Category: Tesla

I spent some time shooting off e-mails to all the legislatures who are in contested elections this November with a link to my previous blog post about the issues with Tesla in New Mexico and a question about whether they would support a change.

I was happy to get such great responses and conversations with so many, although the response rate is quite low. If you are on the fence about a candidate in your district, maybe see if they support changing the state laws so that Tesla can service and sell vehicles here.

I will update this list as I get more responses (sorry the formatting isn’t great).

Last Updated: 10/20/2016

State Representative Candidates

District	Name	Response	Name	Response
2	James Strickler	No Response	Kenneth Robinson	No Response
4	Sharon Clahchischilliage	No Response	Glojean Todacheene	No Response
7	Kelly Fajardo	No Response	Arturo Fierro	No Response
8	Alonzo Baldonado	No Response	Jim Danner	No Response
15	Sarah Maesta Barnes	No Response	Ane Romero	No Response
20	Jim Dines	No Response	Giovanni Haqani	No Response
22	Jame Smith	No Response	John Wallace	Support
23	Paul Pacheco	No Response	Daymon Ely	Support
24	Christina Hall	No Response	Elizabeth Thomson	Seems reasonable, but wants to learn more
27	Lorenzo Larranaga	No Response	Ronald Krise	Support, as long as it doesn’t hurt existing dealers
29	David Adkin	No Response	Ronnie Martinez	No Response
30	Nate Gentry	No Response	Natalie Figueroa	No Response
31	William Rehm	No Response	Robert Scott	No Response
32	Vicki Chavez	No Response	Candie Sweetser	Supports targeted exception
33	Neal Hooks	No Response	Bill McCamley	Undecided, needs to hear opposing side
35	Joseph Bishop	No Response	Angelica Rubio	No Response
36	Andrew Nunez	No Response	Nathan Small	No Response
37	Terry McMillan	No Response	Joan Ferrary	Undecided, needs more information
38	Rebecca Dow	No Response	Mary Hotvedt	Undecided, needs to learn more
39	John Zimmerman	Tentatively support, needs to learn more	Rodolpho Martinez	No Response
43	Sharon Stover	No Response	Stephanie Garcia Richard	No Response
47	Roger Gonzales	No Response	Brian Egolf	No Response
50	Jeremy Tremko	No Response	Matthew McQueen	No Response
51	Yvette Herrel	No Response	Denise Lang	Undecided, seems to reasonable but needs to learn more
53	Ricky Little	No Response	Willie Madrid	No Response
54	James Townsend	No Response	Freddie Nichols	Support
57	Jason Harper	No Response	Donna Tillman	Support
59	Greg Nibert	Undecided	Richard Garcia	No Response

State Senate Candidates

District	Name	Response	Name	Response
1	William Sharer	No response	Rebecca Morgan	No response
9	Diego Espinoza	No response	John Sapien	Undecided, needs more info
10	Candace Gould	No response	David Simon	No response
13	Aubrey Dunn	No response	Bill O’Neill	No response
15	Eric Burton	Undecided, needs to learn more	Daniel Ivey-Soto	No response
18	Lisa Torraco	No response	Bill Tallman	Support
19	James White	No response	Harold Murphree	Support
21	Mark Moores	No response	Gregory Frazier	No response
23	Sander Rue	No response	Joy Garratt	No response
29	Gregory Baca	No response	Michael Sanchez	No response
36	Lee Cotter	No response	Jeff Steinborn	No response
37	Cecelia Levatino	Undecided, needs more info	William Soules	Plan on introducing legislation allowing it
38	Charles Wendler	No response	Mary Papen	No response
39	Ted Barela	Tenatively Supports	Elizabeth Stefanics	No response
40	Craig Brandt	No response	Linda Allison	No response

 

Full Disclosure: I am a Tesla stockholder, have a reservation for upcoming Tesla Model 3, and am an Elon Musk fanboy. I have no inside knowledge of Tesla’s plans or desires in New Mexico and anything I state is speculation based on publicly available information. State laws change constantly so references to other states’ laws may be outdated.

Section 57-16-3 of the New Mexico Statutes defines what is allowed and prohibited in relation to dealer franchises and car manufacturers. Part V. states that it is unlawful for any manufacturer, distributor or representative to:

be licensed as a dealer or perform warranty or other service or own an interest, directly or indirectly, in a person licensed as a dealer or performing warranty or other service; provided that a manufacturer or distributor may own a person licensed as a dealer for a reasonable time in order to dispose of an interest acquired as a secured party or as part of a dealer development program;

This section prevents car manufactures from selling directly to consumers or servicing vehicles. Tesla is the most well know company using a direct to consumer approach for their vehicles for sales and service.  In practice this law means anyone who wants to buy a Tesla must do so online and have it delivered and go to Colorado if they want a test drive. It also means if they want their Tesla serviced it must be towed or brought to Colorado.

This law puts undo hardship on New Mexicans who want to own a Tesla vehicle. It is also placing a negative perception on New Mexico, preventing the collection of GRT taxes, and we are losing out on jobs. This law should be modified to fix these issues.

Benefits of Changing the Law

NM Residents

As stated above, this law simply hurts New Mexicans who want to own Teslas or other vehicles by manufactures following Tesla’s direct to consumer approach. While the number of New Mexican’s that own a Tesla is small now, with the future release of the Model 3 the numbers will grow.

Attracting Talent

New Mexico and Albuquerque have invested a lot of money, time and effort into the startup, tech and entrepreneur community. The goal is to increase the amount of local startups, but there is no denying that it cannot all be done locally and we want to attract money, talent and companies to New Mexico. Tesla is a popular vehicle with the demographics we most want to attract and while this probably wouldn’t be a deciding factor is someone coming to New Mexico, it certainly could hurt those on the fence. Can you imagine considering taking a job in another state and then learning that you would have to tow your vehicle to another state if it needs service? How much better would the opportunity need to be in order to take that job?

Perception

Some states, like those on the east coast and Texas can get away with laws like this and have it notched up to politics. New Mexico doesn’t have that luxury. Laws like this reinforce existing perception of New Mexico being backwards and corrupt.  Having a legislature and government that updates these laws, like with the ride sharing laws passed this year, help show that we are a state that is responsive to disruptive technologies and willing to work with companies that are changing the paradigm. This can only help attract new companies and entrepreneurs to New Mexico.

Given the labs, our history, and our environment, New Mexico should be looked at as a leader in high tech development, solar technology and renewables. I hope one day this is the prevailing perception and reputation of New Mexico. Supporting companies like Tesla will only help (especially if we are one of the earlier states and not a late follower).

More Jobs and Taxes

For several years now Tesla has had a service center marked as “coming soon” to Albuquerque. This law is obviously preventing them from building the service center and it probably won’t be long before  service center is built if this law is changed. A simple law change will bring in permanent jobs at the service center and construction jobs building it. It will also increase property taxes and GRT taxes that are currently being lost to Colorado at a time when the are desperately needed.

Tesla hasn’t pressed the issue here, likely because it is a small market, but in addition to the service center one could imagine Tesla building stores in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces, especially with Arizona and Texas currently banning sales. If we act now, instead of losing money to Colorado, we could gaining from people coming in from Arizona and Texas.

Relations with Tesla

Tesla has looked at New Mexico in the past for their factories. Most recently with the Gigafactory, but also back in 2007 for their original factory before they eventually went with the Fremont factory.

This gives reason to believe that New Mexico will continue to be considered in the future. In addition to future battery or vehicle production, SolarCity will be combined with Tesla and may need additional factories. Elon Musk’s other company, Space X, will need construction facilities for the many components that go into building their new rockets and spaceship before final assembly in Florida. With our space history, attempts at building a space industry, and Musk’s previous interest in New Mexico it is easy to imagine New Mexico being considered for future development.

It is likely that his law will have little affect on future decisions, with those decisions being primarily financial. However, if we are one of the supportive states for Tesla it certainly can’t hurt our chances and there would be one potential hurdle off the table. Can you imagine winning a factory or other key industry over a state like Texas?

How to change to law

The simples, fairest and most effective way would be to strike part V from the law. This would allow Tesla and other companies to enter the New Mexico market.

At the very least we should strike the ‘service center’ provision to the law. Not being able to buy a vehicle in state is a one time annoyance, but not being able to service it is a consistent issue for owners.

We could also do what other states, such as Ohio, Connecticut and Maryland have done and carve out a fairly targeted exception towards Tesla. They allow electric car companies without a physical presence to open up to three dealerships (or some other number depending in the state).