Recently I paid a visit to Michael Thwaite of Somerset County. Thwaite is a member of an association of electric car owners. He has three. One is a Tesla Roadster.
When I took it for a drive, I was pleasantly surprised by its performance. Just floor the accelerator and a little more than three seconds later you will have reached 60 mph.
I was also pleasantly surprised when Thwaite told me how he got it. He didn’t have to haggle with the local dealer. He bought it directly from the manufacturer in California, the same way you might buy a product from Apple Computers.
That’s the free market at work. Cut out the middle man: That certainly made sense. Who could object?
The middle man, that’s who. All over America, auto dealers are trying to get the government to crack down on the tiny Tesla’s company’s marketing model. That includes New York, where the dealers’ lobby has gotten some of its lap dogs in the Legislature to introduce a bill that would prohibit Tesla from selling cars there.
All of this effort is being expended to crush a company so small that most people have never seen one of its cars. Tesla produces just 400 a week and they're very expensive. The new model, a four-door sedan called the Tesla S, costs about $100,000. (See video below.)
It’s a high-tech marvel, one that has more in common with the average computer than the average car. So why shouldn’t you be able to it the same way you buy a computer? I put that question to Mark Schienberg, president of the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association.
“Because computers you can carry into a repair shop,” Schienberg said. “With a car, you need to have all the services ready.”
Nice try, but there are plenty of car mechanics out there who don’t work for the dealers. And when it comes to the Tesla, there’s not much work to be done. There’s no transmission. The electric motor is easily replaced if it breaks.
As for the battery, Tesla has developed a system for replacing it - in one minute. This will soon be offered at the charging stations Tesla is setting up all over the country. If you don’t want to wait the hour or so it takes to get a free recharge, just plop down 50 bucks. They’ll put in a charged battery faster than it would take to pump a tank of gas..
You may deduce from this information that Tesla is one heck of a high-tech company. Its founder, South African émigré Elon Musk, also has a company that build rockets for space travel.
Musk is a feisty guy and he’s promised to fight this on the national level. If he goes to court he’ll find support from people like Paul Sherman.
“It’s the same old story we see again and again,” said Sherman, who is a lawyer with the Washington-based Institute for Justice. “It’s entrenched business interests using government power to shut out their competition.”
Sherman traces this trend back to the 1930s, when interests such as the dairy lobby prevailed upon Congress to prohibit products that competed with milk and butter. Even though it was the Depression, the courts were more sympathetic to the lobbyists than to consumers. They refused to overturn those and other laws that limit competition.
“The result of this judicial abdication is the proliferation of special-interest legislation we see today,” said Sherman. He cited a law in Louisiana outlawing the sale of floral arrangements without a florist’s license and a similar law that banned some monks from selling the caskets they make to fund their monastery. That one was thrown out after the institute sued.
The goal for the free-market advocates, Sherman said, is to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn those New Deal decisions and recognize the rights of producers as well as consumers. The Tesla case could prove ideal.
With the head of the federal government constantly lecturing us about the need to decrease the use of fossil fuels, it certainly seems silly for state governments to ban the sale of the best fuel-free vehicle ever produced. So this fight should be a lot of fun to watch.
If it ever gets to the high court, let’s hope we finally see a decision in favor of the consumers instead of the special interests.
In a country where it’s this easy to buy politicians, it should be just as easy to buy a car.
ADD: Here's the statement I got from the National Association of Auto Dealers. Note that they are only concerned with the welfare of you, the consumer. The thought of protecting their profits never enters their heads, as you will see:
You'll also note that by this logic, people shouldn't be permitted to sell used cars to other people. All those sales should go through a dealer.
Don't tell them I said that, though. That will be the next bill they'll have their friendly legislators support.