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Surely there's at least a nominal rationale for these laws, even if the real reason is manipulation by special interests. Some kind of monopoly prevention? It

• ams6110 13y ago
  This was addressed. Franchise dealerships allowed manufacturers to receive payment when the dealer took delivery of the vehicle. It takes a lot of variables out of the picture for them: how long will a car sit in inventory, unsold? How many of each model do we need to ship to various locales? What kind of service capacity do we need to provide? Dealerships also allow manufacturers to have a "presence" in many smaller towns. In return, the dealers demanded (and largely won) protection from a manufacturer coming in and setting up shop in a market that the dealer worked to develop. Tesla don't care about all that. They are fine with having a select few stores in large markets. They are fine taking all the risk of actually being able to sell their cars to consumers. They are fine with providing all the service. So I don't see what the NADA are complaining about, really. And honestly, if and when Tesla really starts to get big enough to compete with traditional manufactures, some kind of dealer/franchise network is probably going to start to make more sense for them. Large centrally-planned organizations don't tend to do very well.
• wmf 13y ago
  The reason is to prevent a car manufacturer from competing with independently-owned dealers who sell their cars. But that doesn't apply to Tesla, since Tesla will not license any third-party dealers.