[mattnibs]

How is requiring a car dealer to sell through a dealership beneficial to anyone besides the dealership lobby which spent millions of dollars in getting that law in place? This is why I freely support any company attempting to disrupt any industry that uses the US gov't to create laws limiting direct competition (Healthcare for example).

Politicians who stand up for this kind of nonsense should be ashamed.

[alistairSH]

These days, it's not.

Originally, it was beneficial to the manufacturers to let franchisees take the risk of opening new storefronts. The franchise laws were put in place to stop manufacturers from undercutting their own franchises once the market was established.

[MichaelGG]

That sounds so odd. If franchisees were worried about that, then the manufacturer could sign a contract agreeing not to operate. Why does it need to be coded into law?

[eropple]

And when the manufacturer undercuts you and you're already bankrupt by the time the court case that the manufacturer's spendy lawyers will drag out long past your ability to pay...what then?

[MichaelApproved]

A proper contract would allow for an immediate injunction as releif.

[eropple]

What makes you assume that's even on the table? What manufacturer is going to give away the fruits of their power imbalance so readily?

[MichaelApproved]

Given the choice between a private contract and government legislation, most companies would likely choose private contracts.

IANAL or a historian but from other discussions I read, I got the impression that, at the time, contract law wasn't as advanced as it is today. That's likely why it took a law to clear the way for franchises.

[MichaelGG]

You're basically arguing that any contract between power-imbalanced parties needs to be written into law.

[_delirium]

That's generally the case, yes. As one example technologists seem to like: California invalidates noncompete clauses at the level of state law, not through requiring every engineer to individually attempt to negotiate the noncompete clause out of their contract.

[ams6110]

Contracts between power-imbalanced parties tend to be worthless. Any time one side can afford a legal fight and the other side cannot, you're really depending more on the integrity of the more powerful party than anything else.

[eropple]

That's the reductio ad absurdum claim that all too many HN posters would read of it. I am saying that when the gulf is wide enough that you can trivially withstand the other party's ability to seek redress (or, in the reverse, engage in barratry to force compliance regardless of the reality of the situation), they have no ability to seek redress and it is in that case that there is a valid reason for governmental action.

[flyinglizard]

I imagine it's not just dealerships that oppose Tesla. It's nearly everyone involved in the automotive industry, from independent service shops to part suppliers to oil companies to the other American manufacturers.

[Crito]

Why would an independent service shop care if it is [local moderately wealthy businessman with contracts with wealthy corporation] or [wealthy corporation] who owns the dealership? Either way they have the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act so either way car owners can choose to either take their car to an independent shop or to a dealer shop.

Lingering concerns could be cleared up by lobbying for some Right to Repair laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-repair_act

[simonh]

That's fine,but all electric vehicles require a tiny fraction of the maintenance that petrol powered, oil lubricated ones do. This is a problem for the future of maintenance shops.

[ams6110]

You overstate the maintenace required on modern internal combustion engines. Most will go 100,000 miles with nothing but oil changes. Oil changes are often a loss leader for maintenance shops. Tesla cars will still need tires, brakes (though maybe less often thanks to regenerative braking taking the load off of standard friction brake pads), air conditioning service, alignments and other suspension work, etc.

[Crito]

That's certainly why they would dislike Tesla in particular, and perhaps why they might spitefully lobby against Tesla selling direct to the consumer, but otherwise I don't think that independent shops should really care about the dealership situation one way or the other.

[flyinglizard]

Tesla cars are so mechanically alien that I don't really know how an independent shop might be able to do something with it, unless it's a simple tire change or bodywork.

[jzwinck]

Tire changes and bodywork are probably in the top six or eight most common things people have done to their cars (after car washes and oil changes, which are revenue races to the bottom anyway). Somewhere in the top twenty are probably subwoofers, replacing bulbs and lamp assemblies, window tinting, detailing, windshield repairs, and brake work. Most of those should be possible on a Tesla without unusual training.

[sliverstorm]

Perhaps Tesla is not playing nice with independent service shops. You might be allowed to get your Tesla serviced at an independent shop, but fat load of good that does you if Tesla won't release service manuals (for example)

Or, if I am allowed to speculate even more wildly, dealerships have to profit on sale & maintenance because they make nothing on the car itself (as they buy them whole from Ford etc). So if a dealer-owned shop comes to town, it can run the shop on lower profit margins thanks to the profits of the parent company, making things harder for independent shops.

[takeda]

Actually it is well known that already current manufacturers make it hard for non dealer shops to obtain service manuals.

Electric vehicles require much less maintenance (for example the routine checkup you need to only do once a year, no oil changes etc).

Second thing is that Tesla has a belief that car repair should not be for profit. Currently majority of profit on cars comes from dealers servicing them. It incentives manufacturers to crazy things like requiring to remove a wheel to replace battery, or remove from bumper to change a light bulb.

Tesla cars will basically generate less profit for mechanics due to those two things alone.

[sliverstorm]

Please, how much time have you spent working on cars? Most cars are quite straightforward to service. It takes a while to get to the timing belt, to be sure, but that's the nature of the timing belt.

Cars made in the last 5 years are getting nasty, but that's because of how damn complicated & compact they are anymore. Things get stuffed in funny corners because they are running out of space. (Trucks, which don't try to be "city-sized", still have room aplenty in the engine bay)

Cars made in the 70's had dumb design decisions sometimes because they were still learning how to design a car to be servicable. (Like some old domestic, I forget which, whose V-6 had to be removed to access three of the spark plugs. I'm pretty sure heads rolled when they put everything together and discovered that little oversight!)

I've worked on Hondas, Toyotas, Subarus, Volvos, Nissans, and Chevys, from the mid-70's to the late 90's, and I do not believe for a moment any of them were designed to be hard to service on purpose.

P.S. The main service I do on my cars these days is brakes, tires, light bulbs... There are other items for sure, but modern engines are very reliable. Tesla is not immune to any of these.

[stefan_kendall3]

That's called efficiency. When you're just a middle-man adding overhead, technology replaces you.

[sliverstorm]

Nobody asked "which is better", they asked "why would independent shops rally against direct sales"