9 ms·

I'm probably in the Minority here, but I prefer the franchised dealer model over Tesla's for 2 reasons: 1. When I've a Tesla problem, they simply don't respond

I'm probably in the Minority here, but I prefer the franchised dealer model over Tesla's for 2 reasons: 1. When I've a Tesla problem, they simply don't respond. They don't answer emails. They don't answer the phone. They don't return calls. It's literally impossible to remedy a problem. It took 6 months of unbelievable frustration to resolve an obviously incorrect lease issue ("You owe X.", "No, I already paid. Here are the receipts."). This same issue with a BMW, Porsche, or Lexus is resolved in 2 minutes in a normal model. 2. The franchise model - at a maco level - keeps more money locally. I like money staying local, seeing kids sports teams sponsored by Bob's Ford, and generally support anything that promotes a broader distribution of wealth. The extraction of wealth out of a community and simply concentrated up to the already mega-wealthy disturbing. This is Standard Oil putting local gas stations out of business by price dumping, only to later swoop in unchallenged.

edmccard 5y ago
>I like money staying local, seeing kids sports teams sponsored by Bob's Ford In theory that sponsorship money could stay local, if the people who saved money by buying cars direct from Ford gave it personally to the local sports teams instead of giving it to Bob first.
- chii 5y ago
  bob sponsors a kids sports team to advertise the local dealership to the parents. tesla's advertising campaign is unlikely to sponsor a local sports team, because the scale is too small and there's too many local sports teams for a corporate to deal with. The parents themselves will not see value in doing a local sports team sponsorship - they might donate just to keep it alive, but if that was possible, the sports team would not have needed sponsorship in the first place! Under no scenario would the parents who saved some money from buying a car would give that savings to the local sports team the same way a sponsor would.
  - beambot 5y ago
    If only there was some way to collect money from car sales & use it to maintain local youth programs. Or better yet: A percentage of every transaction. We could call it "sales tax." ;)
    - chii 5y ago
      and yet, a lot of people are opposed to sales tax due to it's regressive nature (they tax the poor proportionally more than the rich - which then is "fixed" up by adding exemptions to sales tax for goods that the gov't considers the poor to need, such as food etc).
jstanley 5y ago
> I like money staying local If Ford sells cars for $5k, and Bob's Ford sells cars for $6k, then when you buy a car from Bob, he has $1k left over. That's $1k of money that "stays local". Alternatively, if you buy it from Ford for $5k, you have $1k left over. That's $1k of money that "stays local". What's the difference? Why would you rather fund Bob than keep the extra yourself?

edmccard 5y ago

>I like money staying local, seeing kids sports teams sponsored by Bob's Ford In theory that sponsorship money could stay local, if the people who saved money by buying cars direct from Ford gave it personally to the local sports teams instead of giving it to Bob first.

chii 5y ago
bob sponsors a kids sports team to advertise the local dealership to the parents. tesla's advertising campaign is unlikely to sponsor a local sports team, because the scale is too small and there's too many local sports teams for a corporate to deal with. The parents themselves will not see value in doing a local sports team sponsorship - they might donate just to keep it alive, but if that was possible, the sports team would not have needed sponsorship in the first place! Under no scenario would the parents who saved some money from buying a car would give that savings to the local sports team the same way a sponsor would.
- beambot 5y ago
  If only there was some way to collect money from car sales & use it to maintain local youth programs. Or better yet: A percentage of every transaction. We could call it "sales tax." ;)
  - chii 5y ago
    and yet, a lot of people are opposed to sales tax due to it's regressive nature (they tax the poor proportionally more than the rich - which then is "fixed" up by adding exemptions to sales tax for goods that the gov't considers the poor to need, such as food etc).

jstanley 5y ago

> I like money staying local If Ford sells cars for $5k, and Bob's Ford sells cars for $6k, then when you buy a car from Bob, he has $1k left over. That's $1k of money that "stays local". Alternatively, if you buy it from Ford for $5k, you have $1k left over. That's $1k of money that "stays local". What's the difference? Why would you rather fund Bob than keep the extra yourself?