Tesla Motors has found creative ways to lobby for lawmakers' support as the company fights to keep a sales model that skirts the dealership, Bloomberg reported.
After being banned from opening showrooms in North Carolina, Tesla had to act quickly when the state Senate voted to block online auto sales, which would have left Tesla with no way to sell cars there.
Tesla representatives brought a Model S to the capitol so lawmakers and Gov. Pat McCrory could take a ride.
"When you accelerate it, it was the same sort of feeling I got when I test-drove a Mustang Boss back when I was probably 23 years old," House Speaker Thomas Tillis, 53, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, told the Raleigh News & Observer.
The anti-Tesla legislation ended soon after.
Tesla's unusual sales model has pitted the company against franchised dealers in at least seven states who see it as a threat. Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, sells the cars directly to customers through the Internet or company galleries.
"The challenge we face, of course, is that the auto dealers are very strong and very influential at the state level, among the legislatures," Musk told shareholders in June, adding that dealers are "making it harder to get things done."
While Tesla found success in North Carolina, similar strategies didn't work in Texas, where dealers spent nine times more than the company on last year's elections and lobbying.
"The only people who are opposed to Tesla are the dealers," said state Rep. David Linsky, D-Mass., a Democrat whose district includes the only Tesla gallery in the state. "Every legislator has auto dealers in their district, and they're out in force."
Dealers say their model is better for both buyers and for automakers, countering a dealership gives consumers a consistent place for service and removes sales costs from automakers' balance sheets.
"With factory-owned stores, if the factory goes out of business, so does the store," said Tim Jackson, chief executive officer of the Colorado Auto Dealers Association, noting that some General Motors brands ended when the company had to be restructured post-bankruptcy.
"If and when Tesla falls on hard times and shuts down, all of the service centers shut down at the same time because they are all factory-owned," he said.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is also facing a possible United States recall as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration looks into two domestic battery fires sparked after Model S vehicles drove over road debris. A fire occurred in Mexico as well, where it was beyond government supervision.
Tesla may want to put more energy into Washington, where the company has spent next to nothing on lobbying in the past two years.
"For a situation like this, they really need to be staffed up in Washington," said Howard Marlowe, a lobbyist for 35 years and a former president of the American League of Lobbyists. "They need to be protecting their interests with the safety board, and with investors, by showing they're doing everything they can in Washington to maintain goodwill with key people in Congress."
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