If you’re a car dealer in Florida, we have some great news for you. Florida Politics reports that Governor Ron DeSantis just signed a law that blocks most automakers from using a direct-to-consumer sales model. So your existence as an unnecessary middleman has been preserved yet again. Take that, consumers hoping for a car buying experience that doesn’t involve slimy salespeople.
That said, the bill does have a carveout for electric-only automakers, meaning Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid are still allowed to sell their cars directly to customers without getting a third-party dealership involved. Legacy automakers that sell electric vehicles still have to use dealerships, though.
As a surprise to no one, the bill was written by lobbyists for the Florida Automobile Dealers Association and didn’t initially include the exception for Tesla and other electric startups. Other lobbyists were able to negotiate that exception, which feels like it was meant to benefit Tesla specifically.
The bill also limits automakers’ ability to control dealer inventory and prices. So if a dealer wants high markups on desirable cars, and another dealer is selling at or below MSRP, automakers won’t be able to reward the better dealer with more inventory and more desirable models.
Of course, the dealers think this is great. In a statement, Dave Ramba, a lobbyist for FADA, said, “The attempt by auto manufacturers to cut out the dealer would only result in higher prices and less customer service to the public. The new car dealer is the customer’s advocate when it comes to warranty work and service on a manufacturer’s product, and this bill will protect that.”
On what’s surely a completely unrelated note, Florida Politics points out that dealers have donated more than $2 million to DeSantis in the last two years, as well as $230,000 to political action committees run by Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and $50,000 to state senator Ben Albritton. Jason Shoaf, who sponsored the bill in the state house, also received a $10,000 donation to his PAC from Braman Motors the week after he filed the bill.