A Raw Deal in Michigan
teslamotors.com
teslamotors.com
In the Netherlands, we call this corruption.
(It happens too, but so openly? Don't you guys have rules against this? Or media who like scandals?)
A few observations:
- Tesla isn't a name brand here like Ford or GM. In fact, if you asked a lot of people if we should help the Big Three with this sort of legislation, you might be surprised by the answer. Remember, they generate a LOT of jobs in this state: not just the Big Three, but the tier 2 and tier 3 manufactors. While I think logic would win out in the day, I wouldn't assume that everybody in Michigan _wants_ Tesla. It isn't in their best interest.
- I haven't seen one media story about this yet, outside of social media.
- We're in the middle of an election cycle year, including a gubernatorial race. So, the special interests picked a good time to insert this language: there are a lot of problems the state is still dealing with, including Detroit going through bankruptcy. And people want the money to win races.
Personally, I'd love to see Telsa in the state, both the cars and charging stations. But, honestly, Telsa isn't going to get much traction here until they improve cold weather battery performance.
I think a lot of the stigma is gone, certainly there is considerable pressure for people to drive their employers vehicle to work, but at least in my (relatively upscale) neighborhood, I would feel no social pressure against, and I bet I would have a bunch of engineers come visit, if I dug up a 100k and put a Tesla in my driveway.
Apparently, they forgot to tell me that you shouldn't drive a non-UAW vehicle onto the parking lot.
Enterprise's Roadside Assistance guy was not happy with me when he had to help me pull the pallets away so I could get my vehicle out.
Interestingly, my father worked for Chrysler outside of Detroit from the late 1950s into the 1970s.
And oddly enough, he drove a VW Beetle in the 1960s. As you can imagine, when things were good, he was just viewed as the eccentric guy who drove a puny foreign car (why would anybody in their right mind do that?).
In the 1970s (and 1980s) doing something similar was probably a moderately dangerous move.
I've been back many times during my life and in the 1990s and onward, I see plenty of foreign cars.
http://wot.motortrend.com/patriotic-car-shopping-which-state...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/08/tesla-norway-idUSL...
Here's an interesting interview from Elon Musk about the Tesla battery winter performance. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/03/01/interview-with-elon-musk...
In addition to battery life and cabin heating issues, there can be lots of small problems. I'm a bit worried about the fancy electric door handles, for example. I've been locked out of my car because the locks were frozen and sometimes even the doors themselves frozen solid.
I have no doubt that Tesla can overcome these issues but they will have to do extensive testing as well as make it known to the public that their car is a reliable vehicle even in wintertime.
People up here in the north tend to favor simple and solid cars and marketing Teslas and other electric vehicles is going to be difficult. The issue is half technical and half marketing.
It makes no more sense than a Florida driver being wary of overheating a car made in Detroit. There may actually be some winter weather technical problems that Tesla has yet to resolve, I honestly don't know. But everything in your post is either speculation or a fallacy called argumentum ad populum [1].
If I were to speculate, I'd assume that an electric vehicle would be more reliable than a gas powered one in the winter, not less. Ignition is simpler, there are less moving parts, etc. But it's still speculation, and you can't make an argument from a point of ignorance.
Had I really speculated that it really is, you'd be right.
Tesla's challenge in the North is convincing people that it is a car that is reliable even in the winter. This is going to be a harder task than actually making the car reliable in the cold.
> "Electric cars have been especially popular in Norway because of generous subsidies, free parking, government-provided re-charging stations, the right to use express lanes on highways and exemptions from tolls."
Yeah, Michigan has (almost) none of that.
Cold weather battery performance could be ignored here if there were charging stations all over. Sure, there are a handful of charging stations scattered around if you live in Ann Arbor or something, but it's not like I can drive from there to Traverse City and reliably find charging stations. Especially in cold weather where I couldn't make it on one charge without freezing in the cabin. And good luck in the Upper Peninsula.
I'd love to own a Tesla / other electric vehicle. But between the cost, the winter performance, and the current lack of infrastructure, it's just not smart IMHO.
Norway's average temperature is way colder than Michigan's.
http://www.weather-and-climate.com/uploads/average-temperatu...
Oslo, Norway is one of the southern cities... Norway's geography extends all the way up to the arctic circle. Its latitude is more similar to Alaska.
Tromsø, Norway is very far above the arctic circle, and my understanding is that the Tesla has been performing quite well even way up north in Tromsø.
To give you an idea of how far North Tromsø is... their record snowfall in 1997 amounted to 95 inches of snow.
Basically, Tesla has figured out the "Cold Electric Vehicle Battery" thing. The Tesla's popularity across Norway is proof of that.
Detroit is also one of the Southern cities in Michigan. Average temperatures in tromso (https://weatherspark.com/averages/28894/Troms-Norway) are actually warmer than in Marquette. (http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/U...)
In Michigan's upper peninsula it's not uncommon to get 2 or 3 times that much snow.
Tromsø got 95 inches of snow from a single month in 1997. All 95 inches were during the month of December IIRC. On the average, Tromsø gets a ton more snow than that across its year.
Tromsø is one of the snowiest locations in the world.
What I was referring to was mostly the amount of energy the climate control system uses. Heating the cabin is going to suck some juice. I've talked to Chevy Volt owners about their winter performance and they say heating is their biggest problem in the winter. Even with the gasoline engine running to provide some waste heat for the cabin, they still get 50% of their normal range if they turn the heat on. If they're OK with driving to work wearing thick gloves and a winter parka while scraping the ice from the inside of their windshield, they only lose about 20% of their range which I presume is purely due to cold-weather battery performance at that point. Elon claims in the second article only 10% loss due to heating the cabin which frankly I don't believe and am chalking up to "MPG benchmarking nonsense." I admit I could be wrong, but I'd have to see some compelling numbers.
I believe my main point still stands though, which is that the government of Norway has built up the infrastructure and given people incentive to drive these cars. This doesn't exist in Michigan. Chargemap.com says that there are 1,416 charging stations in Norway. According to energy.gov, Michigan has 700. Meanwhile, according to the population density map on Wikipedia (1994 was the newest I could find, sadly) almost all the population in Norway is condensed into very small areas along the edges. Michigan is all over the place (except for the UP, which is noticeably lower). Assuming they only installed charging stations where there are people, this means that while in Norway, you likely have access to a charging station wherever you drive, unlike Michigan. So basically, we're comparing apples to kumquats here and you can't just point to the popularity of Tesla as proof of anything other than Norway's government was forward thinking.
I'm just making sure that the "Tesla Warm Battery" thing gets some attention.
It was the record depth of snow that accumulated on the ground. Meaning that more snow than that likely fell through the year.
Cars are pretty much the backbone of the entire economy here in MI. It's getting better, but not fast enough. Apparently what happened to Flint and Detroit wasn't enough of a wakeup call for everyone.
I also live in michigan and both of the major detroit newspapers had this on the front page early this morning [0][1].
- Tesla isn't a name brand here like Ford or GM. In fact, if you asked a lot of people if we should help the Big Three with this sort of legislation, you might be surprised by the answer. Remember, they generate a LOT of jobs in this state: not just the Big Three, but the tier 2 and tier 3 manufactors. While I think logic would win out in the day, I wouldn't assume that everybody in Michigan _wants_ Tesla. It isn't in their best interest.
This is about helping dealerships, not manufacturers so you'd think that any support for the Big Three manufactures wouldn't correlate with support for this bill.
[0] - http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2014/10/16/t... [1] -http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2014/10/17/michigan-ve...
are you joking? Toronto has plenty of Teslas and they work just fine.
The only solution is to have the legislators pass a law to stop it. Because they are huge beneficiaries of the current corruption, that is unlikely to happen and the American government and economy will continue to erode.
Not sure how to fix this. Open to suggestions.
? I dunno, love or something
This is so disappointing. If we really cared, then wouldn't it be worth starting with a strategy, a plan with steps that could result in a solution? Drumming up enthusiasm to do "something" without a call to action is just raising awareness nonsense.
Of course, if we did have a plan to stop corruption, very powerful people would likely oppose it. The amount of money held by those that would be hurt by fixing campaign finance is staggering and they are probably not willing to to restrain themselves ethically from doing whatever it takes to prevent reform.
So there's that too.
So, you meant to say "imminent financial crisis" then?
I too want to hear ideas for fixing the system, but I think it is going to take more than just a few laws being passed.
If you say "I'm giving you $1M to pass this law", it's corruption, if you say "I'm giving you $1M, but if you don't pass this law i'm going to withdraw it", then it's lobbying.
So, to ban lobbying outright is to ban input from every citizen to their representative.
It doesn't solve the problem.
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_election_campaign_...
Is there a name for the argumentative tactic of lumping unlike things together so one can say "if you hate me you must also hate yourself"?
"seek to influence (a politician or public official) on an issue."
My personal opinion is that an individual calling their representative is not the same as tons of money being poured into campaigns, but the fact remains that it is, by definition, lobbying.
Therefore, doing away with ....all.... lobbying, as the original post suggested we do, removes our voices from the system as well.
Is there a name for the argumentative tactic of speaking for a fictitious group of people so one can say, "I believe the thing you're saying is wrong, therefore everyone believes the thing you're saying is wrong"?
Seriously, why discuss trivial definitional disagreement when it only serves to muddy the waters and decrease the SNR of the conversation?
It's not implied purpose that matters. If you leave ambiguity, someone will read ambiguity. That's why there are entire panels and institutions dedicated to interpreting the meaning of the law.
So, I brought it up, because if you say 'we should do away with all lobbying', that does, by definition, include contacts by citizens to representatives. The original question was whether the benefits from good lobbying outweighed the drain of bad lobbying. I put my two cents in because I felt it necessary to define lobbying to render the question null through poor word choice.
The real question is whether or not substantive campaign finance reform needs to occur. Businesses and citizens both should have access to their representatives. It's whether or not a business or wealthy enough citizen should be able to effectively buy an elected official.
But that wasn't the question.
There are beneficial lobbying groups out there helping to
bring a voice to issues in an arena where they would
otherwise normally be drowned out.
In 2010, Coca-cola spent $2.9 billion on advertising. They only did that because Pepsi spent about the same amount.
"Good" lobbyists only exist because bad lobbyists exist. If you could cut the budget of every lobbying firm by 50% then nothing would change. The only thing that affects outcomes i proportional spend.
1: In fact it is advertising, to an audience segment of one.
Look at how screwed up California is due to the ability of propositions to be enacted without any concern for how they'll be financed.
Sure, people can spend money on tools for speech, but that's not what causes problems. It's when people give money to a political group that things get nasty and voting power starts to shift to those with cash.
That is what PACs do. The problem is that people are spending too much money on advertising for candidates. Any solution in which people can spend unlimited money on tools for speech has not drawn a line between money and speech.
Representative democracies work the same in the US, the Netherlands and all over. If a majority of the people of Michigan were vocally demanding Tesla dealerships, they would get them. That might be the case in a few years, but all we can do now is let the system work. There's a midterm election coming up soon and all of the Michiganders on hn can vote and convince others to vote for Tesla, but change may take time.
I, for one, agree with you wholeheartedly. This is politics in action. Just because you don't particularly agree with a decision doesn't mean it isn't working as intended.
When subjects like this are broached on this forum, we hear about lobbying and corruption, as if companies like Tesla-- who direct tax credits to rich people and play states off other for employment-- are above this. The tech industry in general is a huge lobby.
Except, you know, that the contributions weren't from automobile manufacturers, but from the dealerships, whose interests are in conflict with the manufacturers (the more one party earns, the less there is for the other).
In the Netherlands it's done via mutual favors, usually in the form of cushy and insanely overpaid jobs for former politicians and civil servants in exchange for favorable laws and government contracts. This happens openly in a way that would be called scandalous corruption in Germany.
In the Netherlands, we call what happens in other countries corruption and think our own shit doesn't smell. And because international corruption stats are usually self-reporting, we maintain the illusion we are squeaky clean. Bullshit.
That we also have corruption does not mean it is as bad as elsewhere and does not mean we don't get to call out blatant examples of it, especially blatant examples of the sort that are easy to get rid of by calling them out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Take for instance the recent German corruption scandal that forced President Wulff to resign. Receiving such favors is business as usual in the Netherlands, and simply doesn't count as corruption. The media don't care either, with the exception of shock-blog GeenStijl. But even when the latter presents cold hard evidence, nine out of ten times the entire establishment including the media just goes "meh".
Doing business in the Netherlands that involves government contracts or regulation usually means having to bribe people in some way.
I'm not saying it's that much worse than in other countries (but it tends to shock our German and Nordic friends), but we definitely don't have the moral right call out American corruption via campaign contributions when the only difference is the way politicians get paid off.
Why not? I'm not a politician. I didn't pass laws for favours. When I can't point at corruption when I see it, just because it also happens closer to me, aren't we just making the problem bigger?
In fact, what you're saying only underlines my point. Different countries are half-blind to the local flavour of corruption. How about we Dutch call out American corruption, and Americans call out ours? I realize nothing's really changing because all we're doing is arguing on the internet, but what in the world could be wrong with that?
Moral high ground, screw that. It's corruption, plain and simple.
- "Greater Phoenix Economic Council President and CEO Barry Broome said Nevada offers of upfront incentives and cash put it as much as $300 million ahead of other states bidding for the plant. Tesla considered Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and its home state of California"
Your last question puzzles me. Are you under the impression that one can't complain about this guy unless one thinks everything Tesla does is wonderful?
Media only likes scandals about foreign enemies. Otherwise they are self-censoring in order not to loose faith in the economy which growth is just based on promise.
> Don't you guys have rules against this? Or media who like scandals?
Some animals are more equal than others.
Also, the US is a BIG place. There are 4 states in the US with larger populations than the Netherlands. However, news is generally distributed at the national and local levels (local news stations and national media outlets). Very few people watch local news anymore, so local news tends to be more like Buzzfeed than informative. National news is headed that way as well.
Overall though, people aren't interested in stories about corruption. So the politicians get away with it, because stories about OMG EBOLA WILL KILL YOU draw more viewers than yet another political corruption story.
Domestic spying aside, this is the biggest problem I have with the my govt. How can you be representing your constituents when your pocket is filled by corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...
Deleted comment
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/billenroll...
(i) Sell any new motor vehicle directly to a retail customer other than through franchised dealers, unless the retail customer is a nonprofit organization or a federal, state, or local government or agency. This subdivision does not prohibit a manufacturer from providing information to a consumer for the purpose of marketing or facilitating the sale of new motor vehicles or from establishing a program to sell or offer to sell new motor vehicles through franchised new motor vehicle dealers that sell and service new motor vehicles produced by the manufacturer.
What in the hell is wrong with US politics* that allows for this to happen so blatantly, and so regularly, without any repercussions at all?
* I'm aware that it's not (in general) a US-only problem, but for Tesla and the car dealership world, it seems that this is a real problem
On the bright side, in the long run new technologies tend to win out, even though the delays caused by concentrated interests can be quite significant.
One way to fix this problem would be to restrict the scope of government so that politicians simply aren't able to do things like this, no matter how much the automobile industry lobbies them. If there are other solutions I'd be very interested to hear them.
It isn't though. Governments are in conflict with Uber because of things like Uber drivers not being insured. The German government wants Uber to ensure that their drivers are insured. Uber refused to do that. That is why Uber was 'banned'.
Uninsured drivers is a cost spread across society, but the gains are concentrated with Uber. Exactly the kind of situation where government should be stepping in. People can hand-wave all they like about 'new technology' and 'disruption' but at the end of the day the vasty majority of people in society think drivers should have valid insurance and there is no sign of that opinion shifting. There is no need for a 'fix' to government in this case. It is working as it should.
The fact that Silicon Valley gurus are backing Uber so strongly in their quest to fill our roads with uninsured drivers just makes the rest of the world view them as greedy sociopaths looking to make society more dangerous for their own personal gain. Sadly the rest of the technology sector then gets tainted by this asshole behaviour.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/business/international/ube...
While you're right that in order to drive a car you need insurance such insurance is personal and never pays for damage, which results from commercial transactions.
Note also that there's a difference in third party liability insurance between the US and Europe. While In the US the person usually carries insurance, which is also valid when she, say, rents a car, this is not the case in Europe. The insurance is bound to the vehicle and not the person.
I for one, would be very, very vary to take an Uber anywhere in Europe unless the company can prove beyond a doubt that they, or the driver carries adequate insurance to cover any damages to me, or my property.
https://support.uber.com/hc/en-us/articles/202347808-In-the-...
This is the kind of blind defence of Uber that gives the entire tech sector a bad name.
There were also other issues in Germany like the mandatory health check for taxi drivers and the shorter intervals for the mandatory car maintenance for taxis.
For example in the UK, GPS tracking, booking of your taxi online, pre-pay, ... was already available before Uber. 10 years ago the black cabs were in the street for the same reason GP describe but against mini-cab and private hire companies (and older tech). A regulation was created from that requiring them a commercial insurance and twice a year inspection of the vehicle.
This comment from another one of today's discussions seems particularly fitting here [1]:
> > We want to make sure that the incentives of the people in power are aligned with the people who are not in power.
> This is really a tough ask. Unless decision makers, i.e., those in power, are accountable, every single day, to those not in power, decision makers will soon align themselves with private, capitalist corporations. You have a multi billion dollar arms manufacturer, oil corporations funding millions to election campaigns of US presidents. And then you have US citizens who get to vote once in five years; we also know that the voting itself can be rigged, public opinion can be swayed and etc., Now, whom do you think would the president side with? Oil corporation or US citizens? The answer is obvious!
Well, democracy is largely bullshit so your phrase endears the democratic process with more credit than it is due.
We suppose that our quality of life and our pace of change are side effects of our current leadership process. I personally suppose that is is but a partial input to a more complex contrivance of systems which have led us to where we are.
This is a strongest point I ever heard in favour of democracy, and ironically, I don't remember ever being taught it in school or see it mentioned often.
I'd imagine that if one of the Big 3 started doing direct sales, dealers would stop selling their cars en masse. There's no way for an established manufacturer to stop selling to dealers.
Tesla doesn't care about that much because they don't have any inventory.
Also, they're lazy and they don't care. Nerds on HN do, but talk to normal folks and they just. don't. care. about much of anything political, and they use their horribly inadequate math skills and emotion to make decisions, instead of reason.
This is, at best, silly. It's not like people on HN are any more informed on politics than the average person. They think they're more informed, which makes for worse political discussion, because they've invested more of their identity[1] in being right.
Most people are rationally ignorant about politics. It's not like being more aware will necessarily lead to the positions you want. It wouldn't take much to convince workers in Michigan to pass a law that makes things more difficult for cars made in California.
Behind all politicians there is a system designed to optimize for deceiving the electorate into believing what the politicians want. Millions if not billions of dollars and man-hours are spent every year to improve that system (that's not counting the private research branch known as advertising industry). Your average citizen Joe doesn't stand a chance here.
The fact that general population doesn't care about important issues (hint: what's on the news is mostly irrelevant) is a different thing and it hurts me, but I have no clue what we can do with it.
If anything, in the USA citizens seems more aware and active in such cases. The fact there's a constitution as a moral compass doesn't hurt, either.
You overestimate how much people outside of the tech industry care about what is, at this point, a rich person's toy.
Most people couldn't care less whether someone buying a $100,000+ vehicle is modestly inconvenienced. When/if circumstances change, and Tesla builds a car for the masses, the laws will change accordingly. People are self-interested.
The elected officials here are members of the right party or cater to the right industry or are from the right region, so they'll continue to get elected. What they do in office matters comparatively little.
Here too in Canada we've banned Zenn, a Canadian electric car company - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN but we're making prominent bike lanes, go figure.
"2 (i) Sell any new motor vehicle directly to a retail customer 3 other than through <del>its</del> franchised dealers, unless the retail 4 customer is a nonprofit organization or a federal, state, or local 5 government or agency. This subdivision does not prohibit a 6 manufacturer from providing information to a consumer for the 7 purpose of marketing or facilitating the sale of new motor vehicles 8 or from establishing a program to sell or offer to sell new motor 9 vehicles through the <del>manufacturer's</del> FRANCHISED new motor vehicle 10 dealers THAT SELL AND SERVICE NEW MOTOR VEHICLES PRODUCED BY THE 11 MANUFACTURER."
Link to the passage of the bill: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(zkgdwb45ddzp3imtvsszat55))/...
Link to the substitute bill: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(zkgdwb45ddzp3imtvsszat55))/...
For example, if McDonald's corporate opens a location owned by them, can they called it a "franchise" location?
Eventually all of these statutes will probably be stricken down due to the commerce clause... you are buying the vehicle direct from another state, therefore it's interstate commerce.
Well, don't tell us what it is or provide any links to it... /eyeroll. I believe their complaint is about line 3 on page 6 of the following document: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/billengros...
I support Tesla's efforts and deplore the legislative pandering to incumbent industries, but drumming up support for a legal/political conflict without articulating the actual issue is counter-productive. All that happens is that people send emails or make phone calls to the legislative body saying they're outraged, and then get fobbed off with technicalities because >95% of the outraged people don't actually know what they're complaining about, they only know one party's assertion of what the downsides will be. If you want an internet army to go into battle for you, arm them properly with the facts.
Just your words.
"(1) A manufacturer shall not do any of the following:
(i) Sell any new motor vehicle directly to a retail customer other than through its franchised dealers, unless the retail customer is a nonprofit organization or a federal, state, or local government or agency. This subdivision does not prohibit a manufacturer from providing information to a consumer for the purpose of marketing or facilitating the sale of new motor vehicles or from establishing a program to sell or offer to sell new motor vehicles through the manufacturer's new motor vehicle dealers."
, but that text isn't recent (see the history at the bottom).
What exactly did they change and what were the arguments?
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/10/tesla_di...
You are.
The suburbs of Detroit are some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, much of the Western coast is filled with beach towns and million-dollar lake houses, the HQs of dozens of multi-billion dollar business are there, and Michigan is the 9th most populous state in the US. Tesla would sell plenty of vehicles there.
If you refuse to do business with the state, go as far as to discourage people living there form buying them, eventually there could be enough public pressure to bring about a change.
If not that, perhaps a few billboards equating the politicians to Neanderthals might work
Its time to ignore the states that refuse to play fair, shame them, and perhaps their voters will wake up.
Just like the car companies, who were also bailed out at their most dire time. Except the car companies declared bankruptcy anyway due to gross mismanagement and horrible business practices. From wikipedia: "In September 2008, the Big Three asked for $50 billion to pay for health care expenses and avoid bankruptcy and ensuing layoffs, and Congress worked out a $25 billion loan.[85] By December, President Bush had agreed to an emergency bailout of $17.4 billion to be distributed by the next administration in January and February.[86] In early 2009, the prospect of avoiding bankruptcy by General Motors and Chrysler continued to wane as new financial information about the scale of the 2008 losses came in. Ultimately, poor management and business practices forced Chrysler and General Motors into bankruptcy. Chrysler filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 1, 2009 [87] followed by General Motors a month later.[88]"
>>And second, even though Tesla paid back its loans, it doesn't mean the taxpayer benefitted at all from the transaction.
There are an incredible number of government-business transactions that the taxpayer does not directly benefit from. In Tesla's case, I'd argue that the benefits were actually there. You may not be able to afford one of their cars, but having a high-tech electric car company enter the market and succeed against well-entrenched incumbents is in everyone's best interest. You may disagree but I think you'd (fortunately) be in the minority.