The CEO and co-founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, recently went to Texas to try to talk to local officials into letting the company sell its cars directly to consumers and not through a dealer network. Currently, Tesla has two “stores” located in high-end districts of Austin and Dallas, with a third one to be made in Houston.
However, they can’t currently offer pricing information or test drivers to potential customers, and won’t be able to do so until Musk convinces the Texas Automobile Dealers Association to let them sell the cars by themselves, and not through an outsourced dealer.
He is pulling out all the stops to make it happen in Texas, and he even announced the possible construction of a plant in the state, within three years. “When we do establish a manufacturing plant outside of California, Texas would be a leading candidate for that,” said Musk, who added that it would bring about the creation of thousands of jobs, through the investment of “tens of millions of dollars.”
If Tesla is granted exemption from the law, then they expect to sell 1,500 to 2,000 cars in Texas in 2014. Proof of the state’s importance to the EV manufacturer can be found in another statement given by Musk, who says: “If we were allowed to go direct, I think we would make Texas on par with California in terms of emphasis.”
If the plant does get built, Musk said that he is looking to build an all-electric pick-up truck there, because, as he says in his own words, “That could be really cool, and I think that would probably make sense to do that at a new plant.”
By Andrei Nedelea
Story References: Autonews
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