Elon Musk (Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP)

Several state associations of auto dealers are invoking older laws protecting conventional methods of selling cars by claiming the way Tesla sells cars is unfair to other dealers and possibly even illegal. Here's one example out of several cited by Automotive News:

In Illinois, the Secretary of State's office told Tesla officials in a meeting on Sept. 28 that the EV manufacturer is breaking Illinois law by listing company founder and CEO Musk as the owner of its suburban Chicago store. Tesla officials said they would correct the problem and asked for 30 days to respond, said Jay Mesi, deputy director of the Secretary of State's Department of Administrative Hearings.

Tesla has said in every case it's working to comply with existing laws. The company also insists that it isn't trying to change the way the auto industry works, simply providing a special, product-focused customer experience.

The complaining dealerships should also probably remember that if their conflicts with Tesla's methods can't be resolved, Mr. Musk did just oversee the launch of a fiery Dragon into space.

The future! (Wikipedia)

A report from WNYC's New Tech City indicates that in addition to driving themselves, our cars may one day be able to have conversations, as well. New Tech City's Manoush Zomorodi questioned Transportation Nation's Alex Goldmark in the clip below and Mr. Goldmark said the future is in machines using Near-Field Communication (NFC) to communicate via shortwave.

Mr. Goldmark's description of life with machines chattering around us sounds great, on the surface:

We're going to be seeing a world where things talk to each other and make a lot of the decisions faster and quicker than we humans ever could. We're going to have cars that are speaking on these basically shortwave radio conversations with the stoplight saying "Hey, I'm coming up here." That's going to be talking to the train coming down the way and saying "Hold on." The car may even know how to break ahead of time.

Mr. Goldmark goes on to report that the city of Ann Arbor, MI has begun testing cars with NFC just to see how they handle daily urban traffic use.

You can listen to the conversation between Ms. Zomorodi and Mr. Goldmark below.

We're already hoping our cars will eventually go from friendly proximity warnings to smack-talking and finger-gesturing protocols as well.

NY Dog Nanny's Mobile Makeover (gomobileads.blogspot.com)

With mobile web usage on the rise, companies of all sizes are clamoring to hammer out their mobile strategies, but some smaller companies aren't properly equipped to execute them. Google, friendly giant that it is, wants to help fix that. Today, they announced that they're offering a tool aimed at local businesses to help make their sites more mobile-friendly.

According to the blog post:

"Starting today, you can create a free mobile site directly from howtogomo.com using a tool powered by DudaMobile. This do-it-yourself site builder, customized specifically for GoMo users, easily converts regular websites into mobile-friendly sites in five simple steps. And it allows you to add features like a click-to-call button, mobile maps and Google AdSense. Sites that are created with the GoMo-DudaMobile tool will be hosted free for one year."

In a gesture of good faith (and good marketing prowess), Google gave three small New York businesses an early look at the tool, including dog sitting service NY Dog Nanny, Mexican restaurant Mexicue and limousine service Automotive Luxury. Google thinks that arming these companies with well-designed mobile sites will help increase their business.

We first reported on GoMo last year when Google originally rolled out the initiative. Back then, they existed primarily as a portal to match up businesses with mobile site designers. By partnering with DudaMobile, GoMo is now actually offering a platform for mobile site building, so that small businesses can avoid having to pay an agency to do it for them.

But like everything in this world, the GoMo site builder costs something eventually. Mobile sites will be hosted for free for the first year--after that, the hosting cost will be up to the business. C'est la fee.