New Jersey’s motto is “Liberty and Prosperity,” but it will give neither one to revolutionary electric-car company Tesla Motors.
On Tuesday afternoon, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission approved a proposal to ban auto manufacturers from selling vehicles to consumers without a dealer middleman, following similar moves in Arizona and Texas.
This is problematic for Tesla because it only sells direct, and so New Jersey residents will have to head to Tesla stores elsewhere to make their purchases.
Tesla claims in a blog post that Governor Chris Christie’s staff had agreed that the issue would be taken up in the New Jersey legislature. That would have allowed open debate between Tesla and its antagonist, the powerful New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers.
