Tesla Wins Texas House Committee Support In Texas Dealership Battle, Loses Odd One In Virgina

April 25th, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

Tesla’s Texas dealership outlook looks bright, but despite a good review by a hearing officer in Virginia, someone high up is against the company.

We posted recently about Tesla’s Texas dealership battle and the fact that the huge majority of Texans support Tesla’s right to sell directly to customers (note that the poll was conducted in Austin).

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted yesterday: “Texas House Committee just voted 80% pro direct car sales.”

Here’s the tweet:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/326826730520203264

Elon also tweeted at right about the same time that it had lost a similar battle in Virginia… but this was after getting a positive review from the VA Hearing Officer reviewing Tesla’s case.

A tweet stating, “VA DMV Commissioner Donley overrules own Hearing Officer stating Tesla store in public interest,” quickly followed one stating, “Not all good news. Virginia DMV Commissioner just denied Tesla a dealer license, despite Hearing Officer being in favor.”

Here are the tweets, the second of which includes a picture of the initial review from the Hearing Officer:

Not all good news. Virginia DMV Commissioner just denied Tesla a dealer license, despite Hearing Officer being in favor.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2013

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/326881319881699329

Maybe because of the Texas result, maybe because of a stream of positive stories from Tesla, maybe from other matters altogether, Tesla’s stock recently hit a record high. We’ve got a post on that coming soon.

Oh yeah, Elon also hinted at a potentially big announcement coming tomorrow, April 26, that he says Model S owners will like:

Announcement of new @TeslaMotors strategy tomorrow. Tesla owners will like this.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2013

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Tags: Elon Musk, no post, Tesla, Tesla dealerships, Tesla Texas, Tesla tweets, Tesla Virginia, twitter

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

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Bob_Wallace

Tesla has a showroom in DC. Virginia can watch the 4% sales tax dollars they could have earned go elsewhere.
- Otis11
  
  Yeah, that’s a huge blow on a $50-80K purchase! Especially when you consider how many there are likely to be in the region. They only need to pick a handful of states along the Eastern Sea Board to sell them, and then have a few show rooms in the other states…
  - http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    VA is an interesting mix of growing progressivism and antiquated ignorance. In this case, #2 apparently won out.
Otis11

Look forward to that message tomorrow…

And the Virginia thing, while disappointing, isn’t a deal breaker. Most states are small enough that you can drive half an hour to a neighboring state to buy a Model S… every model has enough range to get back home. =-P

It would be a big win for Texas though as for the majority of the population any neighboring state is a serious trek to reach.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  You must live back east.
  
  It takes me an hour and a half to get to the next county…. ;o)
  - Otis11
    
    Haha, I’m actually from Texas, but I’m vaguely familiar with the East coast, and that’s where the first comment was directed.
    
    And 90 minutes to the next country – the desert or the north west?
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      Northwest. It takes at least an hour and a half to get to the counties north and south of me.
      
      I can get to the county to the east in about an hour, but it’s a two and a half hour drive to the largest settlement of more than 15 people. And more like five to get to some place that might someday have a Tesla showroom.