{"id":44100,"date":"2023-03-02T18:19:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T23:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=44100"},"modified":"2023-03-02T18:19:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T23:19:13","slug":"mississippi-50th-place-in-everything-passes-bill-to-stop-ev-dealers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=44100","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi, 50th place in everything, passes bill to stop EV dealers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\"mississippi<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The Mississippi Senate has passed a bill that will stop electric car companies from opening their own dealerships in the state, ensuring that the state famous for being last place in many rankings of all 50 states remains there.<\/p>\n

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There is a saying used in the US: \u201cThank God for Mississippi<\/a>.\u201d This is a reference to the state coming in last place in many rankings of desirability as compared to the other 49 states in the US. It typically ranks last or close to last in economic measures, poverty, quality of life, health, education, unemployment rate, and so on. So much so that other low-ranking states can at least thank the existence of Mississippi for sparing them from ranking last place in these various measures.<\/p>\n

And so, when confronted with a rapidly growing industry \u2013 which is currently eyeing the South<\/a> for billions in investment<\/a> with new battery<\/a> and car factories<\/a>, bringing long-term job prospects<\/a> and prosperity along with them<\/a> \u2013 Mississippi looked at their neighbors and their last-place ranking in everything, and said: \u201cNah, we\u2019re good here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened today as the Mississippi Senate passed a bill banning the very same electric car manufacturers currently investing in nearby states<\/a> from opening dealerships in their state.<\/p>\n

The bill started as House Bill 401, which you can see on the Mississippi Legislature\u2019s website<\/a> (and yes, the website does use Comic Sans\u2026 yes, really). It amends Mississippi law related to car dealerships, clarifying that EV manufacturers can\u2019t get around the state\u2019s dealership laws, an exception that has been used by some manufacturers who have never opened a licensed dealer before.<\/p>\n

This will stop EV manufacturers from opening any physical locations in Mississippi. There is an exception in the law carved out for Tesla, which currently operates a single location in Brandon, Mississippi.<\/p>\n

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1\/4 Why is HB 401 bad for MS? In preparing for the Drive Electric event for Meridian, we reached out to all local dealers for their participation. Bring your EV offerings for test drives. We had 1 local dealership (@Kia<\/a> \u2013 THANK YOU!).<\/p>\n

\u2014 EVMississippi (@EvMississippi) February 20, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

This is the latest in a long battle over EV dealerships (mostly occurring between Tesla and other start-up EV manufacturers, who prefer to sell cars online or in their own facilities rather than working with existing dealerships) and traditional dealerships, who want to stop new EV makers from setting up their own easier sales processes \u2013\u00a0even though customers have shown much higher satisfaction from these new sales processes than with traditional dealerships.<\/p>\n

The battle has been going on state by state for some time, though Tesla and other companies have figured out workarounds, which involve transacting cars in other states and then delivering them in the states that make it more difficult for their residents to purchase an EV.<\/p>\n

Like in most states, the new bill came from traditional car dealers, which Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins called a \u201cprotectionist\u201d effort.<\/p>\n

Another senator, Republican Joey Fillingane, acknowledged Mississippi\u2019s position and the danger that this bill poses to keep the state there:<\/p>\n

\n

Maybe we just like being last all the time. Maybe it\u2019s a badge of honor \u2014 we\u2019re the last ones to change \u2026 If we\u2019re not careful \u2026 we could deprive our citizens of opportunities they really ought not to be deprived of.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One supporter of the bill, Republican Sen. Daniel Sparks, seemed to proudly wear that badge of honor. He stated that the bill merely makes everyone follow the same laws but then added a glib remark: \u201cPlease don\u2019t tell me Tesla\u2019s car doesn\u2019t identify as a car.\u201d Directing this statement at Tesla indicates that the bill, despite claiming to ensure equal ground, does, in fact, target Tesla. (Also, it could be noted that this statement\u2019s use of the phrase \u201cidentify as\u201d uses similar rhetoric as the anti-trans sentiment that is currently swirling throughout the Republican culture-war-o-sphere, which has also been echoed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk<\/a> himself.)<\/p>\n

Mississippi has no statewide electric vehicle purchase incentive but does impose an annual $150 tax on electric vehicles, far above the amount of taxation that a hypothetical similarly efficient gas vehicle would have to pay. This charge is approximately equivalent to the amount of gas taxes a similarly efficient gas vehicle would pay if it drove 100,000 miles in a year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, gas vehicles benefit from tens of thousands of dollars<\/a> of incentives over their lifetime, in terms of ignored health and environmental costs of pollution, which harm the health of Mississippians and everyone else in the world.<\/p>\n

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FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mississippi Senate has passed a bill that will stop electric car companies from opening their own dealerships in the state, ensuring that the state famous for being last place in many rankings of all 50 states remains there. There is a saying used in the US: \u201cThank God for Mississippi.\u201d This is a reference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}