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Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning most direct-to-consumer auto sales
- twiddling 3y agoTesla is exempt...
- detourdog 3y agoIs this true or speculation? edit: It's true.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TOMDM 3y agoFrom the article. """ But as Florida Politics noted previously, lobbyists, including Taylor Biehl and Jeff Sharkey of Tallahassee-based Capitol Alliance Group, hammered out a deal adding language to the bill that should keep Tesla galleries open. The change confirms newer manufacturers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid are authorized to hold a franchise dealer license for direct sales of EVs if they are not otherwise prohibited under federal law. That carve-out apparently does not extend to traditional manufacturers such as GM, Ford, Honda and Toyota, all of which now make battery-powered cars. """
- Gunnerhead 3y agoAdmittedly I haven’t looked into the bill, but I’m curious how it was written to carve them out without actually naming them.
- detourdog 3y agoBasically if there is an existing physical dealership one is excluded from seting up a virtual store.
- emodendroket 3y agoSeems like this would create a temptation to spin off another company that just does EVs.
- detourdog 3y agoThis really seems like late stage capitalism. The partnership between automakers and auto dealers has been celebrated over a 100 years. They are now employing politicians to legislate the business partnership over their shared interest.
- emodendroket 3y agoThey have been doing that for over a century. So, if so, the late stage of capitalism is dragging on a bit. I would challenge the notion that dealers have been “celebrated” by anyone but themselves.
- detourdog 3y agoI was trying to describe the celebration that went on between the auto makers and the dealers. I'm sure there were many get togethers at resorts all over the world for them to celebrate the relationship. They are now in the same relationship but are using politicians to maintain the status quo relationship. It definitely is not a healthy sign for the efficiencies of business in the USA.
- emodendroket 3y agoBut that’s not exactly right. Going back to the 1920s dealerships were reaching for the lever of legislative action to protect their position and they’ve done it over and over since.
- detourdog 3y agoOh, my mistake this is business as usual. All the their happy talk fooled me. Do you know a case name?
- judge2020 3y agoSo are other new automakers: > The change confirms newer manufacturers like Tesla, Rivian and Lucid are authorized to hold a franchise dealer license for direct sales of EVs if they are not otherwise prohibited under federal law. That carve-out apparently does not extend to traditional manufacturers such as GM, Ford, Honda and Toyota, all of which now make battery-powered cars. It's basically a protection racket for existing dealerships for traditional automakers, to ensure they don't get any bright ideas to avoid ~~middleman~~ dealership markups by directly selling the vehicles.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y agoIf I'm not mistaken, the Ford Lightning EV pickup truck has only been available through direct sales online ordering.
- judge2020 3y agoThat and the 2024 Mustang, but it's online reservation-based; the dealerships are still ultimately the ones buying the cars and reselling them to the end-user. I've heard stories of $20k or more markups even for reservation holders, since they know they'll be able to sell it if the original buyer walks away.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago[flagged]
- jaywalk 3y agoYou're mistaken. It still has to go through a dealership even though it's ordered online.
- cmgbhm 3y agohttps://www.kbb.com/car-news/ford-warns-dealers-buyers-to-avoid-f-150-lightning-markups/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/ford-warns-dealers-buyers-to-av... Dealers are in the loop
- RC_ITR 3y agoWow a Florida law that has different enforcement for specific individual companies?
- generationP 3y agoI hope this helps strike down the law.
- CamperBob2 3y ago[flagged]
- x86x87 3y agoYes! Draining the swamp!!!
- marcus0x62 3y agoIt is smaller in the sense his focus on legitimate government activities is smaller and his focus on enriching his buddies is larger.
- brookst 3y agoFree markets in lobbying, not so much for actual commerce.
- ur-whale 3y ago[flagged]
- HankB99 3y agoRegulatory capture? Is there a difference or do they just go hand in hand?
- giraffe_lady 3y agohttps://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans...
- mikeyouse 3y ago[flagged]
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoI feel that on a national level, politics is almost entirely captured by stunts and not by actual policy. So it doesn’t matter if his policies are corrupt, he’s owning the libs.
- outside1234 3y agoAnd owning Trump with his white boots
- nine_zeros 3y ago[flagged]
- mobilefriendly 3y agoFlorida is overall one of the best run states in the country. The public pensions are largely pre-funded and there's no state income tax. The biggest issue is the property insurance marketplace. https://equable.org/pension-plan-funded-ratio-rankings-2022/ https://equable.org/pension-plan-funded-ratio-rankings-2022/
- judge2020 3y ago> property insurance That's the issue. Florida's effective tax rate is about equal to Georgia which has a ~5.5% income tax. And it's going to continue to increase with homeowner's insurance prices even outside of the Miami metro area skyrocketing (which you pay for even if you rent, in terms of rent increases owners enact to cover costs).
- toomuchtodo 3y agoYou're measuring success by spreadsheets, not quality of life. As a Florida resident for half a decade, the state is a dumpster fire. It is designed as a place for the very wealthy to live well at the expense of everyone else (with the tax framework built to be regressive vs progressive). ~26% of Florida drivers carry no auto insurance (raising prices for everyone else). Property insurance market is collapsing due to roofing fraud and climate change risk repricing. If you have kids, public school is not an option due to quality. Pedestrian deaths are higher than the national average. Despite transparency laws, there is still substantial corruption and nepotism in government. Electric rate increases exceed other areas due to primarily investor owned utilities regulatory capture and their heavy reliance on natural gas fired generation. There is an extreme shortage of healthcare workers and teachers currently (construction and agriculture aren't far behind due to recent legislation). The people of Florida elected Rick Scott for governor twice. Before he ran for governor, he was CEO of Columbia/HCA. The company presided over the biggest Medicare fraud in history, and the company had to pay a $1.7 billion fine. Rick Scott claimed he didn’t know anything about this fraud, but he had to plead the fifth ~75 times during the investigation. Rick Scott is now a Florida senator. You can also carry a concealed weapon with no concealed carry permit as of July 1st. There is an affordable housing crisis, with Florida ranking third for homelessness. But yes, warm weather and no state income tax. (I can provide citations for all of my assertions above but won't pollute the thread unnecessarily)
- belval 3y ago> The attempt by auto manufacturers to cut out the dealer would only result in higher prices and less customer service to the public,” he said. “The new car dealer is the customer’s advocate when it comes to warranty work and service on a manufacturer’s product, and this bill will protect that So this is the reason given in the article, but what are good reasons, if any, to prevent direct-to-customer sales? I haven't bought a new car yet, but seems like every anecdotal story I get of people buying cars is always that their dealership tried to push every useless feature or additional warranty that they could. Same goes for maintenance, I have had many more terrible experiences with dealerships than local garages as the former tends to have a more captive customer base whereas the local garage is incentivized to actually keep you satisfied or you'll just go elsewhere.
- moritonal 3y agoI'm trying to understand it the same. How is this different to them saying "you have to buy airline tickets via a travel-agent?", or "you cannot buy from Intel, only eBuyer?".
- jackmott42 3y agoThese dealer protection laws made sense decades ago, they no longer make sense, but dealers bribe our politicians to protect them. That is all it is.
- voisin 3y agoHow did they make sense decades ago? What changed?
- jackmott42 3y agoThere used to be a very few number of car companies who held a lot of power over dealerships and used to abuse that power, which led to laws protecting dealers in ways that at least arguably made sense at the time, but don't anymore.
- emodendroket 3y agoThe entire car dealership system is parasitic so, big surprise they're a big constituency for this type of politician.
- jonhohle 3y agoBirds of a feather.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ChicagoBoy11 3y agoThe single greatest politically backward thing in America is how the republican party has positioned itself as a pro free market party by, as best as I can tell, often championing precisely the opposite.
- rm_-rf_slash 3y ago[flagged]
- ARandomerDude 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- shrimpx 3y agoNot to mention that the concept of a free market stands in contradiction with the heavy Republican appetite for social restrictions.
- jonhohle 3y agoIt’s debatable where restriction should be placed, but a “western” market will always have some: trade in people, trade in arms, restricted trade of items to minors. Are there laws restricting commerce based on social restrictions that are not falling into one of those three categories?
- shrimpx 3y agoI was thinking if you’re leaning toward restricting how people dress, what they call themselves, how they congregate, what entertainment they enjoy, those leanings stand in conflict with “free market”. For example the political war on gaming in the 90s — effectively seeking to restrict the gaming market due to ideological social restrictions. Now I see a similar trend with being anti-“woke” and therefore anti-“woke business”. A company selling drag accessories and drag entertainment will not find many friends in the GOP. The DeSantis conflict with Disney due to its “woke policies” etc. Not to mention tech. Josh Hawley wrote a book called “The Tyranny of Big Tech” claiming tech is dangerous because it’s woke and anti-conservative. Pretty out of band for a “free market” proponent.
- mrtksn 3y agoIsn't that welfare state with extra steps? Why don't you just increase taxes and deposit it into the dealership bank accounts? At least you will skip dealing with dealerships if you don't want to? If there are other concerns(maybe availability of parts etc.), addressing those directly should be a better option, no ?
- outside1234 3y ago“But I’m for the free market and freedoms!”
- outside1234 3y ago[flagged]
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoAnd renewable energy and drugs and everything nice.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoSome are more free than others
- revscat 3y agoThe auto dealership lobby is one of the most powerful in America. It leans heavily Republican, and Republicans dutifully propose legislations which protect these wealthy -- but almost wholly unnecessary -- middlemen. Slate had an expose [1] recently about them that is very enlightening. [1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans...
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoIf it’s only Republicans why is it that heavily Democratic states like CA or NY also require dealerships in most cases? (CA is slightly better than NY but still doesn’t allow direct sales for 90% of vehicles)
- ur-whale 3y agoThey'll pay any politician willing to prevent them to be exposed to competition. They don't care about red or blue, only green matters.
- jonhohle 3y agoThat’s the stupidity of people holding onto their party so loyally. Politicians are only loyal to those paying the bills, and most citizens are not contributing enough to their “campaigns” to matter. Someone posted the other day about the (likely apocryphal) story of a California statesman who struggled to find a place to live in SF because of high rents and his limited resources. 10-15 years later that same politician is a multi-millionaire while making less than most starting engineers in SF and with none of the equity. It’s astounding how wealthy people get after becoming “public servants.” Ugh.
- revscat 3y ago"Leans heavily Republican" is not "only".
- emodendroket 3y agoAn answer is in the linked article: > That first taste of triumph only whetted the appetite. By the 1930s, with another war effort in the works, dealers went state by state. “At that time, there was lots of attention being paid to small business as having inherent virtue and the need to protect mom-and-pop shops,” Daniel Crane, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, told me. “They embraced that story, and were extremely successful at getting legislatures in all 50 states to strictly regulate how cars were sold.” In 17 states, it is outright illegal for car manufacturers to sell cars at all.
- pseingatl 3y agoFlorida has prohibited direct to consumer sales for over half a century with an especially stringent automobile dealer franchise law. The interesting point is the carve-out for Tesla.
- cma 3y agoFlorida also recently passed a special law for SpaceX removing liability for launch related deaths of employees or something. A few weeks after the flight termination system failed for 40 seconds.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y agoDo you think Elon Musk turned into a hardcore Republican just for the political favors? It just seems so blatant. There has to be some kind of conflict of interest here. Elon was literally blasting out the DeSantis presidential announcement to his millions of Twitter followers, and he continues to act as a mouthpiece for Republican ideology.
- waselighis 3y agoElon is a businessman and nothing more. Everything he says is bullshit just to further his business interests. Not just Elon, all billionaires do these things regularly. I don't fully understand the game they're playing, but no doubt so much of what the rich do or say is to manipulate public opinion, distract, or gain favor.
- deepsquirrelnet 3y ago> Do you think Elon Musk turned into a hardcore Republican just for the political favors? I think people with enough money to have major political influence play “teammates” with any party who gives them what they want. Striking down the McCain-Feingold act was a major blow to American politics. Quid pro quo is only illegal if bribery can be proven, so it effectively has no teeth even though we can all witness the corruption in plain sight. There’s hardly any serious politicians to vote for at the national stage, because winning is the only priority and corruption is how you win. McConnell stated this plainly when he went after the McCain-Feingold act. "We do it because we'd like to win. We'd like to win. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to win," McConnell says.[1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938449068/essential-mitch-the-money-part-1 https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938449068/essential-mitch-the...
- jdubz79 3y agoCar dealerships are a major leech in our “society” the provide no valuable service. They take money from car buyers, nothing more. Their service centers charge way over average for repairs as well. There is no reason a car dealership needs to exist in 2023!
- shrimpx 3y agoMy first thought was how does this sit with Elon, after promoting DeSantis for President, and after a history of being against these state laws that protect dealers? Of course, the law has a carve-out for Tesla…
- kiddjones 3y agoLooks like from some of these replies that the Reddit folks made their way to HN.
- ang_cire 3y agoI think the 'no pure politics discussion' rule is kind of out the window when the article is literally just about politics, from a site with "politics" in the literal name and url. :P
- bdcravens 3y agoIt's not a hard and fast rule, as many subjects have a political component. Even sites with "politics" in the name may discuss issues relevant to HN (in this case, direct sales of autos, a topic discussed here many times)
- ang_cire 3y agoSure, but this article is not a general discussion of the merits or demerits of direct sales, it's about a law being passed by a political frontrunner, for political reasons.
- bdcravens 3y agoThis thread involves both politics and Musk/Tesla, a cross-section of categories that often invites low-quality comments. It need only add cryptocurrency to achieve the trifecta.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoThere’s also mentioning anything with psychedelics or dieting.
- Freedom2 3y agoGot any examples?
- xwdv 3y agoAlthough dealerships suck I’m not convinced that direct-to-consumer auto sales won’t also have their own special brand of fuckery, and I’m not exactly sure which business model will be better in the long run. I see potential for abuse like never before.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoDirect to consumer sales works fine for everything else.
- JohnGB 3y agoWhat happened to Republicans and small government?
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoCue the “always has been” meme
- waselighis 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
- pengaru 3y agoThis guy just seems like a stereotypical douche bag. He should run for president with Martin Shkreli for VP running mate.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoA unpopular view but… This is why overruling Lochner may not have been so great. We used to have “right to contract” and so the state couldn’t forbid me from purchasing an item that the seller wanted to sell me. But now it’s more like you get to participate in the economy only in the way that the legislature decides is acceptable.
- remich 3y agoGiven that overruling Lochner lead to states actually being able to enact minimum wage laws I think the trade-off was worth it. To reference a separate issue currently trending on HN -- were we still living in the "freedom to contract" era, there would be no way that states could ban non-compete agreements. At base, the problem inherent in the "freedom to contract" ideal is that in many situations the parties to a contract are not equal in bargaining power, and perverse results happen as a result of ignoring that reality.
- whywhywhydude 3y ago[flagged]
- karaterobot 3y agoI buy that dealerships are paying off state government officials as part of their lobbying efforts. Putting on my cynic hat, my question is, why aren't automakers? I mean, other than Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid, who presumably have no dealership footprint to protect. I know Ford also wants to sell direct-to-consumer, and I have no doubt they've got no ethical issue with lobbying politicians. So, why not shell out a few million?
- jonhohle 3y agoThey have to also fight against the public opinion of putting “local family businesses” out of work. Meanwhile these families are likely the wealthiest in their locale and have stepped on anyone in town that tried to stop them from keeping their capture.
- waselighis 3y agoOne guess, dealerships are local and have a much stronger interest to support local candidates as opposed to auto manufacturers who have a national or global presence. Dealerships are also far greater in number, hundreds if not thousands in every state. It may also not be such a big deal for most automakers like Ford, which have historically always sold through dealerships. It would likely cost more than a few million in lobbying to undermine these laws, and multiply that by 50 states, it may be a battle not worth fighting. Unlike Tesla, which has always sold direct-to-consumer, and has notably never paid for advertising, direct-to-consumer is very much their business model, so they have a much stronger interest in maintaining the status quo.
- albertopv 3y agoUSA, the land of the no so free.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- Incipient 3y agoAs long as rich people can buy your politicians, America, your politicians will treat you with disdain. This is not an isolated instance, this isn't even the most egregious. Good luck changing it but...