If you can’t or aren’t willing to make an example of a company on regular occasion, the rest will just factor the weak penalties into the cost of doing business.
This is a potential dispute between the buyers of luxury cars and their maker. Not sure why tax dollars need to be spent intervening. (Would also note that it’s said “weak” regulation that permitted Tesla to launch and scale in the first place.)
Allowing market players to deceive consumers just creates bad incentives and terrible companies.
I do not have the 10 years and 10 million dollars required to sue any of the fortune 100 for any wrong doing regardless of its severity.
So are Teslas.
I get the argument. I’m not saying we legalise fraud. But if we’re spending the earnings of the average American, who barely earn enough in a whole year after tax to buy one, I would want to be damn sure there isn’t anything applicable to them being de-prioritised. (Hint: there is.)
If you’re buying an upgrade on a luxury car, you can afford a lawyer or find someone in a similar situation who can.
Lawsuits are RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE and are effectively inaccessible for almost all Americans. The civil and criminal legal systems are unbelievably tilted in favour of the wealthy.
And the argument that Tesla can only exist because they could mislead consumers thanks to weak American regulation seems pretty dubious.
Even if Tesla sold the dad package to 30% of their customers then they’ve likely doubled their margins overall.
In Germany, we call - and punish! - things such as this as "unlauterer Wettbewerb" (roughly: Unfair business practices).
The reason why the German government spends tax dollars on cracking down on companies making false or misleading promises to consumers is to protect people from being exploited thousands of dollars or more, and to protect businesses who play by the rules from the beginning and so suffer from less sales.
In short: You need to spend tax dollars to have a sphere of good behavior for the common good.
Why would you want more bureaucrats when they dont even go after the bad apples, but instead they actively protect deceptive firms and real fraud??