Texas auto dealers reach out, but Tesla slams the door

[TexasTowelie]

Would Tesla Motors stumble if it sold its high-end electric cars through franchised dealerships like every other car manufacturer must in Texas? Elon Musk, the company’s CEO and a champion of disruptive technologies, seems to think so.

“If we were to go through them, we would fail,” he told Texas Tribune CEO and Editor-in-Chief Evan Smith last month during an interview at the Texas Transportation Forum.

Tesla’s business model is simple: Sell cars directly to consumers, bypassing the middleman dealers as it does in many states. But a longstanding state law bars that practice in Texas, rankling the company and its fans.

Now, as Musk beefs up his legislative push to carve a Tesla-sized exemption to a law he calls strict and “fundamentally un-Texan,” some dealerships are wondering why he won’t first give them a chance.

Read more: http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-02-18/texas-auto-dealers-reach-out-tesla-slams-door#.VOTcYS7y1Z8

[randys1]

1. Texas has built into their law that you must pay an additional, capitalist middle-person

before you can get your product.

Now I am all for middlepersons in our economic system as it absolutely creates jobs, but if the same amount of people are going to be hired and all you are missing is a dealer owner who is getting fat and wealthy off of his middle-person charges, then I say to hell with them.

[Romeo.lima333]

2. with the internet middlemen and women will not be necessary

[MicaelS]

4. As a Texan I am on the side of the Dealers.

Dealers hire lots of local people to sell and repair people's cars.

[msongs]

3. car "dealers" are probably big contributors to corrup politicians, hence they get special parasite

status. say, isn't selling directly to buyers the capitalist way by cutting out the unneccesary middle-person?