2016-01-15 05:58:04
Tesla Accelerates Efforts to Sell Cars in Connecticut
Round 2 set between electric carmaker, state car dealers
Attempts by Tesla Motors to open showrooms in Connecticut and sell its electric cars directly to Connecticut consumers in brick-and-mortar stores have encountered a legal roadblock.
Connecticut is one of a handful of states with a law that prevents car manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. Instead, auto sales are conducted through dealerships associated with car companies. But Tesla, which is based in California, always sells its cars from its own showrooms, never through dealerships.
“We believe we would fail if we were to sell through third parties, because third parties aren’t fundamentally as interested in selling electric cars as we are,” says Diarmuid O’Connell, Tesla’s vice president of corporate development.
Connecticut residents interested in purchasing a Tesla must travel to Massachusetts or New York, or order one online. Last year, a bill was introduced in the state legislature that would have exempted Tesla from Connecticut’s dealership law. It passed the House by a vote of 116-32 last May before stalling in the Senate, where it failed to come to a vote.
Tesla has revved up its lobbying efforts as the General Assembly prepares to reconvene on Feb. 3. Tesla, and politicians who support the company’s increased presence in Connecticut, hope that a bill similar to last year’s will be reintroduced.
“We are barred from selling to Connecticut residents in Connecticut and that’s a problem,” O’Connell says.
Tesla estimates there are 900 Tesla car owners currently in Connecticut, but the company sees major room for growth in the affluent state where many pride themselves on being environmentally friendly. “Connecticut residents have to drive to New York or Massachusetts, and that’s an inconvenience,” says O’Connell. “They can also buy them online or over the phone, but this is a high-touch purchase. People want to be able to go in and literally kick the tires and drive the car.”
The effort to enter the state has pit the company and those who support it against car dealerships and some small business advocates.
Last February, James Fleming, president of the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association, testified against the bill in front of the transportation committee.
“Granting Tesla a corporate loophole is a risky business and will circumvent long-standing consumer protections and jeopardize local businesses that have operated under these laws in good faith for over 40 years,” he told the committee. He added that the cars are available exclusively to the rich. “If Tesla folds tomorrow, there will be a few hundred people in Connecticut very disappointed, but the holders of most of these cars are your wealthiest one percent, and this is typically their third or fourth car.”
However, after Tesla scaled back its request from five stores to three, Fleming agreed to support last year’s bill because it would be a limited exemption to the state’s franchise law. Fleming’s office did not respond to requests to speak for this story and discuss the association’s stance if a similar bill is introduced this year.
O’Connell believes there’s no fuel to the argument that Tesla will drive car dealerships in the state out of business.
“This does not harm franchise dealers in any way. We operate in this fashion in about 25 different states already, and, to my knowledge, there’s never been a car dealer that’s went out of business because Tesla started selling in that state,” he says. “We encourage car sales wherever we go and, in particular, electric vehicles from other brands because we’re singularly interested in promoting those cars and we’re doing work for some franchise dealers who are selling electric vehicles for other brands like Nissan and Volkswagen and Ford and so forth.”
Rep. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, one of the House’s most vocal critics of last year’s bill, opposed it, not because it eroded the state’s dealership law, but because he says it singled out Tesla as the sole exemption to that law. “I probably wouldn’t have supported the car dealers structure as it exists,” Sampson says. “That, in itself, was created by pressure from certain lobbying interests back in the day, and I think the answer would be to start rolling that back so you can allow Tesla and Fisker [Automotive] and anyone else who wants to operate in the marketplace to do so. Instead, they are writing a law that carved out Tesla as an exception and maybe prevented Fisker from being able to operate the same way and the existing car manufacturers couldn’t operate in the same way. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Sampson adds that he is not opposed to Tesla showrooms opening in the state in a different manner. “My issue with the whole thing had nothing to do with Tesla or the auto industry,” he says. “It has to do with the legislature and the power of the state government. The state government should not be deciding which businesses are going to succeed or not.”
Rep. Dan Carter, R-Bethel, a ranking member of the legislature’s general law committee, is one of many Connecticut politicians who support Tesla’s wish to open showrooms in the state. “We have this [dealership] system in place, but there comes a point when if it’s going to keep something from coming to market that’s legitimate, I think we owe it to ourselves as lawmakers to look at the process,” he says. “When we put a lot of rules in place and we protect certain groups, it can stifle innovation.”
Carter likens a potential Tesla Bill to the change in state law last year that allowed bars and restaurants to sell growlers of craft beer. It was a move that Carter believes helped support craft brewers in the state, but which some in the liquor industry opposed.
Named for inventor and electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla, Tesla Motors was formed in 2003 by a group of engineers in Silicon Valley. Elon Musk, the company’s current CEO, came on board shortly after. The company has been dedicated to producing exclusively zero emission vehicles powered by electric engines.
So far, the cars have not come cheap. The company’s first-generation vehicle had a base price of $110,000, while the second-generation version has a $70,000 sticker price. The prices are coming down, however, and the third-generation Tesla will start at $35,000. It is expected to begin production in late 2017.
Connecticut already has a Tesla service center, in Milford, and O’Connell says the company would like to open at least one showroom in Fairfield County, another in each of the Hartford and New London regions, and potentially one in the Waterbury area. If a new bill is successful, he says the stores could be up and running by the end of the year.
Connecticut Native Max Pacioretty A Rising Star in the NHL
Montreal Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty positioned himself near Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist. It was a Canadiens power play and the 6-foot-2 Connecticut native who turned heads as a high school hockey star at Watertown’s Taft School was going in for the kill.
“For me, it was a special play because it was something we had talked about and we had scouted for against the Rangers,” Pacioretty, 27, said after the game. “We felt like that was a play that would be open.”
And open it was.
When a pass from teammate Alex Galchenyuk brought the puck in front of Pacioretty, he swatted it under a diving Lundqvist to put his team ahead 5-1. The shot instantly took the air out of the sellout crowd that had flocked to Madison Square Garden on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. But after the goal, there was at least one contingent of people in the arena still cheering— Pacioretty’s friends and family members.
“Anytime you can both win and deliver offensively in front of friends and family, it’s always a good feeling, and I love coming to MSG and I love playing in games like that,” says Pacioretty, who grew up a Rangers fan.
Recently, Pacioretty’s fans have had plenty to cheer about. Pacioretty, who was born in Stamford and raised in New Canaan, is a rising star in his sport. He’s only the third person born in the U.S. to be named captain of the Canadiens (often called the New York Yankees of hockey due to their record 24 Stanley Cup championships) and has led the team in scoring in what began as a dominant season for the team.
Pacioretty was also one of the Canadiens featured on the reality show Epix Presents Road To the NHL Winter Classic, which followed Pacioretty and his teammates on and off the ice as they prepared for games leading up to the outdoor Winter Classic against the Boston Bruins in New Year’s Day. Pacioretty says the reality series gave insight into the life of NHL players. “Growing up, at least I had never seen that type of show before. Now fans are more aware of what we do on a day-to-day basis and I think that’s really rewarding for the fans,” he says. “Coming from Connecticut, there weren’t too many people who really made it that far in hockey before me. Ryan Shannon was one of the ones that we all looked up to, but we didn’t really understand what he went through on a day-to-day basis. So it’s really cool to show a lot of the people back home and people who think you just show up to the rink and play, how much time and dedication it takes behind the scenes to really be successful in the NHL.”
As a kid, Pacioretty played outdoor hockey at the New Canaan winter club. After two years of high school at Taft, he played for the Sioux City Musketeers of the United States Hockey League in 2006-07. Afterward, he played at the University of Michigan, was drafted by the Canadiens in 2008 and then made his NHL debut with the team in January 2009. After Pacioretty turned pro, he and his wife, Katia, bought their first home in Connecticut. They have since sold that house and they and their children split their time between Montreal and Florida.
Pacioretty credits his time at Taft with helping him develop the maturity needed to succeed. “In high school, you have to focus on a lot more than just hockey,” he says. “You have to worry about grades, and at Taft you have to worry about pretty much living on your own in the dorm. All those responsibilities that come with playing high school hockey helped me mature quicklyk, and I think that translates on the ice as well, and I’m thankful for that and feel like it was a big part of my development.”
As for young athletes who want to follow in his skate path, Pacioretty offers the following advice: “Dream big but don’t worry about the results, just focus on the process. I never really got too far ahead of myself. I just worried about each day at a time, trying to improve as a player, whether my task was to practice hard one day or we had a game one day. Don’t worry about what’s coming the next week, the next month, the next year. Just stay in the moment and worry about the process.”
Students’ bright idea could help the disabled get going
Several high school students at the Engineering & Science University Magnet School in New Haven have earned their school $20,000 in Samsung Technology Products and the opportunity to win additional prizes in the $2 million Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest.
The students earned distinction as Connecticut’s state winner in the competition sponsored by the tech giant thanks to their proposal to develop an app called MT4D. An acronym for Mobile Transportation for Disabilities, MT4D was envisioned as a way to make transportation easier for individuals with disabilities.
“We are writing this app with the plan that it will aid disabled individuals when they need to arrange transportation,” says Tiana Walker, 16, a junior at the high school and one of the project’s concept originators, along with classmates Bethany Turnage, Mikayla Osumah and Avron Young. Walker adds, “Our app will allow them to contact Paratransit and other ADA-compliant common carriers via an app on their cellphone to make a reservation. The app will show the vehicle en route so the user knows when it will arrive. Also, there will be a map illustrating the connectivity between services to assist in planning trips.”
The Engineering & Science University Magnet School is one of 51 state winners in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. During the next phase of the competition, the students’ teacher, Melissa Manzione, with help from school faculty members Leon Tynes and Brian MacWilliam, will create a 2- to 3-minute video showcasing how the students will implement their idea for helping their community. The video will be submitted by Feb. 9, and on March 1, Samsung will announce 15 regional winners.
With this win will come $40,000 in technology and the chance to pitch the idea to Samsung judges in New York as well as the chance to win an additional $120,000 in technology.
The project was developed as part of the high school’s Mobile Apps class. Last year, the school competed in the challenge and placed as a state finalist, but fell short of the top state prize.
Manzione says her students conceived of the app thanks to real-world experiences. “One of my student’s aunt is disabled and has a hard time finding transportation in and around New Haven,” she says. “Through our research, we realized that Paratransit has not been revisited or significantly modified in over two decades. Furthermore, the New England winters are also a significant factor that impacts the mobility of disabled individuals.”
To create the app they envision, Manzione says her students will have to overcome some technical hurdles. “The biggest challenge they will face is the actual programming of the app. While many of our students have already made apps, we hope to incorporate real-time weather and GPS into this app to better aid our users.”
In addition to the four concept originators, 10 additional students are helping with various aspects of the project.
Manzione is thrilled her students have gotten so far and is eager for the next phase of the competition to begin. “I am so proud of them; they truly are putting their all into this project. It’s an honor to have gotten this far in the contest. Hopefully we can turn it up a little more.”
Published by New Haven Register formerly 21st Century Media Newspapers . View All Articles.
This page can be found at https://mydigimag.rrd.com/article/First/2371051/287636/article.html.