Too bad the site would not allow me to join the campaign.
Here is my text, though, which raises some points not mentioned in the Free Market Indiana site. It is helpful if content differs, since legislative staff tend to discard messages that appear to be just cut and pasted.
I am writing today to urge you to support the free market in Indiana and oppose House Bill 1592 which seeks to prohibit the direct to consumer sales model used by auto manufacturers like Tesla. Arguments that this bill is meant to protect consumers are specious. It is meant to protect a few auto dealers and large automobile manufacturers (who send jobs and profits to other countries) from competition by a tiny domestic competitor.
Tesla is an American company that manufactures high quality electric vehicles in the United States using the highest percentage of US-made content in the auto industry. Now, even their batteries are made in America. Competing automakers and dealers are trying to cripple a start-up competitor (with less than one fifth of 1% market share) by forcing Tesla to use their antiquated and inefficient franchised dealer business model.
Tesla sells its vehicles direct to consumers instead of using a franchised dealer network because they must have electric-knowledgeable staff to undertake the time-consuming task of educating customers about electric cars. They know that no franchised dealer could survive on the low volume of Tesla sales alone, and dealers selling traditional gasoline cars will not spend the time, and effort to promote the more difficult sales of electrics. A visit to any Chevrolet or Nissan dealer (those few that even offer electrics) reveals that finding an electric-knowledgeable sales person is almost impossible. Sales people work on commission and will naturally concentrate their efforts on the easy and fast sales. Who can blame them?
This bill is not about making a level playing field. Quite the opposite. Tesla made the choice to sell directly-to-consumers, a choice which has been completely permitted by Indiana law since 1991. Other automakers use franchised dealers. The government should not intervene in this free market that is already working.
Thank you for opposing this damaging piece of legislation.
