Tesla Motors has gone about touring the country of late, lobbying on its own behalf to try and overturn state legislation forbidding their controversial direct-to-consumer sales approach.
The Palo Alto automotive company’s most recent victory was in Maryland, where a bill was recently signed into law permitting Tesla Motors no more than four stores within the state. The bill passed with support from the House, Senate, Governor, and ultimately, even the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association.
But that doesn’t mean the bill was entirely unopposed.
As Autoblog reports, at the eleventh hour of the bill’s gestation, General Motors decided to get involved, voicing a dissenting opinion toward Tesla’s company-owned stores being allowed in Maryland – and across the country. GM’s lobbying prowess even nearly prevailed, stalling the Maryland House Bill’s passage until just 6 minutes before its deadline.
Autoblog reached out to General Motors for comment, prompting a response from GM Spokeswoman Laura Toole which read: “While not specific to just Maryland, we also believe all industry participants should operate under the same rules and requirements on fundamental issues that govern how we sell, service and market our products. GM plans to compete in the all-electric vehicle market. By enacting HB 235, multiple manufacturers may compete with similarly capable vehicles and similar price points, yet they would operate under a distinctly different set of rules, which is why we opposed HB 235.”
Maryland House Bill 235 specifies that any automaker may have up to four company-owned stores in the state so long as that automaker produces exclusively electric or alternative fuel vehicles. That portion of the legislature is meant to apply exclusively to Tesla, or at least protect Maryland dealers from competition from the manufacturers that they peddle.
And indeed, on one side of the argument is that state legislation forbidding manufacturer-owned stores was originally intended to protect third party dealers from competition from the automaker. That’s noteworthy in this case because, of course, Tesla Motors has no third party dealership franchise to encroach upon. However, automakers such as General Motors argue that the effect of overturning or modifying said legislation allows companies like Tesla a different rule set that may grant an unfair advantage in the marketplace.
What are your thoughts? Be sure to tell us in the comments below.
Comments
“on one side of the argument is that state legislation forbidding manufacturer-owned stores was originally intended to protect third party dealers from competition from the automaker. That’s noteworthy in this case because, of course, Tesla Motors has no third party dealership franchise to encroach upon. However, automakers such as General Motors argue that the effect of overturning or modifying said legislation allows companies like Tesla a different rule set that may grant an unfair advantage in the marketplace.”
Was that privately owned Chevrolet dealership encroached upon by that Saturn store?
It wasn’t an unfair advantage in the marketplace unless GM was profiting from it. But now that Tesla has a working sales model and is reaping the rewards and positive press, the retail model is bad and must be prohibited.
Not getting sympathy for hypocrisy.
The bottom line is unless all the MFG are permitted to do the same thing then I can not blame them for fighting this.
The playing field has to be level and just because you are the company that came along later you should not have an advantage over the others. I am all for a change to selling direct but If you let one then you let them all do it
GM ought to lunch a new brand (separate from Chevy, GMC, Caddy, and Buick) only for pure electric cars. This way, they can sell those direct to consumers sans the dealerships, simillar to the Tesla sales model.
So you are suggesting that everyone should change the way they do business just to accommodate Tesla’s business model and the ill drafted new law?
Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.
Gm is so lame. Its internal culture is killing its self.