Tesla wants to sell directly in Michigan

If Tesla Motors executives are planning to meet with Gov. Rick Snyder to talk about selling their electric vehicles in Michigan, it is news to the governor.

"They didn't tell me," Snyder told the Detroit Free Press today, a day after Diarmuid O'Connell, vice president of business development for Tesla, was in Traverse City for the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars, O'Connell said he would use his trip from Palo Alto to Michigan to meet with state and other officials to lobby to set up shops for direct sales to Tesla customers, bypassing dealer franchise laws.

Equally important: Tesla said it needs as many as 10 centers to be able to service more than 270 Tesla customers in Michigan who bought their cars in about 20 other states that sell the electric vehicles, including some that ban direct sales.

"We can't even have service here, which is incredible," O'Connell told reporters here Tuesday. "It's just incredible that in a free market of this sort and in a car culture like Michigan that we're being held at a distance."

O'Connell said traditional automakers such as General Motors have opposed allowing Tesla to offer company-direct sales in many states.

Snyder said he wants to create an environment for success for business in the state and "I'm happy for a dialogue to find common ground." But he would not speculate on whether any Tesla proposals would find traction in the state which has laws preventing direct sales.

The governor signed a bill in October signed that Tesla feels closed what might have been a loophole in the bill that bans automakers from selling vehicles directly to customers. Snyder denies the move closed a loophole, saying the law already banned company-owned retail stores.

"The legislation didn't change much of anything," Snyder said in an interview, "The bill reaffirmed existing law."

Contact Alisa Priddle: 313-222-5394 or apriddle@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlisaPriddle