Tesla bill to allow direct sales in Connecticut is “overwhelmingly endorsed” by transport committee

A bill proposed by Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff to allow electric vehicle makers in Connecticut to bypass direct sales laws and sell directly to consumers, also called the “Tesla bill”, has been “overwhelmingly endorsed” by the transportation committee on Monday. The legislation will now be moving to the state senate for a vote.

Tesla vice president of regulatory affairs and deputy general counsel James Chen talked about the ruling to Courant:

“By sending this bill to the Senate, legislators are making it clear that Connecticut is ready to embrace innovation, economic growth and consumer choice.”

The bill would allow Tesla to open 3 retail locations in the state and the company says that each store will create up to as many as 25 jobs and inject $8 to $10 million into the local economy. The sales from each store could create an additional $1.68 million in state tax revenue.

/Update: under the current version of the bill, there’s no limit on the number of stores Tesla can open, unlike last year’s version of the bill. It could change once the bill is up to debate with legislators./ 

The Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association (CARA) has been lobbying against the bill.

CARA published a website called ‘TeslaCrash.com’ last year when the bill was first announced (it has since been parked). The website was using questionable methods to try to discredit Tesla, including featuring pictures and articles about benign accidents, hence the name of the domain.Tesla has been on a roll lately to bypass direct sales laws in a few states including a small win in Indiana last month, where a state Senate committee decided to table for further review a bill that would have prohibited Tesla to sell its cars directly to consumers, and a similar bill was sent to interim study in Utah earlier this month.