It’s apparently not enough to pay people to buy EVs – using other people’s money. EVs must be given additional artificial advantages – so that they may “compete” even more unfairly with non-electric cars.
Because, of course, they can’t compete on the merits.
The state of Colorado – which is becoming very much like the state of California, due to all the Californians who’ve fled California but brought California ideas with them to places like Colorado – is pushing to grant EVs an exemption from state law requiring new cars be sold through new car dealerships.
Such laws have been in force for decades and are favored by new car dealers – who don’t want to have to compete directly with the manufacturers, including the brands they sell themselves. A Ford dealership, for example, doesn’t want you to be able to buy a new Ford from Ford.
These must-buy-at-a-dealer laws are obnoxious, but granting an exemption just for electric cars is even more so.
If the exemption is granted, it would give EV manufacturers like Tesla an enormous advantage over other car manufacturers – who would still be required by law to sell their cars through a dealer network, with all the costs that involves.
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Which would make it harder for them to sell non-electric cars.
Clearly – if you believe in the idea of a free market – every car maker ought to be free to sell its cars however it likes. Or rather, however buyers like. If people are willing to purchase directly from a manufacturer – and by doing so, pay less for it – why should they be prohibited by law from making the transaction?
The argument is that people need the assistance of dealership sales staff to help them figure out what to buy, to deal with the transaction itself – and to “prep” the car prior to delivery (i.e., remove the plastic from the seats and so on).
But people are allowed – loathsome term but an accurate term – to buy practically everything else online, from electronics to food to furniture.
Why should cars be any different?
Well, because of state laws – like the one which is still in force in Colorado – which forbid new cars to be sold this way.
Unless they’re electric cars.
Interestingly, the proposed exemption would include electric cars manufactured by car companies that also build non-electric cars – a legislative nudge clearly meant to “encourage” them to build more electric cars since they’d be able to sell them directly, too.
Which will also nudge these manufacturers in the direction of closing their dealerships and – eventually – selling only EVs.
