Making people queue up for your cars is one thing; changing the trade in the entire country is quite another, much more difficult to handle.
Elon Musk has decided to do things his own way even in sales. No dealerships for Tesla, he has decreed. Customers will get their Model S, X or 3 directly from company-owned stores.
Not in Connecticut they won't. Negotiations between the automaker, new-car dealers and General Motors for a legislation that would allow Tesla to implement its strategy in the state, where law requires manufacturers to sell new cars solely through dealerships, fell through.
“The franchise system has worked very well for nearly 100 years,” Bradley Hoffman of the Connecticut Auto Retailers Association said. “It establishes a fair playing field for us the local dealers, national manufacturers, and customers looking for the best price and customer service.”
A last-minute attempt by Tesla, who promised to would create 150 new jobs in the state in addition to the 25 employed in each shop, didn’t cut it. Not even if said employees would get paid from $40-100k a year plus benefits.
“Without an agreement, I couldn’t bring it to a vote in the Senate”, Majority Leader Bob Duff told CT Post. “New car dealers and GM are powerful lobbyists”.
Of course they are. And they’d rather not change a century-old system that’s serving them very well to accommodate a rival. Nothing personal, just business.