Last summer I blogged here at TOTM about the protectionist statutes designed to preempt direct distribution of Tesla cars that are proliferating around the country. This week, New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission voted to add New Jersey to the list of states bowing to the politically powerful car dealers’ lobby.
Yesterday, I was on Bloomberg’s Market Makers show with Jim Appleton, the president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers. (The clip is here). Mr. Appleton advanced several “very interesting” arguments against direct distribution of cars, including that we already regulate everything else from securities sales to dogs and cats, so why not regulate car sales as well. The more we regulate, the more we should regulate. Good point. I’m stumped. But moving on, Mr. Appleton also argued that this particular regulation is necessary for actual reasons, and he gave two.
First, he argued that Tesla has a monopoly and that the direct distribution prohibition would create price competition. But, of course, Tesla does not have anything like a monopoly. A point that Mr. Appleton repeated three times over the course of our five minutes yesterday was that Tesla’s market share in New Jersey is 0.1%. Sorry, not a monopoly.
Mr. Appleton then insisted that the relevant “monopoly” is over the Tesla brand. This argument misunderstands basic economics. Every seller has a “monopoly” in its own brand to the same extent as Mr. Appleton has a “monopoly” in the tie he wore yesterday. No one but Tesla controls the Tesla brand, and no one but Mr. Appleton controls his tie. But, as economists have understood for a very long time, it would be absurd to equate monopoly power in an economic sense with the exclusive legal right to control something. Otherwise, every man, woman, child, dog, and cat is a monopolist over a whole bunch of things. The word monopoly can only make sense as capturing the absence of rivalry between sellers of different brands. A seller can have monopoly power in its brand, but only if there are not other brands that are reasonable substitutes. And, of course, there are many reasonable substitutes for Teslas.
Nor will forcing Tesla to sell through dealers create “price competition” for Teslas to the benefit of consumers. As I explained in my post last summer, Tesla maximizes its profits by minimizing its cost of distribution. If dealers can perform that function more efficiently than Tesla, Tesla has every incentive to distribute through dealers. The one thing Tesla cannot do is increase its profits by charging more for the retail distribution function than dealers would charge. Whatever the explanation for Tesla’s decision to distribute directly may be, it has nothing to do with charging consumers a monopoly price for the distribution of Teslas.
Mr. Appleton’s second argument was that the dealer protection laws are necessary for consumer safety. He then pointed to the news that GM might have prevented accidents taking 12 lives if it had recalled some of its vehicles earlier than it eventually did. But of course all of this occurred while GM was distributing through franchised dealers. To take Mr. Appleton’s logic, I should have been arguing that distribution through franchised dealers kills people.
Mr. Appleton then offered a concrete argument on car safety. He said that, to manufacturers, product recalls are a cost whereas, to dealers, they are an opportunity to earn income. But that argument is also facially absurd. Dealers don’t make the decision to issue safety recalls. Those decisions come from the manufacturer and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Dealers benefit only incidentally.
The direct distribution laws have nothing to do with enhancing price competition or car safety. They are protectionism for dealers, pure and simple. At a time when Chris Christie is trying to regain credibility with New Jersey voters in general, and New Jersey motorists in particular, this development is a real shame.