Tesla Faces Off Against Car Dealers In Another State: Ohio

cartechboy writes "We've seen Tesla run into regulatory issues in Texas. And North Carolina. This time, it's Ohio, where car dealers are playing an entertainingly brazen brand of hardball. The Ohio Dealers Association is backing an anti-Tesla amendment to Ohio Senate Bill 137--which turns out to be an unrelated, uncontroversial proposal about drivers moving left when they see emergency vehicles (The bill is headed for adoption.) The sudden and subtle amendment would ban Tesla from selling its electric cars directly to customers, who place their orders online with the company after learning about the Model S in company-owned stores. A hearing on the amendment was suddenly scheduled for today; Tesla is fighting back by outlining the economic benefits to Ohio--after taking some legislators for a ride in the Model S (a Tesla tactic that has worked before)."

Comments

time to make the call

[ion9]

http://www.ohiosenate.gov/senate/index Find your Senator and tell them what you think, not that it will do any good.

Re:How can Ohio even do this?

[Trepidity]

The commerce clause doesn't say that a state cannot regulate anything that has ever traveled in interstate commerce. Rather, it does two things (as relevant here).

1. It prevents states from discriminating against out-of-state producers in favor of in-state producers. This is known as the "dormant commerce clause". So a state could not ban, say, the import of electric cars from out-of-state, while allowing in-state manufactures to produce and sell them them. But the state could completely ban the sale of electric cars within the state. The fact that someone wants to trade the cars in interstate commerce doesn't trump the state's right to regulate sales within its borders.

2. In certain areas where the federal government has enacted a comprehensive regulatory scheme under the interstate commerce clause such that it intends to fully "occupy the field" to the exclusion of any state regulation of the subject, the federal preemption doctrine does preempt any state laws. This might be closer to what you're thinking of. But it applies only in specific cases, where the federal government has actually explicitly preempted states' authority with a comprehensive regulatory scheme.

Ignorance

[s.petry]

I think you should read up on the Libertarian movement, because they don't want to "move everything to the state level" as you falsely claim. Don't come back with some wacko and claim that's the movement ideology.