Ohio Attempting To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again 387
cartechboy writes "Man the automotive dealer associations don't like Tesla. Remember that time the Ohio dealers attempted to block Tesla from selling its electric cars in in the Buckeye State. Now, it's happening again. The car dealers are once again pushing legislation that would keep Tesla from selling cars in Ohio. Senate Bill 260 would prohibit the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles from issuing car-dealer licenses to auto manufacturers. Since Tesla owns and operates its own network of 'dealerships' (aka galleries), this would make it so the automaker couldn't acquire a car-dealer license. Section 11 of the bill lists 'a manufacturer... applying for license to sell or lease new motor vehicles at retail' as one of the types of organization ineligible for a dealership license. On top of all this, the language isn't on the Senate floor as a standalone bill. No, it's inserted as an amendment to Senate Bill 137 which is an unrelated bill requiring Ohio drivers to move to the left while passing roadside maintenance vehicles. Is this yet another slimy tactic to try and undercut the new kid on the block?"
Meh... (Score:4, Informative)
Ostensibly these laws exist to stop manufacturers and distributes from cutting out the middle-man. If Ford or Honda can sell directly, they can get rid of the dealerships, and then charge whatever they want for a Ford, since there won't be any competition. They are, on the face, anti-monopoly laws. [The oft-mentioned Texas law does the same thing for theaters - preventing Paramount from eventually owning all the theaters and then stopping showing MGM movies to anyone in the Lone Star State.]
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
Ohio has a Republican governor and Republican supermajorities in both chambers of its state legislature. The three sponsors of this are all Republicans.
Re:It's disgusting how much control... (Score:4, Informative)
The guys pushing this [slashdot.org] have R's next to their names.
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
Republican governor, Republican general assembly, not to mention a Republican introduced this amendment.
Don't let facts get in your way.
Now, since I happen to be a voter here, I'll make sure no bozos like these get elected in my district come November.
Re:It's disgusting how much control... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they're Republicans in name too.
They don't have D's next to their name.
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
1) Parties bill themselves as X all the time without really being all about X. It often even gets built into the conventional wisdom, even though it's bullshit. Good examples are Republicans being about fiscal responsibility and Democrats being all about tolerating the viewpoints of others.
2) These types of laws are bought by the dealerships. The independant dealerships are owned by local wealthy entrepeneurs. Local wealthy entrepeneurs are usually the biggest political donors, and they swing Republican, so when they want to place a phone call to their pet legislators, they're calling the Republican whose seat their advertising helped to win.
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
Republicans are friends of big business. Not of the free market. Over the years the Republican Party has transformed from "conservative" and "liberal" to the Corporate Lobbyists Party. In essence they use the party as a means to pave their way into management level once they retire from politics, happily kissing asses along the way.
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:5, Informative)
This. The obvious truth is that each party wants the programs they don't like to vanish, and the programs they do like to expand.
Only purist libertarians honestly want the whole government small. Regardless of their rhetoric, the actions of every other party show they want the government to be ginormous, domineering, and bent on shoving their agenda down the world's throat.
Re:Ask... (Score:4, Informative)
This kind of abusive segregation-of-vendor-and-producer legislation goes back even further, to 1936: General Motors bought laws that prohibited power companies from owning transit services [wikipedia.org], gradually and systematically destroying the streetcar systems in almost every city in the United States. If that hadn't happened, I suspect combustion engine vehicles would not have attained the dominance they enjoyed during the latter half of the 20th century. The impacts this would have on the energy and ecological situations are hard to predict, but I'm willing to bet the world would've been better off by a significant margin.
The moral of this tale: any time anyone involved in the automotive industry wants something legislated, it's probably really, really fucking evil.
Re:Pretty Much. (Score:4, Informative)
While true, it's also true of the Democrats. Notice how cozy the Democrats are with the Wall Street financial firms, not to mention the media corporations. The only difference between the parties is which industries they're in the pocket of.
Re:This is a legitimate complaint (Score:4, Informative)
But, uh, there is?
There's lots of non-dealership places that I can go to fix my car, and those would exist no matter who owned the dealership I bought my car at (and might be more prevalent, even, if more car selling was direct from manufacturer).
Similarly, there's already manufacturer original parts and parts made by other companies. This has even less to do with who owns the dealership. It's not like the independent dealerships are making all the parts they use.