GM continues to try to stifle competition

[SageBrush]

I would love to see stats of the direct economic participation by GM in the Indiana economy compared to Tesla. A graph showing the trend over the past 10 years should do nicely in highlighting how GM is outsourcing manufacturing to E Asia and Mexico.

Tesla is American built, America taxed, and increasingly America sourced for parts including from Indiana. And that is a company Indiana wants to kick out !?

 

[SageBrush]

Do the Indiana politicos want to outlaw every mail-order, direct from the manufacturer company from operating in IN because the Brick&Mortars are at a disadvantage ?

 

[kort677]

 

[McRat]

I would love to see stats of the direct economic participation by GM in the Indiana economy compared to Tesla....

It was easy to find on the web.

Indiana has Fort Wayne and 3 other plants Tier One Indiana employment (direct GM employees) is over 7,000 today. This does not include dealership employment. Tier 2 suppliers (parts suppliers) are over 27,000.

Indiana has produced over 7,000,000 GM vehicles in the last 29 years. I believe last year it was 450,000 vehicles?

These are nearly all high paying union jobs.

It is highly likely Indiana benefits more from GM than California benefits from TM.

 

[GoTslaGo]

So it's basically GMs home turf. Good to know.

 

[McRat]

So it's basically GMs home turf. Good to know.

It's the 3rd highest state in terms of direct GM employment. Not small potatoes.

 

[bhzmark]

If I were a GM stockholder I would want GM to be following Tesla's model and would want them to covertly be trying to make sure that Tesla does get mfr owned sales and service locations so that GM could get them eventually too.

GM is so stupid if they think that they win when Telsa loses.

GM is harmed much more by its own incompetent dealers than it is by customers choosing Teslas when they might otherwise buy a GM. Tesla customers are unlikely to be GM customers as Tesla steals customers much more from Toyota,Lexus, Audi, Porsche etc than it does from GM.

 

[SageBrush]

It is highly likely Indiana benefits more from GM than California benefits from TM.

Thanks, and kudos on the finds.

I don't doubt that GM is responsible for more non dealership jobs today, but how about the trend ? Has GM been outsourcing Indiana jobs over the past decade or so ?

 

[McRat]

AFAIK, the Fort Wayne plant is stable. It's a pickup factory, hence the high volume.

 

[wdolson]

It was easy to find on the web.

Indiana has Fort Wayne and 3 other plants Tier One Indiana employment (direct GM employees) is over 7,000 today. This does not include dealership employment. Tier 2 suppliers (parts suppliers) are over 27,000.

Indiana has produced over 7,000,000 GM vehicles in the last 29 years. I believe last year it was 450,000 vehicles?

These are nearly all high paying union jobs.

It is highly likely Indiana benefits more from GM than California benefits from TM.

California's economy is so huge, no one industry really dominates the overall economy. California's agricultural sector generates over $31 billion a year, almost twice the number 2 state (Texas with $16 billion) but agriculture is only 2% (and that's combined with mining which includes the oil business and CA is #4 in the US in oil production) is of the state's overall economy. If Tesla became a major car company they would still only be a minor part of California's economy.

In California the wars over water go back to the state's founding. When the hoo hah about gold died down, people realized the San Joaquin Valley had some of the best farm land in the world and the Sierra Nevada mountains provided a constant flow of water all year round. When California's water laws were initially written in the 1850s, they gave first priority for water to farmers. It was an agrarian state then so it made sense. However, as the cities grew and the economy diversified, a battle for water developed between the cities and agriculture. Most Californians don't realize their state produces almost 14% of the entire US agricultural output (by $ value) and the people who are connected to the land are a small percentage of the population, but the laws favor the ag business. It's an old fight that is made worse when there is a drought.

The western US is ideal for growing food crops because of the soil. Most food crops like alkaline soil, but rainwater, even pure rainwater, is slightly acidic (from dissolved CO2, it's basically a little carbonated). In places where there is a clear cut rainy season and a dry season, the soil tends to be more alkaline because as the soil dries out, wicking action brings minerals from deeper down up to the surface which both brings up nutrients and alkalizes the soil. Add to that the San Joaquin Valley has been a giant fresh water lake for 90% of the last 2 million years, and you have outstanding soil.

The Continental Divide in the Rockies defines which body of water affects the weather. West of the divide it's the Pacific and east it's the Caribbean and Atlantic. The west all has a wet and dry season, even Seattle has 3+ months of no rain a year, though the dry season gets longer as you go south.

Sorry, I digress. In short, I agree, Tesla is barely a blip on California's economic radar and may never be all that huge, even if it becomes one of the world's biggest car companies.

 

[Texas]

State legislatures are no longer Tesla's prime venue for overcoming legal barriers to direct sales. With Tesla’s September 2016 federal lawsuit filing against the state of Michigan, the real action has shifted to the courts. The petition can be read at https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/31w235f2r/michigan-western-district-court/tesla-motors-inc-v-johnson-et-al/. This is a constitutional frontal attack on Michigan’s anti-Tesla statute. The grounds are violation of the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution. This is an ideal test case because the anti-Tesla statute is blatantly anti-competitive and because it was passed through parliamentary legerdemain on the last day of a Michigan legislative session—before the opposition even knew an anti-Tesla amendment was being insinuated into existing state law.

The constitutional head-on challenge represents a very smart strategy. The theoretical details are laid out in an article by Daniel A. Crane, Tesla, Dealer Franchise Laws, and the Politics of Crony Capitalism, 101 Iowa L. Rev. 573 (2016). This outstanding piece is available online at http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2720&context=articles. The author takes up all of the arguments made by the car dealers and calmly eviscerates each one in turn. This article is a pleasure to read, just to see how a methodical analyst guts and minces the flabby claims of the car dealer lobby.

The circumstances by which the anti-Tesla amendment was passed were highly suggestive of a pure attempt to deprive a competitor of access to the marketplace, and to exclude an out of state competitor from bringing its products across state lines into Michigan—in violation of the Commerce Clause.

In addition to the constitutional issues, there is a subliminal issue running through all of this. Everyone in the legal system—judges, lawyers, and clients—have experienced the “consumer protection” features of franchised car dealers when buying new cars and dealing with dealer service departments. Nobody believes that dealer franchise laws do anything other than protect the profits of incumbent auto dealers. By continuing to allow car dealers to arbitrarily exclude innovators like Tesla from the market, the federal courts would--to use a centuries-old phrase in law--"be making an ass of the law." In other words, crazy rules don’t last forever in the courts.

I think the day is coming when the lawyer members of Tesla Motors Club will be able to submit thoughtful "friend of the court" briefs in support of Tesla’s case. I look forward to it.

Incidentally, there is no Texas pro-Tesla bill in the current session, at least according to Texas Legislature Online, http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Home.aspx. This really tells me that Tesla is putting its chips on the Michigan case.
(I'm going to paste this comment into other threads because people need to be aware of Tesla's strategy)

 

[TexasEV]

Incidentally, there is no Texas pro-Tesla bill in the current session, at least according to Texas Legislature Online, http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Home.aspx. This really tells me that Tesla is putting its chips on the Michigan case.

Either that, or Tesla realized from what happened last session that it doesn't have a chance in the Texas legislature so why bother. The bill didn't get out of committee in the House (I was at the hearing, or rather the auto dealer cartel love fest-- it was painful to sit through) and wasn't even brought up in committee in the Senate. As long as Dan Patrick is the lite guv we can forget about a bill ever being considered by the Senate.