GM continues to try to stifle competition

[GSP]

Indiana Lawson the subject are fine as is. We only need to prevent attempts like this to add new laws prohibiting direst sales of legitimate products to state residents. That is my understanding of the situation anyway. I am not a lawyer.

I have bought cars out of state. Indiana requires you to pay the sales tax to get your license plate. The dealer "concern" about Tesla buyers not paying sales tax was total BS.

Hubler Chevrolet brought up many false points in their testimony yesterday. They also testified that Tesla owners had to travel to Cinninanci or Chicago for the seat belt inspections. I personally saw the inspections being performed at Tesla's Indianapolis store, and they also did inspections with ranger visits. Those are only two examples of many BS statements they made. Hubler did have some valid points as well, but they were totally undermined by making so many false statements.

GSP

 

[Chickenlittle]

This confirmation appeared 27 minutes ago in the Tesla news section of my brokerage account:

Today's News, February 25, 2016
10:16 am ET	*Indiana Legislators Remove Amendment to Bill Which would have Ended TSLA's Indiana Dealership Licenses at End of 2017 -Wall Street Journal
Benzinga

A smart move to delay till summer. It gives the senators more time to demand higher donations from supporters of the bill. If it were passed yesterday why would legislatures have the power to extort or request more money

 

[Curt Renz]

The Motley Fool has an article this morning providing 2 Numbers That Show Why Tesla Motors Can't Use Dealers.

Link to Article

 

[bonnie]

Lest there be any doubt of our impact in Indiana, see the front page story in this Indiana Capitol circulated news bulletin (attached). The Tesla story continues on page 5. (Bolding is mine.)

Flying under the radar until this week: HB1254, which pits General Motors (you don’t need GPS to be led in that direction) against Tesla, and the free market philosophy of many lawmakers against ingrained traditional business practices and employment numbers.Seeking to protect “intrabrand competition”(and ostensibly lower prices for consumers),GM was pushing a bill that originally would have revoked Tesla’s ability to sell vehicles directly to Hoosiers from its existing FashionMall storefront showroom at Keystone at the Crossing in Indianapolis.

The response from the affluent Tesla owners proved critical in convincing House members to strip the bill in committee and instead merely ask the Legislative Council to assign to an appropriate interim study committee“the topic of new motor vehicle dealer and manufacturer licenses, including additional licensing requirements for a manufacturer that engages in the direct sale to consumers of new motor vehicles of the manufacturer.”

 

[Curt Renz]

Lest there be any doubt of our impact in Indiana, see the front page story in this Indiana Capitol circulated news bulletin (attached). The Tesla story continues on page 5. (Bolding is mine.)

Thanks for that update, Bonnie. GM's "intrabrand competition" argument is bogus. The dealers are competing on their markups over the wholesale cost charged to them by their manufacturers. Tesla is selling directly to consumers at something resembling a wholesale price, although Tesla actually has the expense of setting up a retail network. A middleman's markup has been eliminated. It's not as though Tesla has a monopoly in automobiles. If consumers don't like the price they can buy something else. That's how the free market works. If that becomes the trend, Tesla would have to lower prices. Meanwhile, there is a long backlog of orders which implies that Tesla cars are priced too low.

 

[Curt Renz]

This may be a good time to reprise this 2013 Forbes article on economic rent-seeking.

Strangling Innovation: Tesla vs. 'Rent-Seekers'

 

[FluxCap]

Lest there be any doubt of our impact in Indiana, see the front page story in this Indiana Capitol circulated news bulletin (attached). The Tesla story continues on page 5. (Bolding is mine.)

Bravo, all.

 

[DJ Frustration]

I'd love to see some brainstorming from the very intelligent people on this forum about how Tesla could take a better and somewhat pro-active approach to these state by state fights and what those methods should be.

Strategies to Support Tesla's Direct Auto Sales Model

 

[Nomad]

I'd love to see some brainstorming from the very intelligent people on this forum about how Tesla could take a better and somewhat pro-active approach to these state by state fights and what those methods should be.

Strategies to Support Tesla's Direct Auto Sales Model

You beat me to creating a thread.

I have a Google Doc created for the purpose of gathering facts to combat the narrative that GM and the dealership associations are pushing.

I'm hoping to make it a community effort. I'll pop into that thread when I get back to a computer.

 

[bonnie]

You beat me to creating a thread.

I have a Google Doc created for the purpose of gathering facts to combat the narrative that GM and the dealership associations are pushing.

I'm hoping to make it a community effort. I'll pop into that thread when I get back to a computer.

Something like this is a great idea, for a few reasons -

• 
  [*=1]It's helpful when people are writing letters.
  [*=1]It's helpful when people stand up to make comments at hearings.
  [*=1]It has a way of making its way to legislators' hands, educating them (I'm mustering the most innocent look that I can right now, ftr).
  [*=1]It forces GM and various dealership groups to come up with more outrageous (ie, laughable) claims.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd love to see some brainstorming from the very intelligent people on this forum about how Tesla could take a better and somewhat pro-active approach to these state by state fights and what those methods should be.

Strategies to Support Tesla's Direct Auto Sales Model

Since, to the best of my knowledge, no one here is privvy to Tesla's strategy in any one state, we should be collecting ideas - but perhaps not telling them how to improve and what their methods should be. Subtle change to wording, but might make a difference in how efforts are perceived.

(fyi, I am comfortable in stating their strategy is not reactive in the least ...)

 

[Zarwin]

You beat me to creating a thread.

I have a Google Doc created for the purpose of gathering facts to combat the narrative that GM and the dealership associations are pushing.

I'm hoping to make it a community effort. I'll pop into that thread when I get back to a computer.

I'll cross post over there... we are all thinking along the same lines. Here is what I typed up before I saw the updates to this thread...

---------------------
Now that the Indiana issue is tabled, I thought it might be a good time to look back and see how this process could be better organized. Looking back through the hundreds of posts across three different threads it's hard to find things and keep a handle on current status (not that current status matters at the moment). I've always been a big fan of a very simple single point of reference that can be accessed with an extremely easy to remember verbal label. As in, something you could convey from one person to another verbally and have them remember without any need to reference multiple long links. Also a big fan of multiple owners to update content.


Over the last couple of hours, while I should have been working, I've instead been drinking cheap wine (hey it's Friday) and throwing something together. DSM=Direct Sales Model

TeslaDSM.org

So to keep with the simple model, any state has [state-abbreviation.TeslaDSM.org] as the address with the main TelsaDSM.org as basically a table of states that are in some way challenging or being challenged on the direct sales model and general references to combat this. Each state is just a google doc, nothing more. A simple google doc that multiple people can be authors of and update simultaneously. In this case Indiana is:


IN.TeslaDSM.org


I just threw some content in there from the thread and my own doings as a very basic example. No specific format would need to be followed from state to state and different people could "own" or manage the overall format and content. The whole idea is to have a single point of reference that multiple people could update to keep everyone on the same page.

Thoughts?

Edit: changed TeslaFTW to TeslaDSM (Direct Sales Model)

 

[jerry33]

• 
  [*=1]It forces GM and various dealership groups to come up with more outrageous (ie, laughable) claims.

in Texas the best they could come up with is that the dealers support the Little League. However, the only thing that mattered to the Legislators was the size of the campaign contribution.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

Edit: changing TeslaFTW to TeslaDSM (Direct Sales Model).. in process

I saw what you did there ... in real time! Typing. Wonderously creepy.

Ready to assist from TX, Zeb!!

Rick

- - - Updated - - -

[/LIST]
in Texas the best they could come up with is that the dealers support the Little League. However, the only thing that mattered to the Legislators was the size of the campaign contribution.

Eeeeeeaster Seals.

 

[Nomad]

cross posting

It's great to see so many members of the community are having the same thoughts. Bonnie has been rebutting specific GM talking points throughout the whole ordeal in Indiana with HB1254. DJ Frustration and Zarwin, I applaud you for thinking big about the existing and future threats to the direct sales model. Yesterday, I had similar thoughts about a community backed effort. I created a Google Doc with the intention of it being a collaborative hub for taking control of the narrative and dispelling GM and the automobile dealers association's misleading claims.

DJ Frustration, I think you and I are in agreement regarding reactive/defense/narrative—semantics aside. Here is my opening statement to the Google Doc, followed my in-document comment clarification.

Synopsis: This document will serve as a hub for information supporting the right of a vehicle manufacturer to sell directly to consumers. The goal is to control the narrative* by providing accurate history of the law, logical arguments, economic figures, and studies regarding consumer protection. With this factual information, we will be able to refute, point-by-point, the various misleading claims presented by opponents of consumer choice. This information will be condensed into palmcard and digital image for distribution via canvassing and social media.

re:controlling the narrative

This is critical to the mission. Senate Committee meetings demonstrated that key members accepted GM's narrative prima facie. Over half of the committee was focused figuring out how to help Tesla comply with HB 1254 w/ Amd 3, rather than questioning whether the new law was even necessary. With that in mind, it is key for us to totally change the narrative. In short, we have to put GM on the defensive.

For those that would like to join in on the document, you can request access here: Manufacturer Direct Sales Research. I'd like to keep it relatively private now, so as to avoid tipping our hand to the opponents of consumer choice.

 

[brianman]

The response from the affluent Tesla owners

They couldn't resist tossing "affluent" in there. If they were comfortable sharing it, it would be interesting to have some statistics on the "affluence" level of those Tesla owners that attended. It would also be interesting (though we'd never get the data) to see how that compares with the others in attendance.

 

[Zarwin]

I vote we use the other thread to continue the conversation of Direct Sales Model support that isn't Indiana specific instead of splitting multiple threads

-----> Strategies to Support Tesla's Direct Auto Sales Model

 

[dsm363]

Yeah. I would imagine the auto dealership owners are slightly more affluent than the average Tesla owner.

 

[brianman]

Yeah. I would imagine the auto dealership owners are slightly more affluent than the average Tesla owner.

Indeed.

 

[bhzmark]

Deleted

 

[brkaus]

Are there any stats on the distribution and makeup of automotive franchise dealers? For example, Penske Automotive Group has 355 dealers.

It feels like the promise of competition through the dealer franchise system is actually a false promise. Particularly in a city where most (all) of the dealers are owned by the same people/group. In that case, one might be better off having multiple manufacturers to compete instead of salesman all under the same umbrella no matter the brand.