Tesla finds loophole to New Mexico’s ban by launching on tribal land
electrek.co
electrek.co
On August 23, 2015, I founded the Tesla Owners Club of New Mexico, with one purpose: fight for a change in the state law that protects the franchise dealer monopoly on sales and service in New Mexico. Six days later, on the 29th, we held our first meetup event, at the Jinja restaurant in Santa Fe. 12 people attended; we all sat around a long group of tables that the restaurant had pushed together.
The 12 of us discussed the law, how we could get it changed, and during the conversation the idea of "well why doesn't Tesla just put a service center and store on tribal land?" That idea was so brilliant, I was so excited by it, I quickly reached out to Tesla to schedule a call with the corporate development and policy people at the company. That led to multiple long calls over a few weeks, and then Tesla suggested I do some research on the idea. So I wrote up a report with maps, photos, etc of various locations that seemed to make sense from an owner's perspective, and submitted it to the company. The company kind of stewed on it but decided to continue to pursue the legislative fight.
So for the next four years I worked with Tesla, and many many state senators and state representatives to push for bills that would change the restrictive, protectionist laws and enable--hasten, really--the adoption of electric vehicles by companies like Tesla which did not use franchise dealerships. We held hearings, we had committee meetings, we had club members show up for events, offer legislators rides in our cars, we tried everything. But by 2019 it was clear there was just too much political pressure on the state government from the dealers and other interests like Big Oil, to get a bill through.
All along we owners continued to urge Tesla to look at the tribal alternative. They finally began to look into that. We were largely in the dark for the next two and a half years as Tesla canvassed the state for a tribal partner. They found one in the Nambe Pueblo. The result was announced yesterday.
Never again will Tesla owners in New Mexico have to plan indefinite hotel stays hundreds of miles away in other states while their car is serviced at some remote service location. Yesterday afternoon I used the app to schedule a long-deferred service appointment for my car (squeaks and other things) and the app showed the new local service center and I got an appointment! Yeah, baby. Never looking back.
p.s. The Tesla Owners Club of New Mexico now has 536 members and is growing fast. http://tocnm.org
It'd be nice if they could be struck down federally.
Not sure which of these states have tribal land near major population centers, but that would be interesting to cross-reference.
Don't let reality hurt your narrative. Perhaps it is actually the case of regulatory capture of both Democratic and Republican parties in both red and blue states?
I’ve been to two dealerships in Ohio. I disagree with even a partial ban but limiting the number of stores vs a complete ban are two different things.
For example, NY's partial ban is a grand total of 5 dealerships. This is a state with about 20 million people. There are at least 9 BMW dealerships in the Bay Area.
Don't be disingenuous.
Ohio: 3
New Jersey: 4
Maryland: 4
New York: 5
Pennsylvania: 5
Bay Area BMW dealerships: SF, Fremont, Mountain View, San Mateo, Concord, Berkeley, Santa Clara, Pleasanton, San Rafael
It’s the OTHER people who are being disingenuous, surely.
Not sure why this is the hill to die on since my understanding is that we agree that bans— both partial & total are anti consumer. The one comment implying Republican states are being hypocritical with their party platform extolling the benefits of a free market vs the reality of the legislation passed seems reasonable given the numbers.
Sure. Let us now compare Tesla dealerships on a same population basis. There are roughly 17 Tesla dealerships in the Bay Area. The Bay Area has a population of 7-9 million depending on what area you count. New York has a population of 20 million.
Why keep dying on smearing the Republicans when it is obvious that both parties are captured?
My point was that it wasn't JUST Republicans that were captured but that it was both. I provided evidence that Democratic states were ALSO captured. I don't need to provide evidence that Republicans were captured. I NEVER disputed that.
This is basic logic!
Assertion: Only R bad
Counter example: D bad
Conclusion: Therefore, only R bad is false
I don't need to provide proof that R is bad.
Go take a class on logic. If you already have, go take it again.
Another example of bad logic is trying to compare the number of dealerships that a company has versus the maximum number allowed by a partial ban.
For example, those 5 NY dealerships are grandfathered in. Tesla ALREADY had those dealerships. Under NY law, it can't have anymore and therefore has already reached its limit. Are you saying that Tesla will NEVER hit these limits in the future when it has already hit one?
Your logic:
C <= L but L > 0 (and <= 5) so that is less bad
My contention: C is just the current number. You don't know what C will be in the future. It is bad. You just don't know how bad it will be. In fact, as C grows it get closer and closer to being just as bad. .99999 repeated is mathematically the same number as 1. Look it up.
Lastly, New Mexico, the focus of the article, is heavily Democratic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_Legislature
Governor, both branches of legislature, 2/3 of representatives to House, both senators.
More info. There are roughly 18260 dealerships in the US. So roughly 1 per 20000 people. So roughly 1000 dealerships in NY. The NY limit is 5. Ford has roughly 20% of the market. So if we were to take that as a guesstimate, you are talking 200 dealerships versus the 5 limit. What a joke.
I mean, that's the only possible party that _can_ be hypocritical since their platform is, as the OP described, centered around being "pro-business", "small government". The left does not pretend to champion those things. The fact that 7/10 of the total ban states are deep red and the other 3/10 are battleground or middle of the pack blue, seems unquestionably to constitute hypocrisy on the part of those Republican states.
For your original counter argument to be true "D bad" we would need to examine whether the premise that total ban === partial ban. This is false on its face. As I pointed out earlier, it's not an accurate observation, no matter how many comparisons are made to irrelevant things like BMW dealership numbers.
Ah yes, let's use the extreme outlier where the company is headquartered. Tesla has not built 17 dealerships in every state around the U.S. and certainly has not in every area the size of the Bay Area. While you likely live in the Bay Area, given your propensity to use it as a reference point, those numbers are abnormal when compared to other states:
AZ - 6
CO - 6
DE - 1
DC - 1
GA - 4
HA - 2
ID - 1
IN - 2
MA - 5
MI - 1
NV - 2
NC - 2
OR - 2
RI - 1
TN - 2
UT - 1
VA - 3
WY - 1
vs numbers in partial ban (store limit) states:
OH - 3
NJ - 4
MD - 4
NY - 5
PA - 5
Makes those partial ban states not look so terrible anymore, right? Certainly that's different from 0.
> My contention: C is just the current number. You don't know what C will be in the future. It is bad. You just don't know how bad it will be. In fact, as C grows it get closer and closer to being just as bad. .99999 repeated is mathematically the same number as 1. Look it up.
I don't know what C will be in the future, just as you don't know whether NY will increase the number of allowed Tesla locations. We aren't debating the future. We are debating the present.
It seems you are unable to have a discussion without utilizing inflammatory or condescending rhetoric in every reply so I'm going to move on. Have a good night.
> "Seem to be "pro-business", "small government" Republican states."
Wait there are Democratic states that do the same. Both partial and total bans. So Democrats aren't hypocritical about being pro environment?
> Total bans are worse than partial bans
You said that C was not so bad. I said it wasn't knowable and therefore your statement shows your bias since it possible C >> L in the future. So you saying that partial bans is not as bad as total bans doesn't hold. There goes all your counts.
In fact, we do know that one state already it has reached its limits. Go look at my guesstimate of Ford dealerships in NY. 200 vs the 5 limit.
Have you considered the possibility that the existence of limits dissuades companies from expanding there first?
Go look at Texas and Tesla complaining about the total ban. So a limit of 1 would be materially different from 0 when you expect 1 dealership per 20000 people in a state with almost 29 million people?
Is NY fine?
NY 5 dealerships, population 19.75 million
Is Ohio fine?
OH 3 dealerships, population 11.74 million
Is Pennsylvania fine?
PA 5 dealerships, population 13 million
No limit:
MA 5 dealerships, population 6.794 million
So you should expect between 14 and 15 for NY. Too bad Tesla is growing at 50%. So that will be 22 this year. For Ohio, roughly 8 instead of 3. Is that ok? How about with 50% growth? That would be 12. Same with Pennsylvania.
Even your numbers make it look pretty bad.
Can you hear yourself?
They do it.
But you do it too.
But they are worse.
Your emperor has no clothes.
Will give a well deserved boost in revenue to the local businesses, if they can capitalize on the influx of well off buyers going to the dealership. Might also shatter some pre-conceptions about tribal lands. "it can't be that bad, there's a Tesla supercharger and Store right there!".
And my limited understanding tells me each one is going to be very different than the others. I've heard extremely positive things and extremely bad things.