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.

>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.

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.

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." ;)

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).

> 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?

> It's fashionable to think Tesla has the Better Way and that auto dealers are universally bad, but consumers largely don't agree.

There wouldn't need to be laws restricting Tesla from selling direct to consumer if that was the case.

Let the consumer decide what they want.

> There wouldn't need to be laws restricting Tesla from selling direct to consumer if that was the case.

That's just not true. Consumers wouldn't have a choice if an automaker was allowed to make their new vehicles only available from a direct showroom.

Sorry what value does a third party showroom provide that a direct showroom wouldn't?

And currently car companies compete with each other. If one saw third party showrooms as something the consumer wants, then they would continue doing it to compete.

You seem to have missed the part of my comment where I said "if an automaker was allowed to make their new vehicles only available from a direct showroom". If the automaker didn't allow other dealers to sell new vehicles, they wouldn't be able to compete. It's very simple.

I don't understand what you're saying.

Do you think manufacturers of products should be forced to sell items to any business?

The competition that matters is against other automakers.

Dealers could buy the cars at retail and then mark the cars up for the cost of their value add, if it's actually worthwhile to customers they have nothing to worry about.

That becomes ticket scalping problem. The hottest cars would get bough up by dealerships and charge a huge markup.

Why is it a problem? If they were charging more than MSRP and still move the cars, it means that the market values the cars at a higher rate than MSRP and someone can make money off of the difference - isn't that the whole point of capitalism?

How's that someone get chosen though? Quality of their work? Level of effort they put in? How much money they have? Outright bribes? Threats of violence?

Where car dealerships are passed down from father to son, for generations, and is locally one of the most powerful organizations, to the point that competition is outright prohibited, it's not a free market, which is one of the cornerstones of capitalism.

You open up a competing car dealership on the opposite side of the street and sell for cheaper (assuming that you have access to wholesale prices from the car manufacturer - that is the part that needs to be regulated).

They would have a choice of buying one of the numerous other car brands out there.

I don't have a choice when it comes to buying a tesla - am I losing out as a consumer?

> For Tesla to kill third-party dealers, they'd have to do everything third-party dealers do, and then they'd be indistinguishable from third-party dealers.

What do third-party dealers do that Tesla does not?