Wednesday, September 25, 2013

FUD, Marketing, and Vested Interests in the Car Industry

An article I read this morning observes that California car dealers complain:

"[they] also [note] that Tesla's quoted new-car prices net out a $7,500 Federal income-tax credit for purchase of a plug-in electric car. According to the California dealers, just 20 percent of all car shoppers qualify for that credit--and the group attributes that statistic to the Congressional Budget Office. "

While they happily quote financing that only 5% of people can get, on prices that often exist only on one car on the lot out of hundreds to get you in the door, while Tesla's pricing is a done deal.

And of course while all electric car manufacturers use similar tactics on their websites "We note that the California New Car Dealers Association, however, does not attack Chevrolet, Mitsubishi, or Nissan for this practice--only Tesla."

Smells like FUD as usual, rather than something real, as in both cases, everything is disclosed (even if the print is tiny, or it's the guy talking 1M mph at the end of the commercial)...

We watch this time and time again, and in particular with another Elon Musk company that is revolutionizing the mechanics and COST of space travel. How do we clear the path for future technologies and encourage them? It seems it takes a Crisis in the USA to incite change (hopefully). We could have been on the vanguard of raising fuel efficiency standards in the USA, but instead we waited til all of our car companies were bankrupt!