Pro-Tesla electric car bill advances in NJ Assembly
nj.com
nj.com
"The bill will need to pass a few more of New Jersey's legislative processes to become law, but things are looking up for Tesla."
Poor reporting job by TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/06/tesla-wins-back-the-right-t...). They made it seem like the bill was voted into law.
Regardless, you can buy a Tesla in New York, Pennsylvania, or online. If you go to a Tesla showroom now, you'll see a huge sign that says "pay 0% sales tax", which makes sense if you buy it online. Why would I want to pay 7% more even if I had the option?
All of this is just bullshit, on both sides. The dealers already lost. They lost when buying cars over the internet became a viable option.
It will be a long time before people are comfortable buying a car online.
I just purchased a new car; the process is unbelievably anachronistic, but it still exists and prospers for a reason. There's very much a "this is how it's done attitude". That's because the majority of the world doesn't accept "technology" liker the denizens of HackerNews.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-...
I constantly hear the argument that by codifying contemporary business models they've secured jobs.
Using this logic we should still have manually switched phone networks where people move around cables on giant boards all day long and rooms full of people using typewriters who have to start over again if they have a spelling error. There should be artificial $1 taxes for emails to keep the physical post in business and other nonsense.
I really don't see how the argument is valid.
I'm just surprised that there isn't some landmark labor case that would invalidate laws which artificially perpetuate inefficient vestigial processes or explicitly ban a market from evolving.
I find the reasons presented for these types of laws to always be patently absurd when generally applied and it just seems like an obvious shoo-in that should have been there since like the hundred years war.
Also, what leads you to believe that creating economic inefficiency to the benefit of some special interest is somehow against ancient and established traditions?
Well, that is the logic. And you'll note that, despite that logic, we have the internet, cell phones, and the national postal services are going bankrupt.
There's a tenuous balance between maintaining global competitiveness and promoting technological advance, and making sure that your middle-class have blue collar jobs that afford them the ability to participate in the financial gains of of your nation.
The changes will occur; you can't hold them back. But sometimes you have to ease them in. It does the world no good to put thousands of "luddites" out of work overnight. The idea that they'll "find other work" makes sense on the macro level, but not the micro level; transitions take time.
Back in the early C20 depression the auto makers were the biggest companies in the USA. And they'd force the franchisees to purchase cars or lose their franchise.
So states enacted legislation to ensure the auto makers couldn't close a franchise. Nor could the auto maker grant a second franchise in the same location. And (I think I'm inferring as I can't remember hearing this explicitly) could not open their own dealership that competed with the existing franchise.
A law meant to help the people, hinders the people later on. Getting this stuff right isn't easy.
I believe that the argument in their favor, other than blatant self-interest, was that dealerships provide post-sales warranty service, which would otherwise not be readily available. In some states, IIRC, the statutes are written to say that vehicles can only be sold from a location that also offers warranty service.
With multiple dealers at least you can choose which one to buy from, who has better people, better service, and better pricing. Why people want Tesla only stores is beyond me, one choice means no choice.
If consumers really do value dealers, then dealers will continue to exist. The reason that dealers are scared is that the dealers themselves do not believe that they provide a valued service.
> "Should there be some kind of time limitations within the bill or are we setting the stage for a situation where the historic dealership model is going to be hurt 10, 20 years up the road?" [State Sen. Brian Rumpf (R-Ocean)] said.
Proof positive that the "captured agency" in regulatory capture[1] is actually the entire government, or at least the entire Republican Party. Government officials don't even try and hide that they're opposed to hurting established industries. The only difference is that in the 21st Century its not a railroad and oil company they're constantly trying to shield from competition.
I would love to be knowledgeable enough to have a reasonable opinion on this topic. Could anybody recommend reading material where I could learn about some of what Elon is doing, what automakers are doing and what the pros vs cons are of both without getting too intimidated by the science behind it?
That's not to say that the above are not reasonable policies for an advanced western economy, just not that they could reasonably be considered purely capitalist.
Every company would be treated the same ("play by the same rules"). They can all sell zero emission vehicles direct to consumers at a maximum of four locations in NJ.
Why does Tesla get this exemption? Because corruption is only acceptable by the population is everyone is doing it. In this case, NJ is one of only a handful of states that is blatantly protectionist of this established industry.