A bill that would have allowed California-based electric automaker Tesla to sell its cars in Arizona through its factory-owned showrooms won’t make it to the floor for a vote this session, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Due to the bill’s demise, it will be at least another year before a new legislation can be debated. Tesla said in a statement it will continue “re-engaging” the Legislature on the matter next year.
Bobbi Sparrow, president of the Arizona Automobile Dealers Association, on Monday said the bill’s possible failure will not have an impact on the state’s bid for Tesla to build its “Gigafactory” there. Tesla is also considering building the plant in Texas, Arizona, Nevada or New Mexico.
“I don’t think legislators thought that if they passed or didn’t pass the legislation that it was going to have anything to do with the battery factory,” Sparrow said.
Tesla blamed the Arizona dealers association for the bill’s failing. In a statement, the automaker said the association “resorted to aggressive and draconian tactics” to rid of the legislation, “ultimately threatening to spend freely in the next electoral cycle to punish supporters of this free-market legislation.”
Sparrow responded, saying Tesla’s statement was completely false.
“There isn’t a part of that statement that is true.” She said the select number of advocates of the Tesla legislation in Arizona “have no one to blame but themselves.”
“It is a decades old, failed idea to establish a vertical monopoly that is remarkably both anti-business and anti-consumer,” she said.”There is an easy solution for Tesla, which it should be pointed out is selling cars in Arizona, unlike the situation in other states … They can play by the rules that are serving Arizona well with 28,000 jobs and nearly 25 percent of the state sales tax revenue.”
No Comments yet