Tesla's Fight With Car Dealers Could Help Decide the Next Presidential Election 282
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Marcus Wohlsen writes that the most recent ban against Tesla selling cars directly from the company instead of through third-party dealers was enacted in New Jersey with the support of Gov. Chris Christie, a possible contender for the GOP nomination. That prompted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Christie rival, to heartily defend Tesla's direct sales model. 'Customers should be allowed to buy products that fit their need,' says Rubio, 'especially a product that we know is safe and has consumer confidence beneath it.' Perhaps even more surprising is the love shown by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the once and possibly future presidential hopeful whose oil-rich state bars employees in Tesla's two showrooms from even telling potential customers how much the Model S costs. 'I think it's time for Texans to have an open conversation about this,' says Perry, 'the pros and the cons. I'm gonna think the pros of allowing this to happen outweigh the cons.' The sudden GOP embrace of an electric car company once reviled as a symbol of Northern California enivro-weenies might seem ironic says Wohlsen, but the real irony is that conservative politicians ever opposed Tesla at all.
'The widespread franchise rules giving car dealers virtual monopolies in their territories epitomize the government-controlled marketplace Republicans purportedly despise,' writes Wohlsen adding that possible presidential contenders realize there may be political capital to be gained in supporting Tesla. But the real winner is Tesla. If the company can manage to associate its brand with all the positive qualities Rubio and Perry hope rub off on them, few politicians will want to take the risk to stand against them. Mitt Romney called Tesla Motors a 'loser' company during his 2012 run for president. In 2016 running against Tesla might seem about as smart as running against Apple."
'The widespread franchise rules giving car dealers virtual monopolies in their territories epitomize the government-controlled marketplace Republicans purportedly despise,' writes Wohlsen adding that possible presidential contenders realize there may be political capital to be gained in supporting Tesla. But the real winner is Tesla. If the company can manage to associate its brand with all the positive qualities Rubio and Perry hope rub off on them, few politicians will want to take the risk to stand against them. Mitt Romney called Tesla Motors a 'loser' company during his 2012 run for president. In 2016 running against Tesla might seem about as smart as running against Apple."
Gary Johnson! (Score:2)
As a Gary Johnson fan, I'm curious what his stance on the whole deal with Tesla is. This is relevant since I may want to vote for him next election, and the implications of his opinions on this matter are going to reflect across his Presidential policies and how he encourages Congress and the American People to act.
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Unfortunately, the third party candidates never get any national coverage, so get very few votes. They need to do something majorly news-worthy if they want to be noticed in 2016.
See my sig for what I consider to be the most effective move they could make.
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the third party candidates never get any national coverage, so get very few votes.
When third party candidates do get coverage, their support tends to go down. The reasons for this are complex. They often focus on ideology rather than practical solutions, and have difficulty compressing their message into simplistic soundbites that can be understood by the general public.
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Doing something newsworthy won't change much. The two-party system is ingrained. Both parties suck (Congress has an approval rating of 13%, up from 9% earlier in 2013: http://www.gallup.com/poll/166... [gallup.com]).
Both parties are willing to change their rules to prevent uprisings in their organizations. And the two parties control media exposure, specifically debates, the last independent/3rd party candidate that was invited to a Presidential Debate was Ross Perot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
The two parties
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So ignore the political parties in the mass media channel that is the US government, focus on the corporations actually running the show. In this case the oil companies and the valuation of the future value of their existing reserves, not just the profits they are generating now, but they value of the oil they are sitting on and yet to pump out and sell over the decades, this value is calculated into their share price and that is the real reason why the obstruction of clean air policies. Now on the flip si
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Third parties will never make it nationallly until they start taking it locally. If the dems and reps didn't hold almost all the state and local seats, you would see more third parties both in the news and federal government.
Christie has no chance to win anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
not after the bridgegate fiasco
then add withholding funds from hoboken because they didn't let a developer run rampant
hiring friends and family for a state marketing campaign
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those didn't make people spend 3 hours in traffic and cause a few people to die because the ambulance couldn't get there
people in NJ hate Christie and no President has ever lost his home state
Re:Christie has no chance to win anyway (Score:4, Informative)
people in NJ hate Christie
Clearly, because we only elect people who are universally hated. [/sarcasm]
and no President has ever lost his home state
Would you care you try again using actual facts [wikipedia.org]?
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The only thing Hillary was personally involved in was Whitewater which turned up absolutely nothing other than lies in a deposition and BJs from an intern.
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Doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The governors will talk about how good Tesla is but their day job is still governor and that office is under the thumb of the National Automotive Dealers Association who could easily contribute to their rivals.
The state laws that prevent direct sales of automobiles should be criminal because it preserves the insane concept of "negotiating" the best price. Hopefully Tesla will go farther than cars.com did.
A layperson would think that the state laws would go against the US Constitutions commerce clause.
Re:Doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole "negotiating best price" argument is a farce and you know it.
The reason you don't get to negotiate prices when buying a Tesla is there's a 6 week production backlog. They are not desperate to sell you the car, they have thousands of customers in line.
It's an awesome car.
Perhaps if Detroit stopped innovating at a snails pace and started actually put brilliant, radically innovative designers to design cars, without lawyers and the overall poisonous corporate culture stepping on their toes all the time, perhaps they could make a car that will truly compete with Tesla. Until then, Tesla rules !
For decades, Detroit has innovated at a snails pace, catering to the most conservative customers the US has.
My message to car dealers is R.I.P. You are just dying an ultra slow, agonizing death, cause you don't care one bit about your customers.
Re:Doubt it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of it is that Tesla is run by Elon Musk who thinks like a consumer. He decided not to do the whole dealership thing from his own experience with dealerships. When dealerships claim to offer consumers "protection" Elon hits back perfectly comparing their protection to the kind you get from organized crime. Dealership "protection" didn't really help most Fisker buyers when Fisker went under. The Karma owners must pay out of pocket for things that their warranty and pre-paid maintenance should have covered.
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Every time I go to buy a new car and have to deal with dealerships, I just wish that I could order what I want from the factory (or Amazon) and just pay MSRP.
Seriously. Dealers have gotten so bad that paying sticker price for exactly what you want is a better deal and less hassle sometimes.
Re:Doubt it. (Score:5, Informative)
Repair? Tesla themselves, free of charge in many cases. They'll even come get the car for you if needed, most dealerships won't do that.
Regular maintenance? *What* regular maintenance? Les Schwab or your preferred local alternative can rotate the tires and check the brakes for you. Not much else is needed... no oil, no spark plugs, no transmission (in the conventional sense), etc.
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Who will repair or perform regular maintenance on the Tesla for you? Without a local dealer you may be hard pressed to find a qualified garage.
In fact, you have to pay Tesla $600/yr for service. That includes roadside assistance and so on, and covers all of your service needs completely. It is a bit offensive though, and the news did lead to cancellations. It's a staggering amount of money compared even to a German car. On the other hand, I'd bet you a fairly large amount of money that it will simply have less failures in general than most other cars, simply by virtue of being an EV. On the gripping hand, there's no shortage of customers even with
Re:Doubt it. (Score:4, Informative)
That $600/yr service is optional. It's recommended, and Tesla will cover all consumables except tires for it. And it's flat rate, too - it's just $600 a year for all the service you need.
Most cars require a "major service" every couple of years, which can easily run into a couple thousand bucks, and service on German luxury vehicles can easily be $500 per visit, twice a year or more.
Tesla, OTOH, charges $600 for it all inclusive. And it includes a loaner (for a few more bucks, they'll let you take out a Roadster instead) for the duration.
It's a steal to get service for $600 all in, especially with all the perks. Dealers HATE Tesla because of it - they don't make much off selling new cars, the make it up selling service.
What is this "major service"? (Score:3)
Most cars require a "major service" every couple of years, which can easily run into a couple thousand bucks
Huh? I've got a 9-year old Toyota Matrix. It gets an oil change twice a year at about $50 each time, and has had one transmission oil flush at a few hundred bucks, one radiator fluid flush, and new low beam bulbs. I just replaced the clock spring myself for a few hundred bucks. Soonish it'll need new brake pads and new spark plugs.
What is this "major service" you speak of?
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That $600/yr service is optional. It's recommended, and Tesla will cover all consumables except tires for it. And it's flat rate, too - it's just $600 a year for all the service you need.
Most cars require a "major service" every couple of years, which can easily run into a couple thousand bucks, and service on German luxury vehicles can easily be $500 per visit, twice a year or more.
Tesla, OTOH, charges $600 for it all inclusive. And it includes a loaner (for a few more bucks, they'll let you take out a Roadster instead) for the duration.
It's a steal to get service for $600 all in, especially with all the perks. Dealers HATE Tesla because of it - they don't make much off selling new cars, the make it up selling service.
You're right that $600 is a steal, you're just wrong about who is robbing who.
In Australia Toyota offers capped prices services on their small cars and hybrids (Corolla, Yaris, Prius) for A$130. You may have to do them twice a year, but that's only A$260. A lot of manufacturers are doing capped priced servicing for new cars, Honda, Nissan, Ford and even VW. This is in Australia, the land of rip-offs.
I own an old Honda Integra, I get it serviced at an independent who looks after JDM cars, so not the ch
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So why does Tesla charge $600/year if regular maintenance is so much less expensive th
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The state laws that prevent direct sales of automobiles should be criminal because it preserves the insane concept of "negotiating" the best price.
What is insane about negotiating a price? Just because a price is posted doesn't mean it cannot be discounted or that at the least you cannot ask for one. The posted price is simply the ceiling for the negotiation.
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I think that "negotiation" was in quotes there because it isn't really negotiating. If you can negotiate a price lower than the sticker, it is because the dealer had no intention of charging you that price unless you were stupid enough to not ask for a lower price. The sticker price bears little relationship to the actual value of a vehicle.
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Noticed how negotiating was in quotes?
Negotiation shouldn't involve you hanging around the dealership for a minimum of 2 hours while the sales staff perform a dog and pony show to make you believe that you are getting a great discount off of a very inflated sticker price (value added services (undercoating) or accessories (a different color pin stripe)). After which you spend another 2 hours before you actually purchase the damn car and leave.
They make it too time consuming and require travel to find a co
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Noticed how negotiating was in quotes?
Negotiation shouldn't involve you hanging around the dealership for a minimum of 2 hours while the sales staff perform a dog and pony show to make you believe that you are getting a great discount off of a very inflated sticker price (value added services (undercoating) or accessories (a different color pin stripe)). After which you spend another 2 hours before you actually purchase the damn car and leave.
While I agree with you that negotiating a car can be a pain (unless you are an obstinate SOB that enjoys the back and forth) but you have one key weapon - getting up and starting to walk out. They know if you leave you won't be back. Once they have agreed on a price, and I agree that you need to negotiate a bottom line not a price plus, you have the upper hand. Remember, you , the dealer and the sales person are all advisories of each other. The dealer want stye car off the lot and earn a profit, although s
We're not used to negotiating... (Score:2)
The problem with negotiating the price is that it makes people feel like they might have gotten a worse deal then the next guy, and it eats at them.
We in North America generally don't negotiate prices for new items. You go to the store, you buy the item, you pay the same as the next guy. (Unless you're buying high volume, or are a contractor, or something.) Generally the only new things we negotiate on are cars. Even most new houses have a set price.
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Part of the problem is that the current supply/demand situation prevents any reasonable negotiation over the price of a Tesla.
There is a months-long waiting list. If you want to try and haggle over the sticker price, Tesla can just say "next" and have another 1000 customers lined up for the vehicle you passed over. And personally, this is 100% fine by me. I'd rather know the price, evaluate the cost and benefits on my own terms and buy a car without trying to talk down some greasy salesman.
If we ever rea
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The governors will talk about how good Tesla is but their day job is still governor and that office is under the thumb of the National Automotive Dealers Association who could easily contribute to their rivals.
Rick Perry is not running for re-election and the campaign for his replacement is under way. So, he is not "under the thumb" of the National Automotive Dealers Association, since a threat fro them to contribute to his rivals is not really much of a threat. Based on previous contributions to national campaigns, Rick Perry is more interested in setting himself up for what he perceives as the stronger national position on this issue. I am pretty sure that Chris Christie is statutorily barred from seeking anoth
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> Clueless people believe all manner of ludicrous things.
Yes. You are a fine example.
There are many things that have been dragged under the rather thoroughly stretched and distorted umbrella of the ICC. Applying the ICC to this situation with Tesla would be far less of a stretch than some precedents that are over 100 years old.
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Don't EVs help both sides? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can EVs helping both sides. The left benefits because shifting to solar/wind power as the primary means of a vehicle's propulsion is better for the environment and gives less fossil fuel waste.
The right benefits by EVs because they offer energy independence (something the Tea Party strongly pushes for), a nod towards Big Coal, and less reliance on oil.
This happened with solar last year... both the Tea Party and the far left greens have ended up agreeing on the importance on this... which is ironic becaus
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I can EVs helping both sides. The left benefits because shifting to solar/wind power as the primary means of a vehicle's propulsion is better for the environment and gives less fossil fuel waste.
Not to take away from your point, but everyone benefits from this. The environment shouldn't be a left/right issue, and it's shameful that it's been turned into that.
There is no irony (Score:5, Insightful)
To anyone who actually understands how the Republican party operates, there is no irony because they are little more than two-faced hypocrites. They preach limited government but then try to regulate the bedroom, who can get abortions, who can get married and birth control. They preach freedom but use eminent domain to steal people's property (the Keystone Pipeline they are so fond of is built on stolen land) and funnel trillions of dollars into the military industrial complex so that more people can be bombed. They preach lower taxes but then raise taxes on everyone except the super-rich.
They (along with the Democrat party, which is the same shit but different rhetoric) are little more than corporate prostitutes who are available to the highest bidder. The stealerships in this case have more money combined than Tesla. So no, there is no irony because I expected nothing less from the Republican party than cronyist statism.
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what's the "democrat party"?
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Its like the Republic party, except Republics like elephants I think.
It does always sound like the person speaking has some kind of learning diasability when I hear the term 'democrat party' spoken. It could just be that english is not the speaker's first language.
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It's what conservative idiots call the Democrats. Why, I don't know.
I consider myself a progressive liberal, but I've listened to enough conservatives (you might try it sometime, if only to know what's coming next — keep your friends close, but blah blah blah) to suspect that they don't believe that the democratic party actually embraces democracy. I don't believe that either party is really in love with it, at least not at the federal level, so I'd consider that to be a bit hypocritical. But there's no shortage of hypocrisy on either side.
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Mostly agreed. But admittedly the Republican party has long been a gluing-together of different and not totally compatible factions, such as fiscal conservatives (business) and social conservatives (religious). On some issues they agree, like military adventurism abroad (for their own reasons). Other times, it looks more like a confused back-and-forth run around, like that recent crowd-controlled video game (whatever it was). Even without many individuals in the electorate being themselves hypocritical.
http
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Tesla has since announced that battery swapping stations will be operational within the next couple months between the Bay Area and LA so I don't think it's a hoax at all.
Uh No (Score:5, Interesting)
Demographics, not electric car business models are going to decide the next Presidential elections.
Republicans have won the Presidential popular vote only ONCE since 1988 (Bush v, Kerry, and that was an incumbent).
Winning streaks (Score:4, Interesting)
Republicans have won the Presidential popular vote only ONCE since 1988 (Bush v, Kerry, and that was an incumbent).
And the democrats only won it once between 1968 and 1992. What's your point? Most of the elections were fairly close and the losses had less to do with demographics than the candidates who were running. Bush Sr kind of blew it against Clinton but that election could have gone either way. Clinton loses and I'm not sure the democrats had anyone who would obviously have won in 1996. Bush Jr could easily have lost in 2004 and arguably did lose in 2000. Neither of Obama's wins were blowouts either. The only real blowouts I can remember are Reagan's wins, particularly in 1984 against Mondale. It wouldn't be shocking to see a republican in the white house in 2016. Just depends on who's running and how things play out.
The biggest problem the republicans have is that they push for policies that tend to repel anyone who isn't older white and usually male. Women, blacks, hispanics, LBGT, and most other minority groups tend to vote democrat. Some very strongly so. The republicans have also tied their mast to conservative religious groups who tie their hands on social issues. They have gotten away from the idea of sensible fiscal policy in order to wage a futile jihad on taxes and have shut the government down twice over the issue.
Re:Winning streaks (Score:5, Insightful)
> And the democrats only won it once between 1968 and 1992. What's your point?
It's not 1955 anymore, or even 1985. The same old rhetoric won't work because most of your base is dying of old age.
You can't even depend on the "white middle aged male" demographic anymore. Society has changed along with the demographics. You can't depend on crackers to get you elected.
Antagonizing EVERYONE else certainly is not a winning strategy.
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well (Score:5, Insightful)
'The widespread franchise rules giving car dealers virtual monopolies in their territories epitomize the government-controlled marketplace Republicans purportedly despise,' writes Wohlsen
yes, but they also epitomize the lobbyist-controlled cash funnel republicans love. money is by far more important than having actual values.
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"If they love money more than actual value, they'll love Bitcoins!" - Anonymous Slashdot Troll.
Plase, not Slashdot too (Score:5, Insightful)
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In case anybody is curious, the next Presidential election is over two years away, none of the horse race talk means a goddamn thing right now. This is just talking heads needing to fill airtime with inane babble because covering the events in Crimea would be too depressing.
Crimea river.
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
but the real irony is that conservative politicians ever opposed Tesla at all.
Republicans are more interested in established businesses and their business models. Tesla is trying to break the dealership business model and big GOP contributors do not like that.
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It's been said several times in this thread but I'll repeat it. The Republicans have always been the party of crony capitalism and protecting entrenched businesses. The national dealers association has had their hands so far into state politics that you ignore them at the peril of losing your office. The dealers association has, and will, throw millions into a state political campaign where $100k is the typical election budget when governors or legislators don't tow their line.
To put this in perspective, th
Elon Musk = Greatest Republican Troll Ever (Score:5, Interesting)
Case 1: republicans love the military-industrial complex and always protect their cost-plus pork for defense contractors, while simultaneously claiming to support fiscal responsibility and free-market competition. Once someone shows up actually wanting free market competition in these giant aerospace contracts, the republicans are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Case 2: the republican stance is that all regulation is bad. So is environmentalism, and government loans. Rich people are awesome though, and deserve tax cuts and celebration for all the glorious good they do for the economy. Enter Tesla - a product targeted squarely at the upper end of middle class and higher, which is environmentally minded, got started with renewable energy loans, and which is stirring up areas where regulation legitimately is disrupting market efficiency.
The contortions the republican party has to go through to try to reconcile the inconsistencies highlighted by these companies are hilarious, and representative of the entire redefinition the party is going through. I'm hoping they'll get trounced by the dems another time or two and then emerge as something worthy of sharing a name with the party of Eisenhower, Roosevelt and Lincoln.
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SpaceX is not doing space exploration. It's doing space logistics.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory---government partnership between NASA and Caltech, filled heavily with scientists & engineers, is doing space exploration and they're reasonably good at it. (the loss of Mars mission due to the famous units problem came about because Congress required a certain piece to go to a typical MIC contractor in a midwest state, and they were using archaic units and assigned the task to an inexperienced fresh graduate t
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Everyone admits NASA is a job engine and not a serious space exploration platform. That is party agnostic.
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Is it like the third world approach where the idea is to have just enough regulation to encourage people to pay bribes to avoid the regulation? Or are we just looking at a bad apple here instead of a party line.
Can we quit abusing the word "monopoly"? (Score:3)
If there were only one or two car manufacturers, sure, that would be a monopoly. Yes, in this case the franchise model is enforced by the government, but that doesn't automatically make it monopolistic. Plenty of franchisers outside of the auto industry have self-imposed rules regarding franchise location. That's why you don't see two McDonalds across the street from each other.
Which is more monopolistic: A system that forces car manufacturers to sell to consumers through independent dealers--many of whom carry more than one brand, or a system where the manufacturer owns the whole distribution chain, including the dealer?
I actually don't have a problem with Tesla's model, and am no fan of dealerships, but let's stop misusing the term "monopoly" to describe the current situation.
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Electric car complexity health care complexity (Score:2)
But the electric car is a very complex product. Most users don't know how to drive a car. They need to be trained and lice
Isn't Christie politically doomed anyway? (Score:2)
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Insightful)
the company and their models have changed since 2012.
Tesla is in an odd place in conservative conversations, because it hasn't sunk in yet that this is the first electric car that's not a joke played on hippies. The Model S really did change the landscape (and, hey, we wouldn't be conservatives if we embraced change quickly). Now people on the right are starting to realize that this could be the new American Car Company to rally behind, now that "Government Motors" is on the lifetime-ban list of many on the right after the bailouts.
Speaking of changing landscapes, people need to shed the silly notion that "oil companies" oppose electric cars. There are no large "oil companies" any more, they're all "energy companies" now, and they're just as happy to sell natural gas to electric companies as they are to sell oil at the pump.
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They'll make a heck of a lot more if they are selling gas at the pump than natural gas to the electric company.
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Source?
Re:Marketing (Score:2)
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It's "per se", not "per say."
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Years sgo when Exxon was posting billion dollar quarterly profits and gas was around $5.00 a gallon, we did some math and determined that along the entire supply chain, they were making about 25 cents per gallon total over the costs of crude. Of course they operate on 5 different continents so the massive profits were due to volume more than anything.
Anyways, the CEO of both exxon and bp oil were talking about delivering alternative energy when it became viable. I think the BP oil CEO said something along t
Marketing spin (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no large "oil companies" any more, they're all "energy companies" now
Exxon-Mobil is not an energy company in the general sense nor are most of their competitors. They make their money in oil and gas. They may call themselves an energy company but you are what you do and what they do is fossil fuels. Calling themselves an energy company is just marketing spin.
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but they're not a "general energy" company (Score:2)
They are basically an "oil and gas" energy company.
To me, a true "energy company" should be producing energy from multiple sources: oil, gas, wind, solar, coal, nuclear, tidal, hydrogen, alcohol, etc.
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is electric cars are wayyyyy less profitable for "energy companies" than gasoline cars.
Mainly because you can put this thing called solar panels on your roof and charge your cars with your own generated electricity (either directly, or sell your surplus to the grid during the day and buy it back in the wee hours when your car is home charging).
Electric Vehicles + Solar panels are the kiss of death for all fossil fuel based energy companies.
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You are going to need a LOT of solar panels to do this and also note most people are home at NIGHT when this is not going to work out so well ;)
Note: using solar to power your car is through offsetting your daily electricity use and powering at night - you don't actually have to use the *specific electrons collected by photonics deposits on your solar panel* to power the electric car.
The end result is the same - car gets juice (usually the cheaper variety if you're hooked up with a smart meter) and you pay less.
Hell, Musk even has a company that helps homeowners do just that - SolarCity - without all the overhead of buying the panels and installing
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Doesn't even have to be that way. A charging station could easily be designed that stores charge from solar during the day, and transfers it to the vehicle whenever it's parked at the charger, day *or* night.
What I'm really waiting for is ultracaps. When and if they replace batteries, the entire landscape will shift. If they don't, electrics will continue to have a horribly expensive wear-out-and-replace component, and that's going to keep the effective cost very high.
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It wouldn't be that hard to have an energy reservoir that fills during the sunlight hours, then charges your car when you plug it in.
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To be fair it's a very slow kiss of death.
I expect by 2020 Tesla alone will be delivering around 300k vehicles/year. Even at that pace, Tesla will still be less than 5% the number of vehicles delivered than Toyota.
You are conflating to separate aspects.
1 - It will take decades until 50% of new cars sold are electric cars, to get to just 10% of new cars being electric cars should happen from 2020-2025.
2 - Every electric car in the roads are way less profitable for fossil fuel companies
We'll see by 2025 a mea
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Too many of the general public confuse 'conservatives' with 'Republicans.' The Republicrat Party is a matched pair of umbrella organizations set up to protect given sets of special interests, which involve significant overlap, from real-world economics and public accountability. The left-hand half of this party just got through putting together a tax-supported national healthcare system that carefully avoids interfering with the legal armor that allows the pharma business and the hospital business to screw
Odd logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many of the general public confuse 'conservatives' with 'Republicans.'
In most cases it is a distinction without a difference. Most conservatives self identify as republicans and vice-versa. There are some outliers but they are the exception that proves the rule.
We of the dark side have been generally suspicious of electric cars because of the perception that most purchases are made with cushy tax subsidies, rather than inherent merit, in mind.
Great logic, because obviously gasoline vehicles never get tax money [wikipedia.org]. Gas companies get TONS of tax subsidies and they are strongly supported by the political right. Lots of industries receive tax subsidies including agriculture, oil, gas, ethanol, coal, steel, aviation, construction, manufacturing, and many more. I find great irony when I hear some rural conservative farmer bitching about subsidies for solar power when he's getting subsidies for the crops he is selling. I guess subsidies are only good when it is for something that benefits you.
There is also a cultural bias factor ("University hippies buy these, so they must be bad...") which works both ways.
Are you really trying to justify hatred by saying "other people do it too"?
I had to explain to her that hating environmental activists doesn't have to mean hating the environment itself.
Why would you hate an environmental activist? Or any other kind of activist for that matter? Arguing passionately for a good cause is no reason to hate someone. Sure there are a few real looney-toons out there but most are basically just trying to push for a healthy planet and a nice place to live.
Re:Odd logic (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course people with specific ties to an industry are going to find arguments for government subsidies to that industry. The rest of us just wish that all the subsidies would go away, so we could make decisions about purchases based on economic merit, rather than figuring some arbitrary fraction of the advertised price that gives us an advantage on some IRS form. Why, indeed, should the oil business get a "depletion allowance" that no one else enjoys? And why should farmers have their crop prices subsidize
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[StrangeGlove]not having to import our cars' precious body fluids from desert tribes which hate us[/StrangeGlove]
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I think the conversation, and the resulting political tie-in, is more about US franchise law and auto dealers dependence on said laws, than they are about an electric car, conservative ideology, or any particular politician.
Auto dealer groups comprise a powerful lobby with massive dollars to spend on politicians and long standing relationships with our governing bodies. These dealer groups are by and large threatened by Tesla's "direct to customer" model because it cuts them right out of the picture. Thei
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Ford can fix whatever price it wants to (you don't think Ford dealers compete with one another on price, do you?). That's not important, as there are many brands. Let Ford sell cars their way, and Tesla do their own thing, and trust the customers to favor the model best for the customers.
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"There are no large "oil companies" any more, they're all "energy companies" now, "
Wrong. They are "natural resource extraction" companies not energy companies. The two are radically different. A unholy part of economics with no environmental costs, and "unlimited supply." Both ridiculous concepts within the farce that is economics. *see http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]
You are full of shit.
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Hey, they're in the S&P Global Energy Sector Index, they're energy companies. Feel free to live in the trees, free of any taint of the farce that is economics, if it bothers you so much. Mean while, they're still as happy to sell natural gas as to sell oil, which was my point.
Fear leads to anger.... (Score:2)
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Thanks for the insight Yoda
Re:There is only one thing you need to know (Score:4, Interesting)
I keep trying to vote myself more bennies, but I never seem to find it.... I know, I know, you think Democrats give away Money to Poor People. I think our government gives away money to Rich People. As someone who got government help with food and education when I was younger, I think I've more than paid back in taxes from the fancy job that helped me get. Hooray for a Hand Up. Everyone benefited.
And frankly, you're pissed that people are trying to vote themselves more benefits from the public treasury? Isn't that kind of how it works? Isn't that a democracy in action? What are you complaining about? Would you rather people NOT be able to vote in their own best interests? What do you think is better? The alternative looks a lot like a dicatorship to me.
I don't think you can actually say that every democracy collapses due to loose fiscal policy, followed by dictatorship. I'd like some examples. Democracy is relatively new. Empire isn't, but democracy is. Where are all these failed democracies that are now dictatorships? I can name many dictatorships in the world. None of them started as democracies. North Korea? Syria?
I think that's what you WANT to believe, but I don't think you have any examples to back up what you just said.
I am actually horrified and disgusted by your weird little history lesson on greatest civilizations. What does spiritual faith have to do with it? bondage? They ALL rose up from bondage? courage? What courage? Empires arise from many things. Greed. Lustful economics. Courage rarely has anything to do with it. Liberty? What liberty did the Roman slaves have? What liberty did the United Kingdom bring to the world? What liberty have we? Oh, and THEN we got selfishness, riiiiight. We were all courageous pious people of spiritual faith, but THEN we got all selfish?
I think you're making all of this up so you can be mad at Democrats (which really, has nothing to do with anything. ) I think you don't have any REAL reasons to be mad at them, so you have to make up this claptrap so you can feel properly outraged. I'm not a Dem. I'm independant. But if you're going to hate someone, at least hate them for REAL reasons....
Would you like some real reasons to hate Dems? I can give you plenty.
Also, keep the patriotic spiritual marching bullshit to yourself. It's all fake, and we know it. Rah Rah Rah! We're #1! Don't Look Behind The Curtain!
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I know someone who just tried to buy a Tesla. What they told him it would cost, what he would get, and so on sounded like a reasonable deal. He did the test drive and loved it and was all excited about getting it. Then the REAL numbers came up.
So he went to a Tesla showroom where someone gave him some lowball numbers to get him to do a test ride, then when it came time to actually do the sale, the numbers were higher? How is this different than buying from a dealer?
NO DEALERSHIP does a bait and switch even half as bad as Tesla does. They added $30K to the price and over doubled the monthly payment. The down payment also went from $2K to $35K.
This part of the story doesn't really make sense -- I don't really see how adding $30K to the price *and* requiring an additional $33K downpayment requirement could have doubled the monthly payment he was expecting. Unless his credit warranted such a high interest rate that the monthly
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A few years old, but a very very educational series of articles:
http://www.edmunds.com/car-buy... [edmunds.com]
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Because it is unlikely to be true. Anyone can go to the Tesla website and check the prices. You will get the car at the price listed on the site, no more and no less.
If he is talking about financing, nothing forces you to finance the car through Tesla. In my part of the world one usually borrows the money in a bank and this is how it is done when buying from a dealer too.
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Never gonna happen. But if you buy the base Tesla and drive it a lot for 15 years, in the end, the cost of the car is fully paid by savings in gas and maintenance.
That's right, the car comes out essentially free if you drive it a lot (and keep it for a really long time).
Electrical battery prices will drop but not that much. They will always keep EVs significantly more expensive than normal gas cars, but you can save $5K / yr in gas and maintenance costs if you drive a lot (and put solar panels in your house
Re:Rubio was doing so well (Score:5, Informative)
And then he called them "consumers."
Protip: That's the derogatory term economists use for the general public when they're feeling especially sociopathic.
Manufacturer, Distributor, Wholesaler, Retailer, Customer, Consumer
None of those terms are derogatory.
All they do is describe different roles in the chain of commerce.
Re:Rubio was doing so well (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Your chain-of-commerce should have ended at "customer". Any further actions do not qualify as commerce.
"Customers" are people who pay you to do your job well. They buy your products and services, and if you don't provide what they need, they will drop your ass and find someone who does. These are "informed buyers" who will do pesky things like "demand warranty service" and "enforce contract terms".
"Consumers" are people that marking folks envision buying your product because they want it and will buy it without questioning whether they need it or not. These are "mindless automatons" who will "take what they're given" and "stand in line for days in the freezing cold to get the next minor upgrade of your product".
(If you want a good laugh, envision Chris Farley doing the air-quotes-guy skit in those last two paragraphs.)
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"Customers" are people who pay you to do your job well.
"Consumers" are people that marking folks envision buying your product because they want it and will buy it without questioning whether they need it or not.
Excellent description between the two. I would have posted the same. Customers are those you want to please and that is incentive to provide good products/services. Consumers are those you want them to consume regardless.
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Or, there is an actual distinction between the two which is subtle but important.
Customers and consumers are usually one and the same (someone buying something that they will use themselves). But there are a lot of times where they aren't the same person. A customer buying a gift for someone else for example. The customer paid for the good, but didn't actually consume it. The guy a company actually has to keep happy post-purchase is the consumer. The customer in this example is mostly concerned with the buy
Customer != consumer (Score:2)
Re:Rubio was doing so well (Score:5, Informative)
No. Your chain-of-commerce should have ended at "customer". Any further actions do not qualify as commerce.
1. There's more to commerce than the exchange of money.
2. Your definition of consumer is a transparently biased straw man you've built up specifically so you can beat it down.
For this conversation to be meaningful, we need a common definition.
Heck, it'd probably help if you even read the fucking article
"It's an established product," Rubio said. "Customers should be allowed to buy products that fit their need, especially a product that we know is safe and has consumer confidence beneath it."
3. Rubio isn't even using "consumer" in the way that's got you Anonymous Cowards all hot and bothered.
Is "consumer confidence" derogatory?
Does it imply "mindless automatons?"
Or maybe you ACs are just full of shit.
Fuck. I don't even like Rubio's Tea Party politics, /. pedants even more.
but I definitely dislike incorrect
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Almost. As a parent, I'm the customer since I'm the one buying and paying for it. My daughter is the consumer, since she's the one that wants the bear/ipod/minecraft shirt
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You must be new around here...