NADA
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Count on the car-dealer lobbyists of America to keep fighting the good fight on behalf of the state franchise laws that protect their members' businesses by making it illegal for you to buy a car directly from a carmaker. And, for that matter, to throw in comments about the supposed consumer disadvantages of electric-car maker Tesla Motors and its direct-sales model while they're at it. Tesla, of course, has proven a surprising thorn in the side of those auto-dealer business interests with its insistence on selling cars over the Internet directly to buyers--and then delivering those cars to...
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Used Electric Cars: Which Hold Their Value Best? Which Is Worst?
Used electric cars starting to enter the market in higher numbers, letting advocates suggest that if the purchase price of a new plug-in car is too high, buyers can look at used options. The usual metric of retained-value calculations can be tricky for plug-ins, though because most buyers take...
John Voelcker -
Dear Tesla: Car And Driver's Hilarious Take On Why Car Dealers Are Awesome
Ah, satire. From Jonathan Swift's "modest proposal" to MAD Magazine in the formative years of many pre-teen boys, it serves as a bracing reminder of the absurdity of life. Fast forward to the ongoing state-by-state battles between Tesla Motors and lobbyists for state and national car-dealer...
John Voelcker -
Report On Tesla-Style Direct Sales Cites GM Brazil Program Ended In 2006
The topic of Tesla Motors and its direct-sales model continues to roil state legislatures, with bills for and against the practice under debate in several states. In May 2009, the U.S. Justice Department issued a paper that looked at the economic effects of state bans on such direct sales. Now it...
John Voelcker -
New NADA Chairman Will Continue Anti-Tesla 'Get The Facts' Campaign
Last June, the National Automobile Dealers Association launched a publicity campaign to convince car buyers why it's in their own best interests that dealers make it illegal to buy a car from Tesla Motors. The campaign is called "Get the Facts," and it now includes a handful of animated videos...
John Voelcker -
Why New Car Sales Won't Set Records: Lots Of Little Reasons, Says Economist
Many small individual factors will keep car sales down, an economist says.
Stephen Edelstein -
"We're not gonna take it any more!" If you're of a certain age, that line likely brings back memories of a 30-year-old Twisted Sister song. You might be less likely to think of it as the headline of an article about the hurt feelings of car dealers. DON'T MISS: The Videos Car Dealers Hate: Is It 'Haggling' Or 'Negotiating'? The article, published two weeks ago in trade journal Ward's Auto, expressed author Jim Ziegler's displeasure over a recent video by Edmunds. That video ad had the temerity to suggest that being forced to haggle may not be entirely pleasant--or even logical--when buying...
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Car Dealers Fire Back: Why Negotiating Is Good For Car Buyers (Video)
The National Auto Dealers Association releases a new video on the "benefits of price competition."
Stephen Edelstein -
The Videos Car Dealers Hate: Is It 'Haggling' Or 'Negotiating'?
Car dealers often come in for criticism, especially among electric-car advocates and Tesla Motors supporters who have watched state dealership lobbying groups make Tesla's direct-sales model illegal in a number of states. Since 2010, those lobbyists have been altering state laws originally designed...
John Voelcker -
Do Dealer Efforts To Ban Tesla Sales Backfire When Public Notices?
Are car dealers winning battles against Tesla Motors, and its direct-sales model, that will set them up to lose the bigger war? For almost five years, state dealer associations have lobbied legislators to change laws to make Tesla's direct-sales model illegal, requiring that all new cars be sold...
John Voelcker -
Iowa Dealers Shut Down Tesla Test Drives As Rep Humiliates Them
Sometimes you almost have to feel sorry for car dealers--or, more specifically, their ineptness at the public-relations end of their fight against electric-car maker Tesla Motors and its direct Internet sales to car buyers. Consider Bruce Anderson, president of the Iowa Automobile Dealers...
John Voelcker -
Tesla 'Will Prevail In All States' Against Dealer Lawsuits: Dealership Commentator
Have we just seen the first crack in the facade of auto-dealer opposition to Tesla Motors selling cars directly to retail buyers? An opinion piece in auto-industry trade journal Ward's Auto concludes with the following remarkable sentences: We can keep Tesla busy defending what are basically...
John Voelcker -
The battle between Tesla Motors, which sells its electric cars directly to buyers over the Internet, and the nation's auto dealers--who want to make that practice illegal--is now in its fifth year. And for the very first time, the dealers' national trade organization has embarked on a charm offensive to make its case directly to the public. With a website and various marketing activities, the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) highlights the many benefits it suggests auto dealers offer to car buyers, their local communities, and the industry at large. The campaign, entitled Get The...
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Tesla Loses Legal Battles To Texas, North Carolina Dealers
Win some, lose some. Tesla's had a very good year thus far, but it was recently dealt legislative defeats in two states where it had hoped to sell its electric cars. In Texas, the state legislature declined to make an exception to existing rules that make it illegal for automakers to sell cars to...
John Voelcker -
Will Tesla Try For Federal Rule Permitting Non-Dealer Stores?
Several thousand Tesla owners have now purchased their cars by ordering and paying for them online after visiting a Tesla Store showroom. No franchised dealers are involved. That's a model that Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] feels is crucial to getting its electric cars into the mainstream. State and...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Gets Green Light To Open Store In Natick, Massachusetts
After more than an hour of discussion last night, the town selectmen of Natick, Massachusetts, voted 4-1 to grant a license to sell cars to Tesla Motors Massachusetts. The local company, which the Selectmen concluded was legally separate from Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA], will operate out of a property...
John Voelcker -
Injunction To Shut Tesla Store Denied In MA, Dealers To Fight On
Score one for startup carmakers trying to do things differently. Last Friday, a judge denied a request by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association for an injunction that would have shut down the Tesla Store in Natick, which opened on September 28. If the dealers' request had been...
John Voelcker -
Auto Dealers' Fight Against Tesla Stores: Elon Musk Weighs In
Tesla Motors is facing a formidable opponent it may not have sufficiently appreciated: the auto dealers of America, and their state associations. Tesla, you may remember, is selling its electric cars online, not through franchised, independently owned dealers, and delivering them directly to buyers...
John Voelcker -
Like so many Americans, perhaps you've been thinking you really have to replace your old car this year. And maybe you're thinking your next car should get much better gas mileage, to protect against fluctuating gas prices. (They're down this month, but who knows for the future?) Well, looks like June might be a good time to get that high-MPG vehicle as a (lightly) used car. According to the NADA Used Car Guide, as gas prices have come down recently, so have the prices of fuel-efficient used cars--which had risen more than 10 percent from January through May. The guide, issued monthly by the...
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Year-Old Nissan Leaf Electric Car: Worth 70 Or 95 Percent Of New Price?
There's lot of discussion about how the value of electric cars will hold up over time, depending on how long their expensive lithium-ion battery packs last and how quickly they may lose capacity. But now the folks who estimate used-car prices for a living, the NADA Guide, have weighed in with their...
John Voelcker -
More Doom & Gloom On Higher MPG Standards From Car Dealers
It's not news that new, higher fuel-economy standards will raise the cost of future cars in real dollars. Now a new study, funded by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), suggests that those increases will prevent up to 7 million buyers from affording new cars in 2025. That's out of a...
John Voelcker -
Car Dealers Fight Higher MPG Rules, Again, Over Affordability
You'd think that if President Obama, two government agencies, and 13 of the world's largest carmakers supported a set of new regulations to improve gas mileage, they might be popular with auto dealers too. Not so. At a Tuesday public hearing on the proposed joint NHTSA-EPA standards for fuel...
John Voelcker -
Who Hates High-Mileage Cars? Your Local Auto Dealers, That's Who
Sometime next month, the EPA and NHTSA will release final draft rules that increase corporate average fuel economy standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025. Most--although not all--carmakers have signed off on the standards, but opposition has hardly died down. The latest group to take up the fight against...
John Voelcker -
Auto Dealers Lobby Against Obama's Higher Gas-Mileage Rules
Yesterday, auto dealers met with their members of Congress to try to delay new rules that would stiffen the gas-mileage requirements for cars sold in model years 2017 to 2025. The National Auto Dealers Association made the rounds to pitch a proposal that would amend spending legislation for the...
John Voelcker