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Comment by dsp1234 | Hacker News Reader

Let's say I go to a dealership and preorder a new car, and they let me down (for whatever reason), and I go online and write a bad review of my experience. I'm entitled to do that, and as a private business the dealership is entitled to cancel my preorder (though it's a childish move).

At that point, I can just go to another dealer and preorder there, and hopefully get better service.

That's just not possible with Tesla. There is no dealership competition with Tesla. If Elon Musk doesn't want to sell you a car, well then you are screwed. Less competition, less customer service, punishment for bad reviews, etc.

Now, please understand that I'm a fan of the 'no dealership' model, which is why I'm highly disappointed in his reaction to the bad review. I was hopeful that Tesla would be a good citizen, and show everyone that the 'no dealership' model is a fair one, with no downsides. Unfortunately, this reaction isn't it.

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But tesla would still be the manufacturer? How would a dealership benefit in any way? If there were others that didn't use the silly dealership model, you could go to them and buy an electric car on the internet. But tesla is first to market with an electric car at this scale, sure it can be seen as bad press to decline a pre-order, but introducing additional hands in the mix in no way would fix this situation. The problem lies with a lack of competition on this one- If tesla had any real competition, and supply constrains, do you honestly think a pre-order would be canceled?

But tesla would still be the manufacturer? How would a dealership benefit in any way?

Tesla wouldn't be able to not sell you a car. The dealerships buy (not really) the car, then they sell it to you. If a dealership is unhappy with your review, and won't sell you something (again, something within their rights), some other dealership would. If the manufacturer is pissed, and doesn't want you to own one of their cars, then they have to convince the dealership not to sell to you. And there is likely to be at least one dealership who would be willing to (or more likely the manufacturer would never make that request because of the power relationship between manufacturers and dealers).

For all the crap that dealerships do, they provide a layer of abstraction between the buyer and the manufacturer. Normally that's a crap deal for the buyer because it's inefficient, but it cuts the other way when the manufacturer is going to be childish about a bad review.

I just have a really hard time imagining BMW coming around and saying 'we got a bad review for a preview event, the CEO called the writer up, and we're banning every dealer in the world from selling a vehicle to that person'.

It's honestly the kind of 'parade of horribles' that the dealer's themselves are spouting in trying to prevent the 'no dealership' model from happening. Except it happened, and that sucks for everyone.

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