Tesla Showroom In Connecticut Put On Hold Over Dealership Lawsuit

The Town of East Hartford’s Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) has placed a hold on a special use permit and site plan modification for Tesla’s showroom and service center. The town wants to wait until hearing advice from its lawyer regarding the lawsuit brought on the town and Tesla by Hoffman Auto Group.

We recently reported that Hoffman Auto Group had sued Tesla, East Hartford, and a development company over the showroom. The dealership asked a Hartford Superior Court judge to set aside the town’s decision allowing Tesla to have a service center and showroom. The claim is that Tesla is violating Connecticut’s law prohibiting car manufactures from selling directly to consumers.

The Journal Inquirer reported that InSite Development Services of Illinois was acting on behalf of Tesla, and its attorney said that there’s no need to revoke the permit. The attorney also refuted the technical aspects of the lawsuit, which includes the claim that InSite was involuntarily dissolved in March by the State of Illinois, thereby lacking the standing to pursue its application on April 14.

InSite’s attorney explained that the company was dissolved due to a non-payment of a fee but that this was quickly resolved and under Illinois law, upon the filing of an application, InSite is deemed operational as if the dissolution never happened.

Hoffman claimed in its lawsuit that the PZC didn’t give a public notice before granting the special-use permit regarding the site plan application, but InSite’s attorney noted that Connecticut’s law doesn’t require its zoning sections to be referenced in a public notice.

Bradley Hoffman Claims That Connecticut Dealerships Spend Millions On EV Charging & Solar

Bradley Hoffman of the Hoffman Auto Group recently accused Senator Will Haskell of Connecticut of being misleading. Senator Haskell pointed out that dealerships in Connecticut only sold 324 EVs last year, and that meant the average dealership sold 1.3 electric cars.

Hoffman said that almost every brand will be selling electric vehicles by the end of the year and some will be going 100% in their product lineups. He added that dealers “have already spent millions on charging stations and solar panels because we all care about the environment.”

Respectfully, this is misleading. Virtually every brand will be selling electric by year end and some will be going 100% in product lineup. Dealers have already spent millions on charging stations and solar panels because we all care about the environment

— I. Bradley Hoffman (@IBradleyHoffman) June 16, 2021

That inspired this article I recently wrote about the situation, but I also replied to Hoffman asking him to please share the data backing up his claims. This was a few days ago and he still has yet to respond. It would be great to see dealerships actually putting money into EV charging and solar, and I would love to get my hands on that data.