“We live in a different world than we lived in 30 years ago, or ten years ago” Perry said in an interview with Fox Business. “The idea that an individual could not directly compete … for the price of that car, negotiate, if you will, from the manufacturer; I think the time has come for the country to have that conversation.”
As a politician from one of four states on Tesla’s short list as a potential ‘gigafactory’ site, Perry made no secret of his intention to make Texas attractive to the California-based startup.
“Tesla’s a big project; the cachet of being able to say we put that manufacturing facility in our state is hard to pass up, he said.
He called on legislators to reconsider the existing dealer franchise laws, which he suggests are considered “antiquated protections” for dealers.
“The people of Texas will say ‘we don’t need to be protected; we like to be able to negotiate straight away,’” he added.
The comments echo an opinion detailed yesterday by Florida Senator Marco Rubio in a separate TV interview, suggesting Republican politicians — even in states that aren’t considered for Tesla factory sites — are agreeing with the company’s call for a “free market” approach.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took a different approach, quietly allowing his administration to tighten existing laws to block Tesla’s business model. The move may have satisfied dealer lobbyists, but it did not appear to resonate with the general public. State legislators consequently began drafting a new bill that would explicitly legalize Tesla’s direct-sales approach.
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