Tesla seeking to open Richmond facility

[TI Sailor]

Have these VADA lawyers and supporters ever been to an outlet mall, be it for clothes, furniture, appliances, electronics, whatever? If so, why aren't there laws prohibiting these direct-to-consumer sales to protect the buyers from the manufacturers? In fact, why is Sears still allowed to market Kenmore products? (I'm aware some/most/all are rebranded, but Sears takes credit for them). Help me please. I'm unable to think of another product line sold in the U.S. besides automobiles which has legal protections for dealers in place. Sure, some manufacturers prefer to sell through 3rd parties, but they're not forced to do so AFAIK.

 

[chickensevil]

VADA's interpretation of the agreement as it relates to its bearing on a second sales location flies in the face of the plain language of the agreement:

Namely:
The reference to Section 8 wasn't updated in the drafting to the renumbered relevant section which is now 9. (Actual section 8 is irrelevant to this point). Section 9 reads:
VADA's wish that the agreement bars in anyway Tesla's application for an additional location under the statute is contradicted by the plain language above.
VADA loses on that.

While I would agree, they did bring it up and their argument is that if there are two different meanings on something in an agreement and one could more broadly be applied to the whole agreement over the other one then we should take the stance that is the loosest meaning possible.

That being said, even after hearing their argument toward that, I would think that the statement that says "Nothing in this agreement" is the most encompassing and broad of a statement possible and therefore I don't find this to be in their favor... but I'm not a lawyer.

As a side note, it sounded like Mr. Small (the hearing officer) was actually formerly serving on the state supreme court or some such, so hopefully he is smart enough to see through some of the silliness they were trying to push.

 

[bhzmark]

What language did they point to?

If they were desperate they might point to:

But that provision is limited to: "this Agreement" . This Sept 2013 Agreement only gives Tesla the permission to one location in the designated area. This Sept 2013 doesn't give them permission to open any other location. So they need to get permission from a source other than this agreement. To get that permission have they have to simply follow the law -- apply for permission from the Commissioner of the DMV and go through the hearing process that they are going through now.

The law is that manufacturers can open as many locations as the Commissioner gives them permission to open.
The Sept 2013 Agreement = the Commissioner agreed to give permission for this one location.
The April 2016 hearing = the Commissioner has a hearing to give permission for another location. etc.

That is what the law specifically allows.

Even if the language above looked like it might be ambiguous , section 9 in any case is just a slam dunk on the issue: "nothing in this Agreement shall affect any future proceeding in which the propriety of a Tesla operation (e.g., gallery, store or service facility) is disputed or where Tesla seeks authority from the Commissioner to own operate or control a vehicle dealership or other facility in the commonwealth."

By even bringing up this Agreement and trying to contend that this 2013 Agreement DOES affect the 2016 proceeding, they are violating that section 9 of the contract.

 

[bhzmark]

Re public interest from the old decision leading up to the 2013 Agreement:

Supporting the public interest means:

"promote the interest of retail buyers"

"prevent unfair methods of competition"

"unfair and deceptive acts or practices"

"prevent unfair and oppressive trade practices"

VADA is promoting the continuation of unfair competition and oppressive trade practices. While current and future Tesla buyers want the choice to buy from whomever they want. Especially the choice to buy from an organization that gives better service than any dealers have ever dreamed of.

 

[OregonHill]

Curious to know if other Single Women Tesla owners threads are here or elsewhere.

Regarding the VADA Issue in Virginia and elsewhere when the dealerships fight direct to consumer....Going to a dealership is a dreadful experience and one that nearly everyone avoids doing alone, especially women. I'm searching for a group of ladies who might share a woman's perspective of Telsa ownership. For me I can say I absolutely adore never having to haggle with salesmen or get hustled and duped by a ICE mechanic. The two tiny repairs I've needed in my 2015 Model S were done in mere minutes right in front of my home by a mobile Tesla tech. I purchased my Mercedes and Jeeps by myself and although I'm a strong negotiator the whole process took hours and hours and they all tried to bully me.

I think it's an important topic to have a woman's perspective.

 

[bonnie]

Curious to know if other Single Women Tesla owners threads are here or elsewhere.

Regarding the VADA Issue in Virginia and elsewhere when the dealerships fight direct to consumer....Going to a dealership is a dreadful experience and one that nearly everyone avoids doing alone, especially women. I'm searching for a group of ladies who might share a woman's perspective of Telsa ownership. For me I can say I absolutely adore never having to haggle with salesmen or get hustled and duped by a ICE mechanic. The two tiny repairs I've needed in my 2015 Model S were done in mere minutes right in front of my home by a mobile Tesla tech. I purchased my Mercedes and Jeeps by myself and although I'm a strong negotiator the whole process took hours and hours and they all tried to bully me.

I think it's an important topic to have a woman's perspective.

Yes, there are many single women Tesla owners on this forum.

If you want your perspective to be heard, I encourage you to both write the VA DMV hearing officer (address here) and to attend the yet-to-be-scheduled next hearing.

 

[OregonHill]

Yes, there are many single women Tesla owners on this forum.

If you want your perspective to be heard, I encourage you to both write the VA DMV hearing officer (address here) and to attend the yet-to-be-scheduled next hearing.

Thanks I will keep searching ...first "women Tesla owners" thread I saw so far showed last post mid 2014. I will check again and hopefully more women will attend the VDMV next hearing.

 

[bonnie]

Thanks I will keep searching ...first "women Tesla owners" thread I saw so far showed last post mid 2014. I will check again and hopefully more women will attend the VDMV next hearing.

I'm not sure what you're searching for - I'm a female owner, many others here. I don't think you're going to find an active thread about owning a Tesla and being female .

Did you attend the last hearing? You should have testified!!

 

[chickensevil]

@bhzmark wow... You are awesome! where did that pre settlement quote come from? Do you have the full doc? If you don't want to share it, feel free to PM it to me instead. Man, I wish I had this before because that was exactly what the VADA lawyer tried asking us and throwing in our face that we didn't know what the "legal" meaning of "in the public interest" meant.

As to your other question, yeah I think that was what they pointed to. And tried to twist the meaning to say that this meant that the settlement was for only one location and anything else would be a violation of the settlement... Which clearly isn't what the rest of the settlement specifically says.

 

[bonnie]

@bhzmark wow... You are awesome! where did that pre settlement quote come from? Do you have the full doc? If you don't want to share it, feel free to PM it to me instead. Man, I wish I had this before because that was exactly what the VADA lawyer tried asking us and throwing in our face that we didn't know what the "legal" meaning of "in the public interest" meant.

As to your other question, yeah I think that was what they pointed to. And tried to twist the meaning to say that this meant that the settlement was for only one location and anything else would be a violation of the settlement... Which clearly isn't what the rest of the settlement specifically says.

I have it. Pm your email and I'll send it to you. I filed for it through VA Open Records.

I have it uploaded somewhere here on the forum, but happy to send.

 

[GaryREM]

@bhzmark nice info.

I'm really getting interested in the third day of this.

The VADA lawyer appeared to be building a case that

• there were dealers ready to take on a franchise (although the terms of such a franchise are unknown),
• there was nothing special about Tesla vehicles that required skills the dealers weren't already using on other vehicles,
• Tesla isn't even permitted to make the request since the settlement agreement does not permit them to make any new requests,
• that a dealer would be able to make money even though Tesla sold them cars at list price (most of them do not make money selling cars today, it's the other services that makes them profitable),
• that, Tesla appears to be doing things which are not in accordance with requirements in VA (e.g. properly disclosing delivery charges, showing prices after tax credits and fuel savings) and which a dealer supported by VADA would not do.

It's going to be interesting.

 

[bonnie]

@bhzmark nice info.

I'm really getting interested in the third day of this.

The VADA lawyer appeared to be building a case that

• there were dealers ready to take on a franchise (although the terms of such a franchise are unknown),
• there was nothing special about Tesla vehicles that required skills the dealers weren't already using on other vehicles,
• Tesla isn't even permitted to make the request since the settlement agreement does not permit them to make any new requests,
• that a dealer would be able to make money even though Tesla sold them cars at list price (most of them do not make money selling cars today, it's the other services that makes them profitable),
• that, Tesla appears to be doing things which are not in accordance with requirements in VA (e.g. properly disclosing delivery charges, showing prices after tax credits and fuel savings) and which a dealer supported by VADA would not do.

It's going to be interesting.

To be clear, the settlement agreement specifically calls out that it only applies to the Tyson Corners property and does not have anything to do with any future property Tesla may wish to open.

But of course VADA would like to characterize that differently.

I filed for a copy of the agreement obtained under VA Open Records. It doesn't say what VADA says it says.

 

[bhzmark]

I got the settlement agreement and its attachments from this forum when Bonnie posted it a while back somewhere. Attached again to this post (I think). I only noticed the part of the prior unfavorable Commissioner decision that recounts the law on "public interest" just recently.

Good outline of the VADA argument -- my thoughts below:

• VADA and a few select member/dealers SAY that they are ready to take on a franchise -- but there is no reason to believe them. They are just saying that because they think that will allow the Commissioner to satisfy the first prong of the legal requirement to find the existence of a dealer who will be a franchisee. The economics don't make any sense for them. Even if they don't make money on car sales (or rust proofing or pinstriping those new cars) they can't make money on service either because there is no oil to change etc. But even conceding this point for the sale of argument they can't win on the second public interest prong.
• I sort of agree that there is nothing vastly different or special about Tesla vehicles except at the margin they are likely to require less overall service with no ICE which affects the economics. And they cater to a market who doesn't want to deal with dealers.
• Tesla is obviously permitted to make the request for an additional location for the reasons discussed above. And VADA themselves are violating the agreement pretending that the agreement does affect a future proceeding.
• I'm sure Tesla is more compliant with the VA sales law than the average Jim Bob's dealer, but even if Tesla have some compliance issues, they should just be handled like any other car seller.

The real losing argument that VADA can't make, and doesn't appear to be trying to, is that it is in the public interest for Tesla to be prohibited from selling Teslas and that it would be better for the public if ind. dealers are the only ones to sell Telsas.

Not only are current and future Tesla buyers better served by a Tesla owned location, but even buyers of other cars from ind. dealers will be better off when the ind. dealers have some real competition from Tesla and hopefully other manufacturers who beat them at their own game by providing better car buying and car maintenance services . Some ind. dealers will adopt and change and be better (e.g., perhaps the ones being swallowed up by Berkshire Hathaway) and that is in the public interest to give the dealers some competition or at least show them by example that buyers don't want to put up with their crap.

Dealers need to add value, instead of being parasitic annoying middlemen. Tesla and other competition will push them to improve or die. They will have to learn to survive in the free market instead of hiding under the skirt of government protectionism.

 

[chickensevil]

I only noticed the part of the prior unfavorable Commissioner decision that recounts the law on "public interest" just recently.

Oh good, I don't feel so bad for missing it now. That makes me wonder if the lawyer was anticipating us having read that part giving his direct line of questioning to us and when we didn't respond that we were prepared to talk about it, the lawyer moved on. Maybe?

In either case I think the only bit missing that I would add is that I think the angle they were trying to go down as far as "public interest" esp with their last "expert witness" was that direct sales is a failed model, it has never worked in the US (they were at least smart to clarify in the US) and therefore Tesla is likely to go out of business trying so those "wonderful" dealers need to be there to "protect" us in case they do. At least that was my impression of it.

It's interesting to read the original findings of the commissioner that stated that noone coming forward to be a dealer didn't automatically allow Tesla to open a store and that seemed to be a hard sticking point back in 2012 for them. It appears to have been shot down on the grounds that the commissioner just wanted more information first.

 

[linkster]

Going to a dealership is a dreadful experience and one that nearly everyone avoids doing alone, especially women

For me I can say I absolutely adore never having to haggle with salesmen or get hustled and duped by a ICE mechanic

I think it's an important topic to have a woman's perspective.

+3

 

[linkster]

so those "wonderful" dealers need to be there to "protect" us in case they do.

In the future, can you please refrain from making such hilarious statements so early in the morning.

 

[chickensevil]

In the future, can you please refrain from making such hilarious statements so early in the morning.

Ha! Well that was why I made sure to put the words in quotation marks to hopefully relay the sarcasm that I felt about their stance. Sadly though, this is exactly one of their arguments, which is ridiculous as we all know.

 

[GaryREM]

To be clear, the settlement agreement specifically calls out that it only applies to the Tyson Corners property and does not have anything to do with any future property Tesla may wish to open.

But of course VADA would like to characterize that differently.

I filed for a copy of the agreement obtained under VA Open Records. It doesn't say what VADA says it says.

Just want to note that the VADA lawyer emphasized there interpretation with one of their earlier witnesses (a VADA staff member who worked with the VA legislature and also a lawyer) to emphasize the VADA interpretation was the 'correct' one. Obviously, Tesla disagreed on cross.

 

[chickensevil]

Just want to note that the VADA lawyer emphasized there interpretation with one of their earlier witnesses (a VADA staff member who worked with the VA legislature and also a lawyer) to emphasize the VADA interpretation was the 'correct' one. Obviously, Tesla disagreed on cross.

FYI that staff member was:

Anne Gambardella, Esq.
Director of Legislative
& Legal Affairs
804.545.3006

Virginia Automobile Dealers Association Staff - Virginia Automobile Dealers Association - Driving Virginia Since 1943

 

[OregonHill]

I'm not sure what you're searching for - I'm a female owner, many others here. I don't think you're going to find an active thread about owning a Tesla and being female .

Did you attend the last hearing? You should have testified!!

Yes that's what I searched.
It's an active thread now with a couple of recent posts. "single women tesla owners"

Yes I was there, back row, however I'm not testifying under cross examination because of personal & professional reasons...I will consider sending a letter but would prefer to offer the collective voice of a group of single women who appreciate the Tesla buying/servicing experience over the bullying of a stupid superfluous auto dealer.