Michigan About To Ban Tesla Sales 294
cartechboy writes It's a story we've come to see quite often: a state trying to ban Tesla's direct sales model. It seems something sneaky just happened in Michigan where Tesla sales are about to be banned. Bill HB 5606 originally intended to offer added protection to franchised dealers and consumers from price gouging by carmakers, and was passed by the Michigan House in September without any anti-Tesla language. However, once it hit the Senate wording was changed that might imply the legality of a manufacturer-owned dealership was removed. The modified bill was passed unanimously by the Senate on October 2, and then sent back to the House that day where it passed with only a single dissenting vote. The bill was modified without any opportunity for public comment. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has less than a week to sign the bill into law. Of course, Tesla's already fighting this legislation.
Wonder How Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder how much the dealer franchises had to pay in bribes for a unanimous vote. Seems a bit overkill when you only need a majority.
Re:Wonder How Much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder how much the dealer franchises had to pay in bribes for a unanimous vote. Seems a bit overkill when you only need a majority.
They didn't have to Michigan is the home of Detroit the "Motor City". Any one voting against it would have been shooting themselves in the foot come time for election funding.
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uh... have you seen the state of Detroit lately?
Re:Wonder How Much? (Score:4, Interesting)
uh... have you seen the state of Detroit lately?
"Detroit" is only nominally the home of the auto industry, and is maintained by Ford and GM as a brand of sorts to evoke classic American cars.
Other than executive offices, all the big auto manufacturing plants are situated - and nearly all the workers live - well outside the city itself, in the suburbs where (other than being impacted by Detroit's implosion and the overall Great Recession decline) things are pretty good.
So when you hear someone say "Detroit is fighting Tesla," thats not the case. Detroit couldn't fight Pawnee, Indiana and win two out of three. What they really actually mean is "Detroit" the brand/region, i.e. the corporations that employ hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters - and the suppliers/subcontractors/vendors to those companies, who probably employ as many if not more Michigan residents. So don't take Detroit's colossal f***up as any indication that the power of Ford/GM, its ecosystem and perhaps most importantly the UAW as being diminished in any way.
Republicans Control Michigan (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is where the logic fails
1) Republicans control the House, Senate, and Governorship of Michigan.
2) Republicans are "pro-business".
3) Republicans believe in "minimal government".
4) Republicans believe in "minimal regulation"
It would stand to reason that people holding this philosophy would let the "market forces" take their course without government interference. However, this is not how they behave. Hmmm.
Re:Republicans Control Michigan (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Republicans Control Michigan (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, Republicans control Michigan which is not likely to change anytime soon. That said, even if they didn't, auto mfg is the big industry here and most politicians R or D are not likely to do anything that would harm that industry, especially right now after they have just recently "recovered."
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The polls in the Michigan gubernatorial race are within the margin of error.
It could change sometime soon, but who knows?
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Rinos believe in small government when they are out of office.
Like anyone else they believe they know whats best for everyone else when in office.
Oddly enough this actually validates the position that government should be as minimalist as feasible.
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Nah. The real question is what took them so long? They should have been first in line to suck up to Detroit.
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It doesn't benefit their auto industry.
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Ironically, the Tesla is more American made (roughly 55% domestic and a lot more when the batteries are made by the Gigafactory) than its Ford, GM, Nissan competitors (roughly 35% domestic)
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On Slashdot, bribery and shadowy conspiracies are always the default answer.
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And it's wrong a vast majority of the time.
For people that claim to be objective and science-based, people here sure don't seem to have the same rules of evidence for claims they want to be true and claims they don't want to be true.
You could at least tell us when TFA is paywalled (Score:5, Informative)
Editors: You could at least warn us that we won't be able to participate in constructive discussion of the featured article without paying.
Re:You could at least tell us when TFA is paywalle (Score:5, Funny)
They probably just assume no one reads TFA anyway....
Re:You could at least tell us when TFA is paywalle (Score:5, Funny)
They probably didn't read it either.
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Coming from Slashdot used to be an exemption to the WSJ paywall... looks like the Slashdot/WSJ bridge is down.
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Re:You could at least tell us when TFA is paywalle (Score:5, Informative)
Cannot stop progress (Score:2)
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Teslas are for the masses.
I'm a big fan of Tesla. But I wouldn't exactly say that their $75k cars are "for the masses". I have a Nissan Leaf, which is less than half that price. It's a great car, but it's certainly no Model S.
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Tesla's car are for the upper 5% of the population, not for the manual worker who can't afford a car worth many years of his labor, who has not access to credit, and who will be stuck driving a 20 years old car, which has a terribly low MPG. There is no way electrical vehicle can ever be affordable enough for these people. Basically, Tesla are for the guy who's wondering if he should buy a Porsche or a Mazeraty, but whose wife convince he should jump in the green bashing era...
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Maserati.
Try to avoid writing words you've heard but never seen written. it can make you look like a halfwit.
Note that rest of your grammar will tend to do the same.
Which is sad, because your point is good....
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Actually I've noticed a decline in MPG in new cars I think it's the emission controls that holds that number down. I have had older cars from the 80s and early 90s that got much better than the advertised MPG of a similar new car and better than my current car.
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Silly Rabbit, Teslas are for the masses.
You must be insane. TrueCar [truecar.com] shows me that the base price of a Tesla 2014 S is $70,890, and the "performance" version is $94,390. Kelley Blue Book [kbb.com] puts the base price at $68,710 - $73,429. A car for the masses? A car for the lower end of the 1% more like it.
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They're apparently out now; I saw one on the road this morning.
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I saw one of the BMW electrics as one of the pace cars that led the Chicago Marathon last Sunday. They're pretty sweet looking.
There was also one of those new BMW supercars at the head of the race. Black on black and it looks amazing.
http://www.autoevolution.com/n... [autoevolution.com]
Fine, let them (Score:2)
Very well, let them. Nobody in Michigan can afford one anyway.
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Wayne County maybe but there are areas that are doing quite well.
This is getting ugly (Score:2)
I'm all for state's rights, but I think its time for the federal government to step in and eliminate this unconstitutional restraint of interstate commerce.
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I don't understand how the state can prevent one man from selling his goods to another. Land of the free indeed.
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I don't understand how the state can prevent one man from selling his goods to another. Land of the free indeed.
Shall I see this as a statement that the corporation called "Tesla" is equivalent to a person?
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No, but the person who sells the Tesla car is a person who happens to work for Tesla. That salesman should be able to sell his product to anyone who is willing to buy it without government involvment.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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s and futuristic car designs they probably stole from us!!
They pretty clearly copied Aston Martin's exterior design. But Ford only owns a small minority of Aston Martin.
It's a Republican Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
According to this map [marketwatch.com], state bans on Tesla sales are a Republican thing.
The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, is a Republican. The Michigan State Senate has a 26-to-12 Republican majority and in the House a 59-to-50 Republican majority. With control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, it is certainly Republicans who are accountable for revoking the freedom to purchase a Tesla in Michigan.
By the way, it is election season, and I have noticed signs in my neighborhood stating, "For freedom, vote Republican."
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state bans on Tesla sales are a Republican thing.
Your chart doesn't support that statement. Blue states are almost evenly split with the majority allowing sales; Red somewhat less even against allowing direct sales. But it's hardly what anyone would call a "Republican thing".
Re:It's a Republican Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
And for the irony, aren't the Republicans usually all for the free market and against restrictions? But here they're pushing for the opposite: restrict the market to block out competition and support the entrenched.
Re:It's a Republican Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
And for the irony, aren't the Republicans usually all for the free market and against restrictions?
No. In general they don't like big government, but that's not the same as no regulation.
In this case it's not clear if the driving force is dealers or the UAW, probably both. Odd bedfellows and all that.
Re:It's a Republican Thing (Score:5, Informative)
The Michigan State Senate has a 26-to-12 Republican majority and in the House a 59-to-50 Republican majority. With control of both the executive and legislative branches of government, it is certainly Republicans who are accountable for revoking the freedom to purchase a Tesla in Michigan.
So wait, 49 of the 50 democrat reps vote for this and all 12 democrat senators vote for this and it's a Republican thing?
you must be trolling.
why do cowboys hate freedom? (Score:3)
With the exception of a few states, this looks more like a Western (non-coastal) state thing.
Western : Montana, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas.
Plus a scattered handful : Arkansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey & Delaware.
It's not a party thing at all (Score:2)
.... this is Michigan you are talking about. Ford, Chrysler, and GM country.
You can be it is them and their dollars doing this, and it would be happening regardless of what party was in power.
Don't they care about the sales tax revenue? (Score:2)
Now people will just go out of state to buy Teslas, and thus the tax revenue will go to another state.
This is a case where someone didn't think things through.
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Not when registered (getting a plate) but when you transfer the title between owners.
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However, I don't know offhand if you can get a MI tag on a car titled in another state.
So funny it's sad. (Score:2)
Never mind Tesla. I don't even want to deal with dealers for conventional cars. I would rather order the thing online direct from the factory (or Amazon) and just have it delivered. There is so much crap an nonsense you have to deal with at a car dealership, it's not even funny.
This "upselling" thing is a sickness that seems to have infested everything.
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I would rather order the thing online direct from the factory (or Amazon) and just have it delivered. There is so much crap an nonsense you have to deal with at a car dealership, it's not even funny.
Having to ship it back to get warranty repairs would kind of make warranties useless. I much prefer being able to drive it to the dealer and telling him "it isn't working, fix it." Also to deal with recalls. (This is a lesson I learned after many years of buying commodity PCs. I've had to drive 60 miles to take one back that wasn't working, and I much prefer walking into the local shop and dropping the problem in their lap.)
As for "nonsense", you just need to find a good dealer. They exist. I went to a lo
2 Questions (Score:3)
I have 2 questions I'd like answered by someone who's not financially nor emotionally invested in the whole "Tesla vs the Gobermint" debate:
1) For what reason would a state legislature want to make it illegal for a manufacturer to own their own dealership?
2) For what reason would a manufacturer not want to franchise their dealerships?
Thanks (to the probably 2 out of 100 responses that will actually fit my criteria) in advance.
Re:2 Questions (Score:4, Informative)
1) So the manufacturer cannot give their own dealership an unfair advantage over franchised dealerships. This is what happened back in the early 20th century when Ford and others were trying to strong-arm their franchisees.
2) So they can sell direct to consumers. They feel that existing franchised auto-dealerships will not give them a fair shake. They'll steer customers unfairly to buy the Ford, Chevy, Nissan, whatever else they're selling if Tesla doesn't give them a bigger commission. Think of the last time you visit a commission based electronics store (ABC Warehouse as an example), the salesmen will push a consumer to purchase the goods which give them the biggest commission. It doesn't matter what the consumer needs, they want a bigger payday, and honestly with that model it's hard to blame them.
Using the electronics example, Tesla is taking the Apple approach, where they want to control the presentation of their goods and who sells them. Apple might not get the greatest shake from the salesman at ABC Warehouse if Samsung is offering a higher commission. However when you go to an Apple Store, you get a salesman who is not paid on commission and their job is to solely educate you about Apple products. Tesla wants the same experience, come to a store where the salesman knows everything about a Tesla and can sell it to you in an environment catered to it. These are niche products that won't get a fair shake from the existing dealerships without a good bribe, just like our Congress in Michigan has shown.
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They feel that existing franchised auto-dealerships will not give them a fair shake. They'll steer customers unfairly to buy the Ford, Chevy, Nissan, whatever else they're selling if Tesla doesn't give them a bigger commission.
Can't believe that to be the case, because that would mean the people in charge of Tesla's Marketing Department are complete morons - never has a new car salesman tried to "steer" a potential sale to their competitors.
Ever.
Re: 2 Questions (Score:3)
Remember - most dealerships sell multiple makes. If one of their makes gives the dealership more kickback - the dealership pushes that make. Also, dealerships sell many models. They push the models they want - instead of simply answering questions, informing the consumer, and helping the
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1) The state legislature is run by people. People are (a) greedy and (b) want to stay in power. When car company lobby groups see potential competition, it's cheaper for them to bribe, sorry, "provide campaign funds" to a pet politician than to actually compete. Those people take the money and decry the horrible, horrible Tesla company for daring to defile the hard working people who they've been speaking to (read - taking wodges of cash from).
2)There are some re
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1) "Because politicians are greedy!" is exactly the sort of emotional response I was looking to avoid.
2) Good link; I was expecting a "Tesla == teh shit" fluff piece, but the guy actually did have some legitimate bitches about the process of buying straight from the manufacturer, and well-reasoned explanations for why a dealership model would have been impossible for Tesla in the beginning, and would still be unprofitable today.
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1) It forces dealerships to price things locally and in competition with other dealerships, instead of based on the manufacturers' global strategies. Dick pricing moves are therefore local rather than global, prices aren't fixed everywhere across the country, sales actually happen. Also, a third-party dealership is more likely to want to sell you a used car. Manufacturer owned dealerships have a huge incentive to push new ones. If third-party dealerships had to compete with first-party ones, they would
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1) It forces dealerships to price things locally and in competition with other dealerships, instead of based on the manufacturers' global strategies. Dick pricing moves are therefore local rather than global, prices aren't fixed everywhere across the country, sales actually happen. Also, a third-party dealership is more likely to want to sell you a used car. Manufacturer owned dealerships have a huge incentive to push new ones. If third-party dealerships had to compete with first-party ones, they would all get priced out of the new car market very quickly and likely go out of business, and then the used car market would suck.
Well said.
Also, theoretically anyway, it should protect some smaller manufacturers. If a big manufacturer had the infrastructure to do direct sales to everyone, but a smaller manufacturer had worse infrastructure and had to go through dealerships, then the big manufacturer would take its lack of a middleman and price the smaller one out of business. The market doesn't seem to be working like that right now though.
Can't really answer 2).
I think you just did.
The party of free markets... (Score:2)
It's prob
The Car Dealership-Industrial Complex (Score:3)
Okay, I've always assumed that the stereotypes about the honest of car dealers were true, but I never suspected that they were this much of an entrenched monied special interest group.
Well if people are getting this rich off of essentially retail, then there are bigger things wrong with this picture than we thought.
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But Tesla is in a better position here I think. First, nothing says "this product is awesome" than competitors trying to ban it. Second, they can up the game. I was an evil strategist, I'd start by building
Crush The Wonderful (Score:2)
Gaming the legislature (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone else slightly concerned that we can bait-and-switch bills like this? You can't just push a process past all the reviews and then modify the document at the last second in the hope no-one will notice. If it could be proven that the change was in support of a specific goal (as this one looks to be) then this is horribly dishonest. ...oh wait, we're talking about politics, sorry I forgot.
Exclusivity is a great marketing ploy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which other CEO (Score:3)
in history managed to fuck with the system in suck a positive way? It's so frereshing.
Link (Score:3)
How about a link to the Tesla article.
http://www.teslamotors.com/blo... [teslamotors.com]
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
Telsa... you're being banned state by state, what's wrong?
They are not giving out big fat bribes to the right people.
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the existing franchise laws and how they are being used. It's not really a question that bribes are occurring, it's what lobbying is by it's very definition.
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
I love all the chatter about how Tesla is "harming the industry" by selling direct. **rolling eyes**
Directly selling cars to the public is only harmful to the middlemen in the dealerships that ARE indeed greasing their state legislators with fat political contributions. Why should auto manufacturers be forced to deal with middlemen to sell to the public? How in the world does direct sales "harm the industry"? Are large home builders forbidden to sell houses directly to consumers? The whole concept of protecting a parasitic middleman is just ridiculous. It results in inefficiency and higher prices.
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need legislation to deal with this.
The hassle of a repair will figure into people's purchasing decisions. Other businesses will spring up, who make money from facilitating the repair process. Etc
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Lobbying involves talking and bribery involves illegal money.
Oh, to be so young and naive again. Yes, little Jimmy, lobbying just involves talking--and Santa Claus is real too.
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So he asks for evidence, you dont provide any, and you get a +5 mod.
Good work, guys.
You want evidence? Here it is: (Score:5, Informative)
So he asks for evidence, you dont provide any, and you get a +5 mod.
Good work, guys.
https://www.opensecrets.org/lo... [opensecrets.org]
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:4, Insightful)
I was saying that "lobbying" and "bribery" have actual definitions as words.
So do you just ignore all facts that conflict with your narrative and make up word definitions as needed?
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In Michigan being labeled anti-auto is pretty much end of career for a politician and it's not illegal bribery it's campaign contributions and providing volunteer union minions as campaign workers.
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
If SCOTUS can claim that growing a garden for personal use [justia.com] is Interstate Commerce, then so to is an automobile company in one state selling cars in another.
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Also, auto dealers tend to be very politically connected within local communities. Lobbying money isn't the prime mover on this.
Re:Telsa's lobbiest crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
They're too successful, that's what. Mess with the Big Three and you're bound to run into trouble.
Sorta kinda like Tucker.
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Spot on!!! Excellent observation.
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Mess with the Big Three.
Big Three used to mean the Big Three American auto companies. But Chrysler is owned by Fiat now. It's an Italian company.
So when bailout time comes around again in a few years . . . Italy will bail out Chrysler, right . . . ?
The positive side of Chrysler being Italian, is maybe politicians will be a bit hesitant to take bribes from a foreign country . . . you know, like treason . . . ?
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Telsa... you're being banned state by state, what's wrong?
Thats a very very good question. What is wrong here? Look at everywhere else in the world. ONLY in the US do these batshit crazy weird laws against carmakers selling cars to consumers exist.
Its one of the strangest laws you guys have. Its akin to banning HP from selling computers to consumers, or banning Mc Donalds from selling Big Macs directly to consumers. It makes absolutely no logical or ethical sense whatsoever. Not in the slightest.
Whats wrong?
Seriously. What is going on here?
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The laws made sense in the era that they were created. Times have changed though and the laws are still on the books.
Now they've become very similar to the archaic alcohol sales related laws that are still present in most states.
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It's a trend in our lawmakers that make them so sensitive to being anti anything that they come up with weird circuitous laws to ban things that they don't like or have donations to eliminate.
In this case lawmakers were attempting to protect small mom and pop style dealerships from the Detroit auto industries shady business practices, but I bet they didn't want to seem "anti capitalism" for regulating the pricing of cars to ensure that the dealers weren't dumping cars to drive out the competition. So inste
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Nothing is wrong. Tesla is right on track to create a test case that will settle things once and for all.
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That's not really how a constitutional republic works. A simple majority doesn't always get to make the rules.
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That's not really how a constitutional republic works. A simple majority doesn't EVER get to make the rules.
FTFY
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Let me FTFY (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in an Oligarchy.
If the majority of wealthy car dealers don't want Tesla ruining their state-sponsored, protectionist, big-government, corporate-welfare free ride; they'll send an army of lobbyists to make sure none of them have to compete against one.
Re:Let me FTFY (Score:4, Insightful)
People can't have it both ways: Either money is speech and this is perfectly legitimate, or money isn't speech and it's not. If money is speech, then the auto manufacturers are simply using their freedom of speech to petition their government for a redress of grievances. If Tesla is losing this battle it means they aren't exercising enough free speech, or the public doesn't like what they have to say. It doesn't get much more American than that.
On the other hand, if you don't believe money is equivalent to speech because then you can be born with more free speech than someone else, this is totally fucked up.
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On the other hand, if you don't believe money is equivalent to speech because then you can be born with more free speech than someone else
Free speech itself isn't more or less free; money just gets one more access via pushed content to more audience for one's free speech.
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Uhh...what?!
Money != speech. In fact, the United States was formed, in part, as a means of getting away from rule by monarchy/aristocracy. Our founders went to war to prevent it. But I suppose that's where we are. Maybe it's an inevitable failing of humanity that greed, not love, conquers all. After all, you get as much justice as you can afford, why should speech be any different?
But you did say "the public doesn't like what they have to say", and as we know from the article summary "The bill was modified
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Re:Let me FTFY (Score:5, Informative)
Partly it is the American ethos, however romanticized, about the individual over society. A bigger factor, in my opinion, is that America's unions are pretty bad.
But here is the main reason. In business, contributions are split pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans. It drifts from year to year, from industry to industry, but rarely do you find more than 70% coming from a single industry to a single party. I am not saying that Americans like corporate lobbing, but corporate lobbing does not discriminate.
Unions, on the other hand, give over 95% of their donations to Democrats. Than factor in that the majority of union members work for government. In effect, union members are hiring the managers who will be negotiating their salary. School board elections are notorious for this.
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Uber, AirBnB are in the same boat (Score:2)
A variety of new businesses offer a new way of doing things — to the chagrin of the incumbents already profiting from the old way.
Nice to see Tesla having full support of /., which Uber and other taxi-replacements, for some reason, do not get...
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Those totals don't really matter that much on the state level though. Auto dealers tend to be among the wealthiest people in small town to medium size towns and they tend to be heavily connected within the community.
In most cases, the state representatives would vote in favor of their local auto dealers for free.
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My view is quite simple: vertical monopolies are bad.
"Vertical monopoly" is just a nonsense phrase, like a "pink monopoly". Tesla has no monopolies, vertical, pink, or otherwise.
What Tesla has is vertical integration [wikipedia.org] which is an approach that Elon Musk has used before (with SpaceX).
Stop assuming everyone who doesn't agree with you is on the take, guys.
It's pretty clear in this case that a lot of legislators are on the take here. It's pure rent seeking to protect car dealerships and has no value to the public.
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In order for this to be a verticle monopoly all electric cars would need to only be sold tesla
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I think here the matter would be regulation of interstate commerce, an area over which the federal government has jurisdiction.