In the waning weeks of the legislative session, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla is pledging to open 10 stores in Connecticut by the end of 2018 if lawmakers approve a bill that would allow the company to sell its cars directly to consumers.
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In the waning weeks of the legislative session, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla is pledging to open 10 stores in Connecticut by the end of 2018 if lawmakers approve a bill that would allow the company to sell its cars directly to consumers.
It's the first time the company has divulged the number of stores it would open in Connecticut, where the company has made two previous unsuccessful attempts to change state law.
Diarmuid O'Connell, Tesla's vice president of business development, said in an interview with the Hartford Business Journal that each of the 10 stores would “conservatively” employ 25 full-time workers.
“We're talking 250 jobs in the near term,” O'Connell said, adding that some locations could employ as many as 50 people.
Tesla sells its cars directly to consumers, without using dealerships as middlemen, a practice outlawed in Connecticut. That means Connecticut residents, like those in a handful of other states, must leave the state to purchase a Tesla vehicle.
The promise to open up to 10 new stores is the latest move in a recently intensified lobbying effort by Tesla. The company this month registered a state political action committee, which released a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll showing that 74 percent of Connecticut residents “strongly” or “somewhat” support allowing direct sales in Connecticut. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also penned a letter to the editor in the Hartford Courant.
Iterations of previous failed bills called for a three-store cap, but the current language of House bill 7097 has no such limits.
O'Connell said Tesla believes the “thousands” of Connecticut purchase reservations for its more affordable Tesla Model 3 vehicles (which will start at a base price of $35,000) shows there's plenty of demand to support 10 stores here.
Jim Fleming, president of the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association (CARA), which has led the charge against the Tesla bills, was dismissive of the electric car company's proposal.
Fleming noted that New York, a larger market, only has five Tesla stores.
“If they were to build 10 stores, I would be surprised,” Fleming said.
Regardless of the number, Fleming said CARA's position remains that Tesla should engage with the state's franchise dealership system. “I've got a bunch of dealers in Connecticut that would take that franchise,” he said.
– Matt Pilon
