting' experience, at least when reading about it on Reddit), there does not seem to be any sort of nice non-partisan explanation of the problem and why those regulations where put in place.
Actually Musk is the clearest answer that is not either: "Tesla great, fuck the regulation" or the opposite, "Musk dick, cannot follow the regulations like everybody else", but what's PR and what's factual ?
Edit: Just realised why it irked me this time. I was reading about EU decision of standardizing the power plug for smartphone to micro-USB. People were all happy for regulation there. When people complained that now the we would get stuck with micro-usb forever, people dismissed it saying the EU will just change the plug when a better one comes up as if the EU/US hadn't got an awful track record at keeping their regulation and spec up-to-date, like in this case for example.
* Free-market is for the poor (in every sense: money, political power, etc.)
* The rich (again in every sense) know that in order for you to become obscenely rich you need a state-protected, but not state-owned monopoly.
That's how wall street works actually: We share the loses, they get the winnings... It's risk free win-win for them.
Those who preach, rarely practice.
Only some portions of the electorate and politicians preach free-market economy.
This part works better as an argument for "don't start a car company" than anything else.
I mean, yes, Tucker and DeLorean and Fisker et al used dealers, and they all failed, but that doesn't mean that they failed because they used dealers. The people who worked for them all consumed oxygen, too; it doesn't follow that we'd all be driving DeLoreans today if only we lived in an artificial vacuum.
I appreciate where he's coming from, and I think he should be allowed to sell his cars directly to anyone who wants to buy one that way, but shoddy "correlation equals causation" arguments don't help his case.
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 allow a direct to consumer sale. Map that to this quote "ended your right to purchase vehicles at a manufacturer store within the state." Brilliant. "You lost something you had" is so much more powerful than "We need to persuade the legislator to make a change to add something new"
Seriously, I dig his cars. And his vision. And I suspect that to attack such large entrenched markets you have to have this kind of maniacal drive. I just hate being misled and manipulated - no matter who the person.
Agree. And makes you wonder a bit about the marketing materials surrounding these cars, huh?
He's trying to make as if he's acting in the best interest of the people of the state of NJ. When it is very clear that his motivation is his own interests and selling his car. And making more money for himself. Most businesses don't make it that obvious.
Another word I will use is immature. His argument sounds like a spoiled kid who doesn't get what he wants and is going to call out the teacher at school hoping to berate them into just caving in. [1] Real life doesn't work that way. Not to mention the fact that there simply aren't enough people in NJ [2] that care about buying a Tesla to protest and make change on this.
[1] "Hey great argument no I don't mind if you insulted me because you are right!".
[2] Guess what? In Pennsylvania there are many more people that don't want to buy liquor at state stores (which they have to) and that hasn't changed yet.
You cannot possibly be saying that with a straight face.
Pretty sure Musk has the high road rather solidly booked all to himself when it comes to his credibility concerning trying to change things for the better when you compare him to any other auto corp.
I don't see how these goals are mutually exclusive. And saying that he wants to sell his car is falling into the realm of ridiculously obvious.
Most businesses don't make it that obvious.
Really? Most business make merely a token effort at pretending every action they take isn't just about the bottom line. I don't see how pandering to customers makes one business any 'better' than another.
What is "immature" about calling out a stupid and corrupt law?
In your vigor, you seem to have misled only yourself.
Are you suggesting that Tesla is actively breaking the law in NJ right now? The rule change doesn't take place until April 1st, which is why they have to close their store by then. If they aren't operating illegally right now, then the commission has ended our ability to purchase these cars.
Secondly, if you can only sell through a dealership, why can't Tesla just own some dealerships?
That's how a lot of government rule-making works. The law says something general and the specifics are left to departments and commissions. In this case, it's not clear that this particular rule is outside the plain meaning of the law; they just hadn't gotten to writing it before because Tesla presents a novel circumstance. Of course, it's difficult to hold somebody accountable for breaking a rule that hadn't been written yet, so "actively breaking the law" is probably overstating it.
Secondly, if you can only sell through a dealership, why can't Tesla just own some dealerships?
I am not an expert, but I imagine the law was written in such a way that "franchise" is defined as an entity independent of any manufacturer.
Unfortunately, these sorts of laws are often vague and confusing, and boil down a lot to the state's (sometime capricious) choices about what to enforce and how. The governor's ability to direct the state's executive branch is widely and correctly seen as a huge power.
So the law is vague and requires the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to fill in the detail. In fact, the NJMVC itself granted a permit to Tesla to sell cars in the state (as stated in your article). But now the NJMVC has reviewed that decision at a higher level and has decided it made a mistake
http://mashable.com/2014/03/11/tesla-new-jersey/
If permits are being revoked, that sounds like a change to me.
You can say that a proper interpretation of the law would have always led to that outcome, and that Tesla doesn't have a right to complain that the law is finally being enforced correctly. But that presupposes that laws have unambiguous pre-existing interpretations.
Although the text of the state code isn't changing, it seems clear to me that "the law"--as in the actual regulatory environment experienced by Tesla--is changing in a negative, albeit somewhat predictable manner. Was Musk glib in describing this in his letter? Sure. But I don't think it rises to the point of being disingenuous.
I have no idea where you came up with this line of thought.
Seriously, how can you be on the "we've got to enforce current law" side? It's so ridiculously anti free market that I'm sure all the Tea Partiers are having cognitive dissonance over this.
One of the things I love about Elon Musk, besides the fact that he has the balls to tackle hard, capital-intensive problems, is that he has a pragmatic, realist approach. Getting SpaceX NASA contracts was not something everyone would have done, not when many were marching to the drumbeat of "private space exploration is superior to public." And apparently, he's not being above throwing a recent scandal in Chris Christie's face.
The whole article is a great play though. Note that he starts by explaining the rationale for the existing laws, validating their original purpose, then showing why that rationale doesn't apply to Tesla. This is wonderful persuasive writing.
Look at the economics of a Tesla dealership, for every car sold in New Jersey, how much of that money stays in New Jersey? And let's be honest, being a car salesman is not the most lucrative or respectable of trades. The jobs are usually temporary so down on their luck folks can try and earn some money while looking for something else. Ensuring a state has dealerships possibly out of work people can fall into for temporary jobs is like having a social welfare program without having it on the books.
It sucks, but if you were a legislator in NJ, would you rather Tesla's profit went all out of state to Tesla, or if your citizens could get a crack at some of it and have it circulate around in the local economy for a bit.
It's unpopular, and us tech folks don't like it, but from a NJ legislator's position it's pretty rational.
The correct answer of course is to foster a local auto industry and get a company to make and build and sell cars from out of NJ elsewhere. But that's too impossibly forward looking.
I was making a similar point earlier. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if over time we start seeing more laws passed to encourage more of the money citizens of states spend to stay in-state. I think this is going to become a serious concern over time, how are local economies going to thrive if we keep buying stuff online and all the major online companies are somewhere in SV?
And if you, as a legislator, think bringing money and jobs into your state doesn't matter, you have another thing coming:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22attract+business+to+the+s...
You'll find endless concern from every state about how to attract businesses and jobs to their state. It's not a coincidence that Hyundai opens a manufacturing plant in Alabama instead of someplace cheaper or more recognizable.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2002/04/06/fin_alabama_put_...
The problem with New Jersey doing this vs. Alabama is that the mechanism for Alabama to get Hyundai is pretty direct and pretty clear. Offer incentives to Hyundai, get a plant and a couple hundred jobs (plus the indirect halo effect on the economy outside of the plant).
For New Jersey it just looks like they're protecting shady car dealers by generating an artificial monopoly. The optics on it are terrible, it looks corrupt and petty, and the public rationale "it helps the consumer" is clearly false, but the practice is pretty much the same.
There's absolutely nothing that prevents Tesla from setting up a franchised dealer network in New Jersey, selling their cars cheap to the dealers and then having the dealers keep a cut while generating jobs in the state. It's "spreading the wealth around" from CA to NJ a bit. The only thing that prevents Tesla from doing this is that Tesla wants to maximize the profit share they see from the car sales.
The thing is, because Tesla has been very public about it, they know there is room in that large 25% profit margin per vehicle (Honda makes about 15% per hybrid) to "share a little".
In the Tesla model, you eliminate all those for a "test drive experience genius" or whatever they call it, 3 or 4 to a "test drive experience center", NJ gets the sales tax on the car, and whatever they can squeeze out of the 3 or 4 guys who work at the Tesla dealership and the 2 mechanics who work in back.
If Tesla, an extremely minor player in the industry right now, gets to do this, why doesn't everybody else? Overnight all those endless seas of car dealerships, representing millions upon millions of dollars NJ wants to capture into it's state economy go bankrupt and now nearly all of the money is going to CA, Japan and Detroit with a handful of in-state jobs to man the direct-to-consumer "test drive centers". And now for the out-of-work accountant or phone engineer? He used to have a chance to at least work a commission only car salesman job for a few months till he found better work. Now he has nothing to go to in the interim and overall state unemployment ticks up a half percentage point.
As an engineer I see lots of built-in inefficiency in all this. So I understand the HN outrage. But NJ doesn't want efficiency, they want people in jobs and off welfare. Each person in a job is a chance for the State to capture a few hundred dollars off of each car sold -- not as taxes, but as GDP (which will eventually float the government's coffers as taxes anyways), rather than paying out for social welfare programs. It's in the interest of good governance to have an inefficient system, so that there's lots of places citizens in the state can reach into the car-to-consumer pipeline and extract some money from it. And they can do all this without having to put in place unpopular social welfare programs or increase taxes or some other public works program because they can regulate the private market to force it to be more inefficient than it should be.
From a macro perspective, NJ's behavior here is completely rational. I don't agree with it personally, I think there's better ways to do this. But it's easy to explain without resorting to name calling or disparaging thinking about the competency of NJ's governing officials.
That can be said to be true about everything. Why allow online software sales, or Amazon purchases? Force them to have local BNM shops.
In your example, states are actively trying to collect at least sales tax. New Jersey is no exception
http://www.northjersey.com/news/sales-tax-decision-could-be-...
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?
People are allowed to have multiple motivations.
They adapt, as all economies must to the changing winds.
What do you mean? Isn't there economic value in owning a Tesla? Just because the money flows the other way doesn't mean there isn't value in owning the product.
When you have a dealership, you have local folks working there thus some of the money that car buyers spend gets circulated locally, which would not be the case if all you have to do is point and click to get your car delivered.
This is a serious concern as more economic transaction is virtualized.
This is weird. Really weird. It's raw and exaggerated...almost a cartoon. I'd believe this is raw Elon Musk, but why is someone letting raw Elon Musk define this campaign? Remember raw Bill Gates? Did we learn nothing from that? Or maybe we learned a lot. And "we" have developed an affinity--a need--for the brash genius.
I'm probabilistically wrong--Tesla's doing well. But something about this appeal, the wording, makes me react atavistically, "Go fuck yourself. Nothing is obvious."
I had an argument here, but it didn't seem important, so whatever. Dogecoin and such. Also hyperloop. But really, hyperloop. But remember, I was right about New Jersey. Poor New Jersey.
Between that and this nonsense, his reputation as a "non-politician" has been tremendously tarnished.
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.
... 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.
Everyone is talking about how we can't trust Elon Musk since he is acting in his rational self-interest. Yet why should we assume that Christie is acting out of the pure goodness of the heart? Politicians too act in their self-interest and that kind of self-interest often involves maximization of power. The currency of politics is not just cash (that helps too, of course!), but also favours: you can be sure that in return for this favour, he'll ask something from the dealership industry which would beneficial to his political career (e.g., the first thing that pops would be to accept additional vehicle taxes, which would help Christie carry and receive donations from environmentally conscious voters in a liberal state susceptible to flooding)
(Edit: remove an incorrect assertion. Laws regarding specific individuals are constitutional, just not "bills of attainder")
Except that Elon Musk's rational self-interest appears to genuinely involve a vision of the world I really like. Given all the money and effort he's put in toward that vision and the many hours of public speaking and personally answering questions consistent with that, you'd better hope he's the real deal.
As an aside, that's actually not true - laws that are intended to benefit one person are passed all the time. [1]
What the constitution forbids are bills of attainder, which are bills that declare a person guilty of a crime.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_bill#United_States
It's an interesting future. We are approaching the age of malware infected cars. Does anyone have more info about what the limitations of this internet connected system is? What is possible if someone roots my car?
- Can they disable security system?
- Unlock the car? Lock me out of the car?
- Feed false data (slow destruction of car)? Feed false speed-data? False directions?
- Obtain the cars whereabouts?
- Disable breaks (would assume not)?
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.
People are given a lot of information from a lot of sources nowadays, which means they're better at analysing it and weeding out the bullshit(typically).
Your point assumes we're blindly following what they have to say without analysing it.
I can imagine a lot of people aren't. A lot of people may be annoyed with their rights or privacy taken away (SOPA), or laws being changed when it doesn't benefit them (this). At which point, people complain.
If any tech company tried to push a law that didn't benefit the public in an obvious way, I bet most people wouldn't like it.
Or people find the version of the "truth" they most agree with and just go with that. Given the huge industry of politically-charged "news" organizations, I think there's a significant amount of people that are doing this instead (sadly).
I suspect they really only have a portion of the public -- including Musk.
If a dealer is the company who actually sales cars and the factory is the one that produces them, why do they need a franchise in between? And how come that a dealer is comparable to a manufacturer Tesla? Why do they have conflict of interests selling non-gasoline cars?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading
It's the sort of hyper-liberterianism that looks and sounds like a passable option until you consider it for more than a second. And then there are the proponents for this kind of insanity...
Well then what about BMW with bumper to bumper service as only one example. That's a high end car that you don't pay for service for (iirc) 3 years. They cover everything. Wiper blades you name it. I think last I checked the same was true for Subaru and I think even Jeep Chrysler is doing this (may be wrong about that one).
And that's not a conflict of interest but rather a business model. In the case of cars which do make money from service they therefore in theory have a lower price for the vehicle.
This argument is like saying that you are a better airline because you don't charge for luggage. Presumably that extra revenue allows you to offer lower ticket prices. And surprise that is what happens. Back when airlines were regulated (and had less competition) and they charged way higher prices they didn't have to nickle and dime you to make a profit.
Tesla, on the other hand, does have all its new electric car components which are all very impressive technically but about which relatively little is yet known about service life and long-term service costs.
Really, this is about Musk wanting control over the complete experience. Nothing wrong with that (see, e.g., Apple). And I'm no particular fan of the auto dealer experience. (Though I don't buy luxury brands today which, I've been told, unsurprisingly offer a better dealer experience in general.) But you'll end up with dealers of some sort one way or the other.
The dealer experience is pretty darn good.
I took delivery on a new Porsche. The transmission had a problem. So they flew a new one in from Germany by Fedex at a cost of perhaps $8,000 (after all it's pretty heavy) in air freight I was told. Loaner cars? Last time they gave me a brand new Cayman (I own a 911) with 300 miles on it. Other times Cayene Hybrids with 3k miles.
It's not without it's bumps of course (routine service maintenance was $450 to keep up the warranty Mercedes does something similar). But if you can't afford that type of thing you don't buy this type of car (at least not a new one).
The standards are higher for several reasons. One is that people with money don't take shit generally and are very demanding. So they keep the people working there in line and don't take bs answers and complain so much.
I brought the car in to fix a problem and when I was driving down 95 the repair broke. I called them they towed the car back and got the repair mechanic back from home (he had left for the day) and fixed it while I waited. I felt bad for him he was literally fearing for losing his job.
When a dealer sells you a "lemon" that racks up thousands of dollars in warranty-covered repairs it's actually a bonanza for them.
The conflict of interest Musk is referring to is that dealers won't want to sell extremely maintenance free cars because their revenue on the back-end would be miniscule.
Wiper blades are what, $30 a year if you really care about them?
In the end dealerships are about making money from their clients by "adding value". Sadly most of the time that value is having the black car in stock -vs- someone down the street who only has the blue one.
It's sad to see a government more concerned about backing the establishment then creating an environment for free trade and new business models.
"Cross an imaginary line a few miles down the road that the auto dealers can't access and everything will be A-OK!"
This is everything that is wrong with politics in a sentence.
That's total BS. Any dealer who invests money in a new show room to sell a new brand of car (think of Mini which was picked up by many legacy BMW dealers and is sold in many mini only showrooms) is going to put in the effort to sell the product. We aren't talking about putting Teslas on the same floor as Mercedes. It would be trivial for Tesla to insist that the product be sold out of a dedicated facility which would cost a dealer money to construct. The idea that that dealer would simply push another product (or the salesman) in another showroom that he operates is ridiculous. And contrary to the behavior of existing multi line large dealerships.
In it, some argue that "A no haggle, painless car buying experience will eventually come; but it won't be without your local dealers"
I wouldn't be so sure. As Elon states, the fundamentals of the industry haven't changed in quite a while. He's approaching it from one direction (The cars/manufacturing and sale of new cars), and others (like myself and partners) are going directly after the used car Buying/Selling process. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for Sellers/Buyers to transact. Check us out here:
What a joke.
As a european, i can't even comprehend how ludicruous it sounds that a business can't sell it's goods directly. It's so outrageously wrong, that I can't find words that fit adequately.
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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/business/12foods.html?_r=0
There's also a lack in innovation and lead from the US market in various technologies.
Elon Musk took all of these things head on and keeps doing so all the time. What's not to like, I would ask?
I am 100% behind the man as long as he keeps doing so.
Elon Musk is a hero
It's also a "human nature" that is prone to having one group of us kill another as a means of conflict resolution. Unfortunately, that is apparently a part of the natural behavior repertoire of Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes.
I assure you that governments will continue to do evil things and will find the money to do so, but over time governments will become less evil.
[1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-...
I wonder if he'll end up Emperor of Mars?
