There were multiple bills, one in the Senate, one in the House, each with its own sponsors. The House bill was DOA from the start, never got a single committee hearing. The Senate bill, which was heard early on in a Senate committee which Tesla owners showed up in force at and which we testified at, won 4-3 on party lines.
But the next Senate committee scheduled to hear the bill never had the votes, and so it was not brought before the committee just to avoid a bloodbath and media fiasco (and opportunity for the dealers to gloat). And then things went into closed-doors mode for weeks. Tesla tried to get support from the Governor but she, who just got elected this past November, was too focused on the optics of lots of legislative wins and probably was not confident a Tesla bill would win, so she didn't want that on her record--is my educated guess.
In New Mexico it turns out the auto dealer thing is not a Dem vs Rep situation. It is not partisan. You are either owned by the dealers or you are not. If you're owned, they make it difficult for you to, er, shall we say, do anything that would disappoint them. Most elected officials are somehow beholden to the dealers, it seems. Campaign contributions, votes, support during elections, etc. Often the dealership is the biggest employer in some of the towns in an elected official's district. You don't cross the big guns, and dealers are usually big guns. And they have been at this for many decades.
I think the current Texas fight will come here to NM. This is a fight to the end. Or it will wind up in the courts, and that could delay an outcome for years. The dealers know exactly what they're doing.
Finally the other problem in New Mexico is the chicken-and-egg problem. Prospective, aspirational Tesla buyers often wanna buy a new 3 here, or some other Tesla, but then get scared off by the lack of service centers and stores. So that has held back sales here. We have maybe 700-800 owners in the state. At the current uptake rate of 3 sales we will probably pass 1000 owners statewide in a few months. But to a politician, in a state of 2.x million citizens, a constituency of 1000 anything is a tiny speck, so tiny as to not make any noise, and not to cause any problem. The dealers have been downplaying the number of Tesla owners here too, making it sound like we're a spoiled, entitled little niche group of whiners who can well afford to have service in CO or AZ. Politicians unfamiliar with the issue (almost all politicians) hear that and go, huh, minor issue, I don't need to stick my neck out for Tesla, NEXT?
Just the other day I was talking to a well-known Tesla bull investor who runs a mid-sized fund, and he was telling me look, if you want New Mexico to win, you owners gotta form a PAC, raise $2-3 million, and go to town, advertising and protesting and rallying like hell and getting the word out about how bad the dealers are. I'm like, sure, you wanna gimme the $2-3 mil?
