As we have reported frequently on this blog (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, here and here) the car dealers have been making remarkably silly arguments in their fight to prevent Tesla from distributing its electrical vehicles directly to consumers. Now, I’m embarrassed to report that they’ve succeeded in moving from silly to disingenuous in my home state of Michigan.
Here’s what happened. In May of 2014, a bill was introduced in the Michigan Legislature to amend the statute dealing with car manufacturer-franchisee relationships. The bill did only one thing substantively—it prohibited manufacturers from coercing dealers not to charge consumers certain kinds of fees. Nothing at all to do with Tesla or direct distribution. Then, on October 1, in a floor amendment, the bill was altered to add a provision at the end of statute reading “this section applies to a manufacturer that sells, services, displays, or advertises its new motor vehicles in this state.” In a single day and as far as I know without any debate, the bill was passed with this new proviso 38-0 in the Senate and 106-1 in the House.
There was only one motivation for the addition of the proviso. Since losing in the Massachusetts Supreme Court in September, the dealers have recognized that decades-old dealer protection statutes may not be interpreted to apply to a company that wants to distribute its cars without using dealers at all. They saw an opportunity to bolster the statute in a way that would make it harder for Tesla to win under the existing law as it did in Massachusetts. And they realized that, on the eve of a close election contest in Michigan, no one would be paying attention to the seemingly innocuous language slipped into an uncontroversial bill at the last minute.
The bill is now sitting on Governor Rick Snyder’s desk for signature or veto. I wrote him a letter today asking him to veto the bill, if for no other reason than to allow the issue to be fairly and openly debated in Michigan. There’s mounting evidence that almost no one in the Legislature had any idea that they were taking sides in the Tesla wars.
What’s particularly infuriating is that the dealers are apparently arguing that the amendment has nothing to do with Tesla. Their argument apparently is that since the original statute already applied to Tesla, the amendment can’t be about Tesla. Instead, they assert, it’s just meant to clarify that “all manufacturers” are covered by the statute. This is beyond disingenuous. There’s no doubt that the dealers inserted this language to deal with their fear of a repeat of Massachusetts in Michigan. There’s no other logical explanation for the amendment. I mean, if not Tesla, who’s the manufacturer they were worried might not be covered by the existing legislation? GM? Ford? Sorry, guys, we’re not idiots.
Politics is dirty; crony capitalism is often the way of things. We shouldn’t be shocked. But nor should we stand for this kind of nonsense.