Big businesses and the politicians who love them often rely heavily on erasing the perception of that difference.
In practice, most politicians mean an economy tilted in favor of multinational corporations when they use these dog whistle terms. It is an offense to everything Adam Smith stood for, but it's what they really mean by "free market." The real Adam Smith believed modern-style multinational corporations were a recipe for corruption.
"The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."
That's a great phrase. I look on in trepidation at the almost mechanical way folks in their teens and 20's react to memes. I find parallels in the way programmers parrot half-truths and untruths. And of course, there's the joke that passes for political discourse on TV.
Really, we 1st world people aren't that much more sophisticated than 19th century Russian peasants chanting "Constantine and constitution" thinking "constitution" was Constantine's wife.
There is some bias there. You judge Tesla a better product, so of course all the regulation that are against its sales are going to feel unjust.
I have difficulties to really follow this whole stuff (I live in EU, the whole buying a car in the US seems a very 'exiting' experience, at least when reading about it on Reddit), there does not seem to be any sort of nice non-partisan explanation of the problem and why those regulations where put in place.
Actually Musk is the clearest answer that is not either: "Tesla great, fuck the regulation" or the opposite, "Musk dick, cannot follow the regulations like everybody else", but what's PR and what's factual ?
Edit: Just realised why it irked me this time. I was reading about EU decision of standardizing the power plug for smartphone to micro-USB. People were all happy for regulation there. When people complained that now the we would get stuck with micro-usb forever, people dismissed it saying the EU will just change the plug when a better one comes up as if the EU/US hadn't got an awful track record at keeping their regulation and spec up-to-date, like in this case for example.
* Free-market is for the poor (in every sense: money, political power, etc.)
* The rich (again in every sense) know that in order for you to become obscenely rich you need a state-protected, but not state-owned monopoly.
That's how wall street works actually: We share the loses, they get the winnings... It's risk free win-win for them.
Those who preach, rarely practice.
Only some portions of the electorate and politicians preach free-market economy.
Besides, I may not purchase a vehicle based on any of the same factors as the average person that these ratings/awards are targeted to. To some people a car has to have a certain feel. How much more subjective can that be?
It's like product reviews on the internet. Almost wish they didn't exist they're so fake most of the time. we digress...
The quality of awards/ratings aside, that shouldn't even matter here. Tesla or any other manufacturer should be able to sell directly to the consumer if that's the way the two parties want to do business. I can buy apple products directly from Apple and not have to go through Best Buy or anyone else. Why do cars have to be different, still, in 2014?