To be specific, the objective of state statutes is to block direct manufacturer auto sales. The objective is achieved in a roundabout way: the statutes written prevent the establishment of physical dealership locations owned by the manufacturers. They are not broad enough to restrict direct sales. This means that some creative sales techniques can be used, if you:
(a) don't need to have cars in a lot,
(b) can sell online,
(c) tolerate some uncertainty while interpretation of status is fought in court.
Then, you can (in many states), sell cars directly.
Tesla does all 3 as they usually don't have (a) inventory and in some cases, the law doesnt prohibit showrooms (b) seem perfectly comfortable selling you the car online (and critically, customers are ok with this too) and (c) have money to fight for settlement of the issues.
Theres even more creative sales now - tesla is actively setting up sales ops in Indian reservations - which have their own sets of the laws outside of specific states.
Edit: added (c) which is certainly an important factor in many states
Yep. Basically, in no election we can practically foresee, is this going to be a politically salient issue. The voters aren't motivated enough about it, and the interest groups involved are mostly aligned on keeping the status quo. Elections put people and parties into power, not individual ideas.
Direct democracy (https://klissarov.eu/en/books/platform-of-the-pp-direct-demo...) can change the status quo - if enough people get up from the couch and do vote for it. It just needs to reach a critical mass - but at the moment people are too lazy and wait for someone else to do the job.
I think that's true for tech savvy nerds, but my mom loves her dealership. Part of it might be the experience of leasing vs owning, where the dealership often does maintenance for free during the lease.
It depends. Most jurisdictions allow for a ballot referendum to put measures to a popular vote. This has gotten more difficult with signatory requirements that have gotten larger in most states, mostly orchestrated to keep the dominant parties in power and limit grass roots efforts in general.
Going through existing congressional process means getting at least a champion on board and overcoming dis/misinformation from many insider corporations, often large local donors.
edit: From my understanding,successful campaigns via referendum tend to cost anywhere from $2-20 million usd. Often involving paid signature gathering and local advertising.
The "problem" with referenda is they often forcibly enact policies that the elected politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and other organized political actors don't want. Since these people decide what the government actually does, they often find ways to ignore, work around, or in some cases outright overturn, "settled" referendum results. Making it more difficult to get questions on the ballot outside of the ordinary political process is just streamlining things from their perspective.
“Republic” (any system in which top-level government offices aren't personal property of the officeholder) and “Democracy” (any system in which government serves and is accountable to the general population—usually through voting on candidates and/or specific policies—rather than vice versa) are not mutually exclusive.
It’s pretty common for modern Western governments to be both of (Democratic, often also Federal) Republic and (Representative, sometimes with minor areas of Direct) Democracy.
To put a finer point on it: actual experts in the study of government routinely refer to the US as a democracy. It’s absolutely not a sign of better familiarity with the topic to “correct” that usage—it’s a sign of low side of middling familiarity, specifically.
Debate whatever you want, we do not have a direct democracy, which is what most people hear when they hear "Democracy". It's Representative Democracy. Supposedly.
Car dealerships exist in what is probably the most favorable regulatory environment of any business. It's a side effect of owners of car dealerships often being the wealthiest people in a locale, and being politically active. If you look up donations to your local and state politicians, you'll probably find several of the largest donors have last names that happen to match that of the local Ford or Chevy dealership network.
They have rules that protect them from competition from manufactures, rules that protect them from them from competition from other dealerships (i.e., Ford can't allow a dealership to open across the street from one they don't like), in many states, there are special rules for inheriting a dealership.
They'd originally existed because manufacturers didn't have enough resources to sell directly to customers, and they'd probably still exist (in a smaller capacity) today even if manufacturers could sell direct. Because there still are some manufacturers that sell low enough volumes in the US that it would probably still financially make sense for them to lean on a dealer network.
But for sure, Ford, GM, Toyota, Stellantis, etc would probably love to sell direct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes
not a monopoly per se, but "forced demand"