Mississippi passes bill to stop EV dealers

This seems to be less about electric vehicles and more about the existing auto dealers protecting their turf.

As far as I can tell, they already have a law preventing the manufacturers from opening dealerships directly. Many states have similar laws. It was crummy, but it was the status quo. New car manufacturers didn't come along very often.

EV companies are new manufacturers, and they'd like to get around this inefficient system. This law is designed to make it clear that they can't get around it just by claiming the existing law doesn't apply to them.

That much, at least, makes sense. Of course a more sensible response would have been to revise the law to eliminate the mandatory middle man, but I imagine that would require a lot of unwinding of existing relationships and balances.

Let all vehicles be sold directly by the manufacturer, not just electric vehicles. I oppose privileging one kind of vehicle, as is done with ban of gasoline-powered cars in California by 2035. If gasoline-powered cars have externalities, tax them proportionally to those externalities, but do the same for electric vehicles.

Being last in everything is a great model for how not to do it.