Virginia Auto Dealers Launch All Out Assault On Tesla Motors
The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association has filed a long, convoluted complaint with the state’s Motor Vehicle Dealer Board. It accuses Tesla Motors of committing illegal acts at is authorized dealership in Tyson’s Corners and at a nearby gallery store in a shopping mall. To hear the VADA tell it, Tesla has done such heinous things as offering customers test drives, fudging official reports on state mandated fees, and engaging in illegal advertising. It stops just short of charging Tesla with mopery on the high seas.
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VADA CEO Don Hall, who apparently doesn’t have a real job and needs something to fill his time, required 10 pages to outline all the offenses he says Tesla is guilty of. “VADA believes it has a duty to bring these repeated violations to the attention of the MVDB so that the MVDB may protect its credibility in the face of such reckless law-breaking,” Hall wrote in his letter. In an email to Automotive News , he added that the Motor Vehicle Dealer Board, the state agency charged with oversight of the auto dealer industry, has “100 percent authority to stop Tesla, thus our letter.”
Tesla has applied for a second dealership license in Virginia. The VADA vehemently opposes that request. In fact, it has sued the company and the state Department of Motor Vehicles to block the application. In its letter, it asks for an investigation into all of Tesla’s activities within the Commonwealth.
The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association is calling on state regulators to investigate and sanction Tesla Motors for alleged violations at its existing locations in the state.
Company spokesperson Khobi Brooklyn told Automotive News in an e-mail, “The franchised dealer lobby in Virginia is taking every possible step, whether through lawsuits, PR campaigns or outright harassment, to try to prevent Virginians from being able to buy cars from Tesla. Each of these actions is legally wrongful and threatens to move Virginia backwards. Virginians who would like to be able to buy a car from Tesla should have the right to do so. Tesla will continue to fight for that.”
There is really big money required to own an auto-dealership . They own their inventory of cars . Naturally they resent Tesla Motors for circumventing that requirement .
I wonder if the current method of selling cars isn't harming the consumer's purchasing power? Why go through salesman and dealerships? I'd rather cut out the middleman and save money instead.
The vested interests will always do whatever they can to block innovation that threatens their existence. So what else is new?
VADA's case is strong. This is what results from Byzantine government regulations.