White House Petition Grows in Support of Tesla

More 100,000 people have signed an online petition urging  President Obama to oppose efforts by states to block Palo Alto-based Tesla  Motors from selling its electric cars directly to consumers, a company  spokeswoman said.

The White House petition drive, started by an anonymous Tesla  supporter on June 5, had 101,000 signatures as of today, beyond its goal of  100,000 by Friday, spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson said.

Only 5,000 had signed the petition as of last Tuesday but a surge  of signers came in after Tesla sent out an email blast to its customers  calling for signatures, Georgeson said.

The 100,000-signature threshold is the minimum required within 30  days to warrant a response from President Obama under the terms of his "We  the People" online petitions at whitehouse.gov, Georgeson said.    

"The White House will take it under advisement and prepare a  response," Georgeson said.

The online signature drive comes as some states have considered  legislation advocated by auto dealers to prevent Tesla from marketing cars in  its stores instead of conventional dealerships, Georgeson said.

The petition's message reads: "States should not be allowed to  prevent Tesla Motors from selling cars directly to customers. The state  legislators are trying to unfairly protect automobile dealers in their states  from competition. Tesla is providing competition, which is good for  consumers," according to whitehouse.gov.

Tesla sells its electric vehicles in stores and customers order  them individually online for delivery to bypass the "middleman" process where  dealerships have their markups and patrons have to haggle over prices,  Georgeson said.

"It's more of an educational environment for our customers and  they don't have to feel the pressure to make a purchase," Georgeson said.

"The dealership is not a fit for our product," she said. "It's  about building cars customized for our customers."

Tesla, which sells cars that run on rechargeable batteries,  currently has 36 car stores in the world, including 25 in the United States,  Georgeson said.

At least two states, Texas and Virginia, have laws restricting  Tesla to so-called "gallery" stores where cars are displayed but customers  may not sit in, test drive or buy them and cannot even talk about prices,  Georgeson said.

Texas remains a strong market for Tesla, where customers often fly  to California to try the car, buy them online and have their cars delivered,  Georgeson said  

Bills that would have banned or limited Tesla from operating its  stores failed to pass this year in the New York, North Carolina and South  Carolina legislatures, Georgeson said.

But Stephen Smith, president of the Silicon Valley Auto Dealers  Association in San Jose that represents 60 dealers, said Tesla is trying to  avoid competing fairly in the car market.  

Auto dealers have to follow state franchise laws, some going back  to the 1930s, that protect consumers that Tesla does not, such as a  California statute limiting car brands to only one dealership within a  10-mile radius.

"There's nobody for them to compete against as far as pricing,"  Smith said.

Tesla also has buyers finance purchases through the company  itself, while dealers have to follow federal and state laws governing  financing with banks and credit unions, Smith said.

The car dealers with showrooms and car lots also have to invest in  service and repair centers while Tesla has no service centers, giving it  another unfair competitive advantage, Smith said.

Dealers are not opposed to Tesla's rechargeable battery-powered  car, just how the firm does business, Smith said.

"It's a competition thing for us," he said.

Georgeson countered that Tesla does have a service program where  repair people come directly to customers' homes to work on their cars and 90  percent of its customers live within 100 miles of a company service location.