I shall now explain how to save the American car industry. We begin with Keith Crain — Editor-In-Chief of Automotive News and Autoweek — who is simply wrong. So wrong that I've written 2000+ words in response to his 419. I don’t normally read The Onion for political commentary, nor do I read anything published by Crain’s for comedy, but it’s an election year. Traditional roles, expectations, acceptable language and even the definitions of words have been wildly subverted, and all of this is on display in the latest op-ed by Crain, whose latest “column” highlights everything that is contemptible about journalism and politics in this country, and why “wisdom” such as his spells doom for the American car industry. Crain’s latest piece “Elon Musk is Simply Wrong” is so hilariously transparent and inept in its shilling for friends and neighbors who own car dealerships and sit in state government, it is actually unworthy of The Onion. Crain is writing at a Mad Magazine level here. Lower, in fact, for his ultra-protectionist, fill-in-the-blanks “column” more closely resembles Mad Libs: The Car Dealer Association Party Edition. Crain’s bias is so obvious, and his arguments so lazy, that the FTC should probably check whether it should be labeled “sponsored content.” That’s just my opinion, of course. Don‘t take my word for it. I’m going to let him speak for himself, with line-by-line commentary. Let me add that I've never worked for Tesla. I work for Time, Inc., who sell advertising like every media company and yet somehow manage to tackle the truth by publishing pieces that tell both sides of a story. As for Tesla, I don’t own one, I’ve never owned their stock, and I’ve never met Elon Musk. I am, however, a proud American, which means I believe in free speech, the separation of church and state, competition, truth, justice and transparency. It also means I am against crony capitalism, collusion and protectionism. Show me a stacked deck, and I’ll reach for the nearest lighter. And some accelerant. Our country’s not perfect, but we shouldn’t be afraid to slaughter a few sacred cows on the road to the future. Courage dictates we start with the big ones. Big ones like traditional car dealers, mouthpieces like Crain’s, and industry figures that would rather fight newcomers in the realm of politics rather than products. Let the consumer decide, I say. Without further ado, let’s get started. Here's the original piece:

Alex Roy

And now my breakdown. Elon Musk is simply wrong

By Keith Crain I don't like blackmail in business. I don’t like blackmail either, and not only in business. Politics, the bedroom, anywhere. Actually, I’m okay with the bedroom. What I’m not okay with is the blatant use of a straw man argument. Who likes blackmail? No one. And yet Crain spends his first six words trying to set us up to agree with the next sentence, where the redefinition of “blackmail” begins with an Orwellian avalanche of Newspeak. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is attempting to blackmail our governor and Michigan into making an exception just for him. Really? Here’s the Merriam-Webster definition of blackmail: “the crime of threatening to tell secret information about someone unless the person being threatened gives you money or does what you want.” Does Crain know something we don’t? Does Musk know something about Michigan’s governor we don’t? Is there a sex tape? What did the governor know about the Flint water crisis? And when did he know it? I think maybe Crain is confusing blackmail with extortion, which is defined as: “the crime of getting money from someone by the use of force or threats.” Has Musk tried to extort Michigan? Let’s find out. But wait. That exception Musk is allegedly asking for? It isn’t just for him. It’s also for trike manufacturers like Utah’s Vanderhall, and anyone else who may want to launch a vehicle and sell it factory-direct. What's Faraday's business model? I guarantee they're watching. Musk is merely the biggest, best-funded player to get this far, and yet Tesla, relatively tiny by auto industry standards, gets the full brunt of the industry’s attack by proxy, with every weapon in the semantic arsenal unleashed by men who would hit publish less than 12 hours after finishing a dinner likely bought and paid for. Tesla doesn’t advertise or play the game of junkets, press cars and gifts. Maybe Elon should have invited Crain to a Space X launch. Better include a room, 1st class airfare and a Model X, though. You never know what Bentley might be offering that week. Two years ago, Michigan's Legislature passed a regulation that bans direct sales of vehicles to consumers; if you want to sell automobiles in Michigan, you have to use franchised dealers. There are hundreds of car dealers selling and servicing vehicles for customers in this state. Want to guess why Michigan banned direct sales? Because of Tesla, at the behest of the franchised car dealers, who are terrified of factory-direct sales by anyone. Sound like a free market? Not in Michigan. And not just Michigan. Are there hundreds of car dealers selling and servicing vehicles in Michigan? Yup. All of them deeply invested in the profits derived from selling and servicing internal combustion cars, with lowest-column denominator sales staff uninterested in new technologies like electrification and autonomy. There’s a reason car dealers are consistently rated so low in honesty and ethics, and people flock to third-party mechanics the instant their warranties run out. Have you been to an Apple store? Consistently rated among the best consumer experiences in any sector. Have you tried to buy a Mac outside an Apple store? My experiences vary from okay to s**t. When you’re selling a high-ticket item, it makes sense that you want to control the sale to the greatest extent possible. When you’re buying one, the slightest hiccup will send you to a competitor. Franchised dealers are just another layer waiting to be disrupted, and you don’t need to be Nostradamus to know they’ll do anything to stop it. Clearly, they already have. Tesla applied to sell anyway, and that was denied by the secretary of state last month. Now Tesla has filed suit in federal court and is also threatening to withhold building a future plant in Michigan. A suit in federal court? Oh no! God forbid the state of Michigan and its governor — the very man who allegedly lied about Flint— have to face off against Tesla outside the fabled halls of Michigan’s court system, where I’m sure Musk’s team would have gotten a fair hearing... A company executive said last week that states that have made it difficult to sell cars are poor candidates for plant consideration. ...which brings us to the so-called “blackmail” Crain refers to, but which actually falls under the propagandist’s definition of “extortion”, if you call rational decision making by a CEO “extortion.” Is there a CEO on the planet who would open a plant in the same state, region (let alone country) where their products can’t be sold? That would be like opening a synagogue in 1942 Berlin. That’s business school 101. It makes no sense. Unless you represent entrenched interests. And you’re trying to sell advertising. And stay on the junket list. Musk probably will also want a special tax incentive to buy one of his cars like they have done in California. Sorry folks, but Tesla has to learn to play by the rules sooner or later. The Michigan franchise law should not be amended. Wait, so Crain is against incentives? Or is he just against incentives for Tesla? Because just a few weeks ago Crain was FOR incentives, right here, in an August 28th op-ed entitled “Maybe We Need Incentives.” Nope. No bias here. Nothing to see. Move along. Right now, Tesla seems to be surviving with a huge amount of debt and lots of government subsidies to keep the company afloat. That debt? That’s how startups in tech requiring serious infrastructure get started. Again, business school 101. Musk is trying to pay it back by selling cars. In Michigan. Preventing Tesla from doing so is called protectionism. It’s anti-competitive, and it’s un-American. As for those government loans, Tesla paid back their $465 million federal loan in 2013. Here’s Tesla’s history of revenue, investment and government support: