I am in a car that is driving itself on the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway—one of the busiest highways in the country—and I am freaking the hell out.

“Hold the steering wheel, but still let it do its own thing,” Michael, a product specialist for the electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors, gently cautions me, trying to snap me out of the wide-eyed stupor brought on by watching the wheel of my Model S steer around a curve as if guided by invisible hands.

As we pass through Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens neighborhood and the waterfront complex of Industry City, my anxiety eases enough to start asking Michael about how the autopilot feature works (the car’s sensors analyze traffic patterns and read lane markers), how frequently Tesla beams software upgrades to its vehicles (as often as once a month), and the car’s top speed (155 mph, 0 to 60 in 2.8 seconds). “Just by taking a good look at you, I feel like you’re already comfortable with driving a Model S,” he remarks halfway through our 35-minute ride. Yes, that’s what every car salesman is supposed to say, but he’s right. If I could afford the black, all-electric Model S P90D—which drives like butter, but costs $108,000—I could see myself following Michael into the company’s Red Hook, Brooklyn, showroom to buy it, even though until today I’d never been in an electric vehicle, much less one that could drive itself.

State By State One of Tesla’s appeals is its direct-to-consumer sales approach. The problem? That model violates many U.S. states’ laws. Below, some of Tesla’s biggest battlegrounds. Michigan Detroit’s state is simply not having Tesla’s distribution model. In 2014, Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation that bans carmakers from selling their own vehicles. Tesla has been vocal about its intentions to get the law overturned and, further drawing attention to the issue, has applied for a car-dealership license in the state. Texas Since the Lone Star State’s laws restrict direct sales, potential Tesla buyers can’t purchase from company galleries and have to make appointments for test drives in advance. Tesla, however, has been wooing the state legislature in hopes of getting a bill supporting its efforts approved. Virginia A state law mandates that automakers can only open a franchise if no other dealers are in the community. Tesla struck a deal with Virginia in 2013 to operate a single sales location. The company’s recent application for a second license, however, was met by a lawsuit from the Virginia Automotive Dealership Association. Connecticut Tesla has petitioned the Connecticut legislature for a direct-sales exemption, but has been shut down after lobbying from dealers and GM. Customers who visit the single Tesla gallery, in Greenwich, must order their vehicles online, receive them through New York or Massachusetts, and then reregister them. New York New York threatened to force Tesla to either franchise or close down Manhattan locations several years ago, but Tesla managed to negotiate a five-store cap for the state.

Tesla is betting that if it can get millions of other people like me comfortable with its cars, they’ll want to buy one, too. In fact, Tesla is going to have to connect with people like me: Its current $33 billion valuation hinges on the ambitious assumption that the carmaker can not only make superior long-range electric vehicles, but also convince lots of newbies to buy them. This task has been complicated by lingering fears over the safety of autonomous vehicles as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigates a fatal Tesla crash that took place in May. (That’s not to mention the SEC investigation into how Tesla disclosed the accident.)

Much of Tesla’s success depends on the 2017 launch of its $35,000 Model 3—the first of its futuristic, all-electric luxury vehicles created for the masses. And the Model 3’s widespread adoption hinges, in turn, on Tesla’s direct-to-consumer sales model. Tesla has chosen to eschew the traditional dealership method—in which automakers sell their cars to independent dealers, who are granted exclusive territories—in favor of company-owned showrooms staffed with product specialists like Michael, who can talk people through both the technology and their safety concerns. It’s an approach that Ganesh Srivats, Tesla’s vice president of North American sales, says is essential. “We knew we couldn’t rely on dealerships to promote our mission, to operate the business the way we wanted to, to provide this great customer experience,” he explains. “So we’ve really had to chart our own course.”

For all the talk of Tesla’s product innovations, it is leading another battle: this one centered on how vehicles are sold, as much as how they’re made. The company has been embroiled in a series of brutal legislative skirmishes in more than a dozen states, including Connecticut, Texas, and Michigan—home to the Big Three automakers—where long-standing franchising laws handicap (or completely quash) Tesla’s ability to engage customers without an intermediary. On the opposing side is an alignment of auto manufacturers and dealerships, along with the lawmakers who support them. Whatever the outcome, it could fundamentally change the way cars are sold in the U.S.

Car dealerships have been the backbone of the automotive industry since the 1950s, when the Big Three—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—were pumping out around three-quarters of the world’s cars from their mammoth Michigan plants. While they focused on designing and mass-producing vehicles, their franchised sales operations reached customers across the country. At the same time, dealer associations pushed state legislatures to enact franchise laws designed to protect dealerships from coercive and arbitrary practices by manufacturers—with the added benefit that customers’ interests would be served by increased competition among franchisees.