New York Auto Dealers' Lobby Prepping New Anti-Tesla Legislation | Hacker News Reader

New York Auto Dealers' Lobby Prepping New Anti-Tesla Legislation

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15 pointssethbannon8 comments

“If you allow someone to come into the market with no overhead, that's an unfair advantage” hmmm isn't that the whole point of markets? time for some creative destruction in car dealer land.

Texas S owner here, people are still getting their cars here despite these restrictions. Here is a pic from May of last year when I picked up mine. Most of these cars are being prepped for their owners. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13941904/cars/teslas.jpg

It makes buying more cumbersome and we paid 20% down on something we never seen or even driven a test model. I also was not able to put TX sales tax into my loan and had to pay the lump sum when registering the vehicle here.

Keep in mind you can now see the S at the service center and take it for a test drive but you need to make an appointment. The problem is they can't (or not supposed to) help you with buying or financing there, you have to do it over the phone and on the website.

That is a similar argument used as when the Amazon tax was first proposed, with the retailers complaining about Amazon's competitive advantage due to not having shipping facilities in New York and people not paying sales tax.

A slightly less onerous solution would be to institute a sales tax for out of state car sellers selling to NY buyers.

You are required to pay sales tax on a newly purchased vehicle when you register it in NY state. If you buy it from someone out of state, you still have to pay NY state sales tax:

http://dmv.ny.gov/node/2086

Here in California, sales tax on a car is based upon the address you register it at, not on who you buy it from.

Sales tax isn't the motivator here, it's entrenched businesses (auto dealers) paying lobbyists and legislators to protect their valuable turf. Do they add value? I don't think so, why not let consumers choose?

Can someone explain why you can't take a Tesla for a test drive in Texas? If the "showroom" doesn't actually sell any cars, then shouldn't it be considered a non-retail facility (no different from the Tesla charging stations in Texas)?

You can still take a test drive in TX, I've done it. Just make an appointment. I'm not sure how they can do it legally. My guess is local contractors are hired to do it and not Tesla themselves.

Wonder if this is what the talks between Apple and Tesla were about?

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