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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

This is great news. I look forward to a day when I never have to talk to a salesperson again.

> Forty-eight states have laws that limit or ban manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers

Why on earth is this a law? (I mean besides the obvious lobbying efforts and likely scare-mongering from powerful auto dealers) Is there an actual reason/benefit for this though for consumers?

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These laws are anachronisms back when they didn’t want manufacturers directly selling vehicles to consumers because there was a fear (or maybe, an experience?) with manufacturers selling vehicles without any reasonable ability to get parts, repairs, etc.

Nowadays with nationwide fast shipping and the internet these aren’t really problems… but in the 1950s I could see how there would be some benefits to having a dealership near you.

It was more protection for local dealers, to avoid the manufacturer coming in to a market that the dealer had developed and undercutting them.

Yes, but that's the first layer. The second layer is "Why would we care about undercutting local dealers"? And there are good reasons to avoid undercutting, not just greed, as is often the case.

Do you think there still are, or just were?

I think Ford would be happy to sell a car direct and pocket at least some of the commission they otherwise pay to the dealership. But they sort of need dealers also, to do local marketing, help customers who want hand-holding, and to provide warranty/recall service.

They were merely well organized and. connected to state legislatures. It's just regulatory capture.

In my view if the local dealers will go to hell in a hand basket I won’t shed a tear. Michael’s Subaru of Bellevue couldn’t tighten some gasket under the car and my car was leaking oil after the oil change. When I took the car to the dealership they said it was because of my car being too old (older Subarus have indeed a problem with oil leaks). The guy behind the counter looked like he had anger management problems with my request to take another look. So yeah, if Amazon will put these dealerships out of business - good riddance.

You know, sometimes they get anger management issues after the 1000th angry customer asking them to fix what appears to be a design flaw in the car that customer bought. I'm not sure that buying from that dealership via amazon would do anything for you (amazon is just listing dealer cars), or that the situation would be better if you bought directly from the manufacturer.

Has Tesla been selling cars directly to consumers without these problems?

Telsa has precisely this problem; they want a lot of control over the repair process. It can be tough to find an independent mechanic to work on them.

https://service.tesla.com/docs/ModelS/ServiceManual/en-us/GU...

> Tesla does not allow the use of any used, recycled, alternative, aftermarket, or third-party replacement parts. Use only new parts ordered directly from Tesla.

That's quite an interesting statement from Tesla. How much weight does it actually hold beyond just being "their opinion" considering that the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act forbids the voiding of warranties for those reasons?

IIRC, they won't sell parts to a non-certified mechanic, and there's a lack of third-parties making the more complex parts. You're fine if you need a tire swap. You're not gonna have much fun if you have to replace the screen.

A Federal-level right to repair can't come soon enough.

But what can they legally do if you decide to use parts on the secondary market anyway? (... are they punishing consumers for this?)

Nothing. But they don't need to. They just tackle it at the supply side.

If you're a mechanic who wants Tesla parts, you need to go through Tesla. If you go through Telsa, you can't use third-party parts or resell the first-party ones. As a result, the market for third-party parts stays largely too small to exist.

You can buy (almost?) any part directly from Tesla as a plain Joe [1], but you may need a VIN for certain parts (mainly the actual computers?).

In the event you want to DIY a repair, Tesla publishes all their service manuals they use at their service centers (e.g. [2]) and you can can even use the exact same software their technicians use for the deeper repairs, albeit at a price that is expensive if you're a plain Joe, but for a repair shop it doesn't seem to be terribly expensive.

On the topic of 3rd party parts, there isn't quite as robust a marketplace.

[1] - https://epc.tesla.com/en-US/landingpage

[2] - https://service.tesla.com/docs/ModelY/ServiceManual/2025/en-...

[3] - https://service.tesla.com/en-US/diagnostic-software

> a price that is expensive if you're a plain Joe, but for a repair shop it doesn't seem to be terribly expensive.

That's actually a lot less than I was expecting. Toyota's is $1500/year.

I think Tesla's practices are gross here, but wouldn't a better solution to be Right-To-Repair legislation instead of protecting dealerships?

Absolutely.

Guess who donates a whole bunch to their local and state-level candidates to prevent precisely that?

I think Tesla has "show rooms", and then you buy the car from California and import it. So you're not actually visiting a dealership when you visit a Tesla store.

[flagged]

I was talking about in states that banned direct sales, not generally

No, you didn't pick them up at a dealership. Because Tesla doesn't operate dealerships. They call them stores, or galleries depending on if direct sales are legal. They hold dealer licenses, but that does not mean they are a dealership.

If you're going to be needlessly hostile, at least be correct.

https://www.tesla.com/findus/list/stores/United%20States

> You clearly don't know what you're talking about

Please omit swipes like this from comments on HN, regardless of who or what you're replying to. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Tesla had to fight in court in many of the states for the right to sell directly to customers.

They were adopted in the mid-20th Century when franchised dealers the norm but manyfacturers would use threat (backed by follow-through if the threat wasn’t successful) of opening direct competing manufacturer-owned dealerships to coerce franchise dealers practices, to take that practice off the table.

> Why on earth is this a law?

Car dealerships tend to be keystone businesses in towns; they wind up with outsized political power on the state and local level.

It stems from franchise law which exists to give franchisees a modicum of protection from adverse practices by the much stronger party in the relationship.

I'm sure that's a part of it, but I'm of the opinion that car dealers and other really local business owners like them are the modern equivalent of the landed gentry.

Locally powerful people can have a lot of leverage, even against a much bigger national-level entity.

> Starting today, customers can browse, finance, and purchase certified pre-owned Ford vehicles online through Amazon Autos, with in-person pickup at a local Ford dealership.

This whole thing sounds like dealership with extra steps and a middleman fee.

Would love to see how much pressure is put onto purchasing addons from the local dealers. I remember reading people running into that when picking up their Lightnings.

"We had us a deal here for nine-teen-five. You sat there and darned if you didn't tell me you'd get this car, these options, without the sealant, for nine-teen-five!"

"Yeah but that TruCoat.... Lemme talk to my boss..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

>(I mean besides the obvious lobbying efforts and likely scare-mongering from powerful auto dealers)

This is the only reason so far as I understand it.

You'd think Amazon would apply lobbying power to enable new car sales?

I would never expect amazon to perform any unethical behavior at all, because amazon is an honorable company

Vertical integration is, in general, bad for competition and often bad for consumers. There can be benefits, but too much control limits availability of parts, confuses incentives, etc.

> Vertical integration is, in general, bad for competition and often bad for consumers.

This is a gross misunderstanding of what vertical integration is.

YKK zippers makes an unbeatable product because of vertical integration.

A lack of vertical integration means that you're subject to the whims of larger markets (and increased interest and costs at every step).

The flip side to this is "control nothing". Buy the building your office is in and own an asset, or get a triple net lease and then pay margin on top of that. Own your own hardware or pay AWS to have 30percent profit margins...

> YKK zippers makes an unbeatable product because of vertical integration.

YKK zippers make an unbeatable product because they are a monopoly.

A monopoly in the market for YKK branded zippers? One can buy zippers from lots of different manufacturers.

https://idealfastener.com/zippers/

Also makes great zippers. They are more vertically integrated than most of their other competitors.

(Potentially) making a better product does not mean better for a consumer, especially when a company has a dominant share of the marketplace.

It potentially means you can only get parts going through the company that sells the complete product.

It potentially means that you have to pay whatever price the company sets because they control the distribution pipeline.

Vertical integration has ZERO to do with any sort of market dominance.

A company could be vertically integrated, and have a small portion of the market. A company could be a full on monopoly and have little to no vertical integration.

YKK processing raw metals and plastics, building its own zipper making machines has nothing to do with how much market share it has. It has everything to do with product quality.

Faunc is another example of "vertical integration" where they make the mills, software and controllers for their devices, as well as servos and spindles. Servos and spindles are commodity items (you can buy them cheaply from china) yet Faunc makes their own for quality and reliability reasons.

You are correct that a high degree of vertical integration does not necessitate market dominance.

I would like to add some nuance though: As the supply chain becomes longer, the value of vertical integration rises. Now if we acknowledge that bigger players can profit more from vertical integration as well, and assume that players play equally well, we have a "devil poops on the big pile" situation, pulling the market towards a monopoly as the bigger player gets to profit more.

So it's not got exactly ZERO to do with market dominance ;)

It's true of beer, too. In a lot of states (decreasingly so), breweries cannot sell beer directly to consumers, or even retailers. I once paid for a tour of a brewery, where the price of admission also covered a souvenir glass. The brewery would then give you a few pours of "free beer". They emphasized that they were definitely not selling me any beer.

Agree. Dealing with Amazon customer support is such a great experience and it keeps on improving every time I reach out to them.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. I remember when their customer service was truly great, about 20 years ago. Now it is not great, but still much better than car dealers, IMO.

When did you last use their support? 15 years ago, I needed to click 1 button to chat with support instantly about a faulty iPod I bought. They issued a refund and return mail label instantly.

3 months ago, I had to navigate multiple froms and dropdowns to even reach a chat representative. And when I did, they had none of the information I spent several minutes filling out. The rep then grilled me about my order, seemingly incredulous that Amazon had sent me a "new" product that was clearly used and repackaged when I opened it (this has been common for years as Amazon commingles its own stock with that of 3rd party sellers).

FWIW I find Amazon's phone support to be faster than the chat stuff. It's usually just a couple mins, most of which time you're on hold while they're fixing it. My wife hates dealing with returns, but I find that it's usually no big deal, and often they'll give you $5 or $10 for your trouble, if things don't get sorted out the first time (which seems to be about 10% of the time).

? I've returned two items from Amazon in the last year and in both cases, all I had to do was click on the "Return" button and drop it off at my local UPS Store.

Why did you need to talk to support?

Because the Return button didn't give me an option to print a mail label. I had to click through multiple screens and finally located the support chat link.

this has to be satire right?

I can't imagine any support experience worse than dealing with Amazon "customer support"

christ help you if you mix that with a car dealership

There's no doubt that mixing these two could be a nightmare. But if you're replacing the pre-purchase haggling of a car dealership with the no-haggle process of buying on Amazon, then it might not be awful.

The real question is: who's on the hook if things aren't as described/pictured? It sounds like these all come with extended warranties, so that would mean it would be the dealer. They're no picnic to deal with, but that's going to be the case no matter whether you buy the car from them or from Amazon. If you can have a more pleasant buying experience by starting with Amazon, that's a win in my book.

As a knock-on effect, it could help bring down prices on used cars sold by other dealers, since buyers could point to these car listings as comparables.

> Why on earth is this a law?

Generously, protecting local labor is important in an environment that demands labor for survival and where considering alternative systems of providing for people is verboten. This is a confederation-level version of protections against offshoring jobs. Whether the jobs add value or not is its own dilemma.

Wonder if there an opportunity there to set up distribution in the few states that don't have that law and make everything easy online - out of state registration, delivery (for a fee). The dealerships in the 48 states will probably sue the manufacturers, they are not just going to let it slide, I suspect.

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