Tesla Allowed to sell cars in Ohio

[JohnnOhio]

Just was checking the news and came across this article. Tesla can keep it's store at Easton here in Columbus and the one at Cinci. Also be aloud to open its planned store in Cleveland. No more will be aloud to open in Ohio.

 

Hope the rest of the states will follow suite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

www.10tv.com/content/stories/2014/03/25/columbus-tesla-statehouse-fight.html

[fbov]

...Hope the rest of the states will follow suite.

So, Johnn, you're all for restraint of trade?

 

All I read from this is that a powerful lobby is trying to insist that it's sales model be the only one permitted to do business in Ohio. I think we already have enough totalitarian regimes in the world without the U.S. joining suit.

 

HAve fun,

Frank

[JohnnOhio]

They were trying to push them out of Ohio all together so this is a victory in my book

[SnowStorm]

O Model X, Model X! wherefore art thou Model X?
Deny thy dealer and refuse the shame;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my ride,
And I'll no longer buy a Car direct.

[HPRifleman]

I have heard both sides of the Tesla vs. Dealerships argument.

 

It is really the story of an entrenched business model that has been around for almost 100 years against the better mouse trap of distibution. Local dealerships benefit from state franchise laws because they are protected against competition. In the past the intended competition was their own manufacturers. Now, Tesla comes along and wants to sell its own cars without the burden of creating a dealer network. The auto dealers are afraid that their protected business model is threatened.

 

Dealers created a system where they added value to the customer by having vehicles on-site, advising during the selling process, coordinating financing and licensing, providing maintenance and repairs, etc. Tesla, and its target customers, may not require all (or maybe any) of these value-added processes. They created a way of selling cars that is more efficient to their cutomer base. You now have a car that requires much less maintenance and repair (electric motors), an affluent and technologically-savy customer base that can do their own research and you begin to not need a dealer network.

 

Conventional dealers feel threatened, not by Tesla, but what Tesla can teach the larger manufacturers. The final price of a car contains a lot of cost that comes from the franchised dealer business model.

[anilruia]

Hear/read this planet money podcast on how the current dealer franchise laws came into being and how they will never change even though they are anti-consumer - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes