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What Holds Back Electric Cars? Car Dealers, Says VC
By Mr Ethanol | October 23, 2007
CNet News.com Blog:
The cozy relationship between car dealerships and automakers will have to be changed for electric cars to take off, theorized venture capitalist Jennifer Fonstad.
A managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Fonstad said that Detroit automakers have created an environment–through discounts and volume buying–that make it tough for new, electric car companies to squeeze into the market.
“The tipping point will be breaking the Detroit model,” she said at the Alternative Energy Innovations Conference in Redwood City, Calif. Tesla Motors, which DFJ invested in, is already trying to “change the way cars are bought and sold.” It will sell cars through company-owned dealerships.
She has a point, to a degree. Car dealers do have tight relationships with their manufacturers. Also, oil companies have found ways, through contracts, to keep ethanol out of their service stations…
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