Tesla was green lit to open a gallery store in ultra-posh Greenwich, Connecticut a little over a year ago with the stipulation that the company didn’t actually sell cars out of it. It works that way in many states where Tesla is barred from directly selling cars, rather than going through franchised dealers. Now Connecticut is moving to shut down Tesla’s gallery, and the automaker says other dealers went to extreme lengths to make that happen.
The Greenwich Time reports the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles is arguing the gallery is, in a sense, a car dealership, “a means of merchandising its motor vehicles with the further intent to conclude all activities conducted there in a sale.”
But Tesla says sinister tactics were at work here: that the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association sent “secret shoppers” to the gallery to repeatedly attempt to buy a car from employees, the newspaper reports.