OP-ED: TESLA CONCEPT NOT GOOD PUBLIC POLICY

As the one of the owners of Lexus of Greenwich I would like to address a number of points in Dan Haar’s column, “Barring Tesla stores in Connecticut hurts the state” (Friday).

Mr. Haar is correct that this is the fourth year Tesla has tried to convince Connecticut legislators they should pass legislation to allow Tesla to sell directly to consumers. However, he does not explain why in the past three years legislators realized this would not good public policy for Connecticut:

The 270 new car dealerships throughout Connecticut offer good, high-paying jobs to over 14,000 dealership employees.

Connecticut auto dealers pay millions of dollars in property taxes, payroll taxes, and fees to the state.

All Connecticut auto dealers are fully committed to selling electric vehicles (EVs). With Connecticut’s EV rebate program that began in May of 2015, CHEAPR, Connecticut dealerships sold more EVs in 2017 than ever before. 

Direct-sell stores only employ a handful of people (like the one here in Greenwich that the DMV found was selling illegally with only eight employees). In contrast, the average dealership store employs 54 people.

I encourage the legislators to not be fooled by the false claims of Tesla during the 2018 legislative session.

Sam Scatterday, Lexus of Greenwich