Lawmakers in New York state are moving to shut down Elon Musk’s Tesla dealerships in yet another blow to the billionaire CEO.
New York State Sen. Patricia Fahy and other lawmakers are fighting to remove a waiver that allows Tesla to operate five in-person dealerships in New York, instead forcing the company to sell their vehicles through dealer franchises, The New York Times reported Sunday.
“No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk,” Fahy said in March when she first introduced the bill against Tesla. “He’s part of an effort to go backwards.”
She wants the company to relinquish its 5 licenses and instead distribute them to other EV manufacturers, such as Rivian, Scout Motors, and Lucid.
Never should have gotten an exclusion in the first place. It’s a shitty rule but he shouldn’t have gotten special treatment
The problem is that shitty rule is often (not sure about NY specifically) added after the fact to stop Tesla.
The general rule was always if you ever used a dealership you have to continue using a dealership. (and Tesla never has so shouldn’t have to)
Then when Tesla came around the auto
makersdealers lobbied to change that to you must use a dealership regardless. In some cases Tesla lobbied/went to court against that and got exemptions, in some cases got it thrown out, and in some cases outright lost.The rule of having to use one if you already use one makes sense. The dealerships put a lot of money into it and could be rugpulled otherwise.
But changing a law specifically to fuck with Tesla was more than just a shitty rule.
But I don’t know if NY is one of these places that changed the rules to fuck them in the first place.