Wow. Politicians are not even trying to tell reasonable lies anymore. "the reason these laws are in these states are to protect the consumers.” is such a blatant lie it is ridiculous. These laws have nothing to do with consumer protection. They are being enacted to preserve the dysfunctional dealership model. Which is to say they are acting to protect the dealerships existence and their practices of adding a 50% or more markup to the vehicle. I’ve never understood the middleman model being protected so fiercely other than outright bribery and lobbying. The internet is allowing more direct to consumer sales in every class of goods. A similar issue happened in my town when Sam’s Club stated selling gasoline. They were able to sell gasoline for about 30% less than most fuel vendors. So the other fuel vendors rather than even try to compete simply lobbied the lawmakers into putting a law in place that made it illegal to sell fuel for more than 10% less than the average price in the area. So much for free market anything.

They harp on consumer protection, but the real reason is that they are getting contributions from PACs and dealers, and most likely some under-the-table cash or cars to keep things the way they are.
Any time a politician says "it's for your own good," what they really mean is they can't afford to change anything because the money is too good.
Tesla selling directly to consumers threatens the established players in the game and pressure from those players applied to politicians is what prevents Tesla from selling. There are no other reasons.

Another factor is the property tax that a 5 acre dealership generates. Money, money , money for the local municipalities

I wonder how long these so called "representatives" of the people can keep up their lies and deception while selling out to the highest bidder (in this case the car dealer lobby). No honor among these people!

it's embarrassing to be an american today. We are the leader of world corruption

The hell with TX, AZ and NJ. Just go where people want to buy them. I'm sure there's not a Ferrarri or Maserati dealership in every state. People who want a Tesla will get them elsewhere.

I would open a showroom on the border of each state and let the revenue go to the neighbor. As for Christie, he'll be gone fairly soon anyway. :)

Friends deep in Ford eluded to the mess that occured when GM was bought by the US government... how the chopping block came out for the dealers... and the sword dropped swiftly. Before the bailout, GM wanted to get rid of many dealers and couldn't... but once owned by the 'guv'..they had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. The dealer network is like defence networks... all of them contribute to a politick and someone getting elected. I probably messed this up royally... or maybe not.

Tesla could open Franchises keeping 99.999% ownership and providing a 0.001% commission (~$1.00 USD per car); there are no legal limits on these percentages. Slap in the face to corrupt politicians.
I believe the only problem in this planet is corruption. Eradicate it like a plague, and all current problems will solve with time.

New Jersey, Texas and Arizona all have Republican Governors. I thought Republicans claim to be for unimpeded free enterprise.
Unless Elon Musk has been espousing a Constitutional amendment specifically designed to allow President Obama to run for a third term, I think these folks have some 'splainin' to do!