But he added that franchise-dealer opposition would be a violation of interstate commerce, and that is unconstitutional.
"Good luck with that," Musk said.
Sounds like Musk likes to pick and choose the laws he follows.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-is-eliminating-most-of...
Tesla doesn't let anybody else fix their cars. So you have to take it to their... what, repair center?
Dealerships may or may not have your best pricing interests in mind, so forcing them to exist is not particularly useful.
Next time try buying a Honda or a Subaru. There's almost no wiggle-room in price.
Honda in the past. They may not move as much, but they definitely move.
Insider Tip: The internet desk is usually separate from the floor desk at your average dealership. When you know exactly which car you want to buy, negotiate through the internet desk only at several dealerships. But be prepared to walk if they try to pull a bait & switch when you show up to purchase.
As it stands, we are an unorganized mob who the middlemen and manufacturers are squabbling over and each making a profit. But it's becoming pretty clear we'll be able to program the middlemen cheaper/better in the near future (or services can just offer direct-online shopping), so should that remaining profit go to the manufacturer or the consumer? Tesla's being pretty generous now (or appears to be), but future (and present) direct online shippers may benefit greatly from the organizational imbalance. This is the same argument for collectively-purchased (government) healthcare, I believe.
(And yes, companies obviously should be compensated according to their risk and willingness to invest at scarce times - Tesla certainly deserves big praise from many angles - but examining this relationship from a societal standpoint and collectively bargaining for the end consumer (advocating for the poorest of us) is important too)
I may be a weird consumer but whenever I buy something expensive I always think about the unrelated things my money is paying for. So for example when I visit a car dealership I notice the big land footprint, the shiny offices, and well dressed salespeople—and I think to myself how much of my car purchase is going towards the upkeep of this crap, none of which I like or want.
If I want to learn about the car, I'd much rather access the manufacturer's website and read/watch independent reviews.
If I want to test drive a car I'd be willing to travel further to test drive one directly from the manufacturer. Or better still, just don't test drive it at all—you won't learn anything in an hour that you couldn't learn from a reviewer. The true character of a car usually takes a week or more to surface.
If I want to buy a car, I'd much rather buy it directly from the manufacturer and either pick it up from a central depot (to save money) or have it delivered directly to my home and detailed on my driveway (for a fee based on distance).
The only problem is that dealers usually only have cars with the most popular engines available, so you often can't actually try the car you want to buy...
Personally? yeah, I think renting a car is the way to go, if you want to evaluate how you will feel about the car later. A 20 minute test drive, to me, is like laying on a mattress for 20 minutes in a store and expecting to know what it will feel like to sleep on.
Remember: you're not special. You're just another meat bag that fits within a bell curve of normalness.
Edit: to the one person who voted me down, I was wrong. You aren't a meat bag, you are special.
I trust the guy at my local camera store to explain the pros and cons of a Canon vs a Fuji, I obviously don't expect they guy at my local Honda dealer to explain the pros and cons of a Honda vs a Toyota.
Camera stores is a great example. The vast majority of salespeople know how to convince you that a product suits your needs, but would have very little clue what is important to get the best outcome. They're not photographers—or if they are, chances are they're no more of a photography expert than you.
Perhaps the worst is "high end" hi-fi salespeople. These slick operators are great at convincing you to buy the unnecessarily expensive product and the criminally overpriced accessories. Unfortunately for the customer, most of the things that matter in making a good system aren't sold in a cardboard box with a big profit margin, so you'll never hear about them from a hi-fi salesperson.
There are only a few things that excite me more about a Model 3 than electric cars from established brands (particularly the upcoming Kia Niro EV) and a big one is the sales process.
Consumer price discrimination isn't something that should be occurring.
After all I'm not saying that car makers can't have "deals" but the price of any new car for sale—on special or a regular—should be published and not negotiated.
This doesn't make sense to me.
Thinking about it, my last three laptops were bought with a discount, just by not being afraid to ask for some.
When you're buying one laptop, of course not. You're talking a $3000 purchase vs a $40,000+ purchase. You negotiate on cars, because getting a thousand or two off is a huge deal for a lot of people.
The "No haggle" thing that Tesla is doing works fine for their $60,000-$120,000 cars. People spending that kind of cash on a car are probably not going to bat an eye at an extra thousand or two. Anybody spending that much money on a car isn't buying it because they have a limited budget, and are not trying to maximize their value.
I don't think it's going to work as well on their lower priced cars. People who don't have a $50-60k budget for a car don't have tons of money to throw around.
Haggling is stupid. Cars are usually overpriced because the expectation of haggling is priced in. I'd rather Tesla put a $35K price tag on their Model 3 knowing that's exactly what I'll pay than put a $38K tag knowing that I'll try to haggle it down to $35k.
A random citizen buying a single car isn't comparable to a corporation negotiating a volume discount.