Push to allow electric car sales in Connecticut revs up again
Proponents of longstalled legislation to loosen regulations on buying electric vehicles in Connecticut are revving up for another run in the state legislature’s 2022 session. But opponents are mobilizing, too.
State Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, who last year introduced a bill that allowed electric-vehicle makers such as Tesla to directly sell their vehicles without having to open franchised dealerships, said he would support a comparable proposal in this year’s session, which starts Wednesday. He faces resistance, however, from the committee’s two top Republicans who want to table any such legislation this year because they are upset about Haskell and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff’s alleged involvement in a recently planned fundraiser.
“So many states around the country are allowing companies like Tesla to sell their vehicles directly,” Haskell, Senate chairman of the Transportation Committee, said in an interview last week. “I think that Connecticut consumers are missing out. I think that our antiquated laws deny them the choice of where to buy their next vehicle.”
Haskell has recently faced scrutiny for his electric-vehicle advocacy. Last week, the Daily Ructions website run by Kevin Rennie, a lawyer and former Republican state representative and senator, posted an email purportedly sent by the Westport Electric Car Club, with the subject line “political fundraiser to support direct sales.”
The email and an accompanying flyer said Haskell and Duff would appear at an electric vehicle-focused fundraiser in Westport. The event was scheduled for last Sunday, but it was subsequently called off.
“We have been asked to support a Democratic State Senate Victory Fund,” said the email posted on Daily Ructions. “We have been told that given that direct sales fell one vote short in the Senate last year, this will provide leverage for leadership to move fencesitters into our column.”
The bill that Haskell and state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, introduced last year was never voted on by the full Senate or House of Representatives. However, it gained bipartisan support in the Transportation Committee, which last March approved the bill in a 25-10 vote.
State Rep. Devin Carney, R-Old Saybrook, and state Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, the Transportation Committee’s ranking members, included a link to the Daily Ructions post in a joint statement they issued last Friday that condemned the fundraiser.
“We’d be hard-pressed to disagree with anyone who viewed this fundraiser from Senate Democrats as a quid pro quo, and simply canceling the event just isn’t enough,” Carney and Somers said in the statement. “Senators Duff and Haskell should immediately return any contributions associated with the event. What’s more, the Transportation Committee should table any consideration of the topic of direct-to-customer electricvehicle sales until the 2023 legislative session in order to avoid even an iota of impropriety. Failing to do so would take the focus away from the complexities of this subject that deserves conversation centered on policy — not politics.”
Haskell and Duff disavowed the email soliciting the contributions; that email prompted them to cancel the event.
“We are disappointed that Republican Representative Carney and Republican Senator Somers would make such a disingenuous attack on two of their colleagues. It’s yet another reminder that the party of George H. W. Bush has become the party of Donald Trump. What happened to truth and civility under the Capitol dome?” Senate Democratic spokesman Kevin Coughlin said in a statement Tuesday. “The fact of the matter is that Senator Duff and Senator Haskell have consistently supported legislation that would empower consumers to decide where they would like to purchase an electric vehicle. When they learned of an event participant sending an inappropriate email, they canceled the event. It’s that simple.”
Officials at the EV Club of Connecticut, which was formerly known as the Westport Electric Car Club, also distanced themselves from the fundraiser. The group has repeatedly expressed support for direct electric-vehicle sales.
“Sunday’s event will not be moving forward. I have no further comment on that,” Barry Kresch, the club’s president, said in an email last Friday.
Longstanding debate about EV sales
For Haskell, who was elected to the state Senate at age 22 in 2018, this year will be his last chance to pass a bill allowing direct electricvehicle sales. He announced last month that he would not seek a third term.
Senate Bill 127, the bill that Haskell and Steinberg introduced last year, would be an exemplar for any new bill. SB 127 allowed electricvehicle manufacturers to bypass the franchised-dealership model and obtain new or used-car dealer licenses in Connecticut.
It marked the latest of several bills introduced in the past few years that permitted direct EV sales. None of those proposals has passed amid longstanding opposition from groups such as the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association, which represents new-vehicle dealerships.
“Connecticut’s new-car dealers are selling electric vehicles right now and offer consumers over 40 different models,” said CARA President Sarah Fryxell. “We are confident that legislators will agree this special carve-out for Tesla is not in the best interest of Connecticut’s consumers. The net effect of this proposal will be to destroy thousands of jobs in the state.”
Carney voted for SB 127, while Somers voted against the bill.
Haskell said he is not trying to hurt car dealerships and that he made concessions to recognize their concerns. He highlighted SB 127’s requirement for direct EV sellers to not have franchise agreements with any new car dealers in the state and also cited consumer-protection provisions in the bill.
“Frankly, I think the dealers really ought to embrace that compromise because that is a middle-ofthe-road bill,” Haskell said. “Other states have done far more radical things.”
An EV “roadmap” published in 2020 by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection outlined a goal of putting 125,000 to 150,000 electric vehicles on the road in Connecticut by 2025. But as of Jan. 1, there were only 21,382 electric vehicles registered in the state, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
“We’re nowhere close to meeting our goal by 2025,” Haskell said. “The Biden administration, to their credit, is putting a lot of money behind electrifying the transportation sector and reducing carbon emissions. They want to install charging stations across Connecticut. But (not) a lot of good a charging station is going to do if we’re not able to easily and conveniently buy electric vehicles in Connecticut.”
Tesla dominates the EV market. It accounted for about 70 percent of Connecticut’s registered electric vehicles at the end of 2019, according to DEEP.
There is a Tesla gallery and service center at 881 Boston Post Road in Milford and a Tesla gallery in Greenwich at 340 Greenwich Ave. But Tesla has always rejected the franchised-dealership framework, so their customers cannot buy vehicles in Connecticut. As a result, Connecticut residents have to buy Tesla models at out-ofstate locations such as the Tesla center in Mount Kisco, N.Y.
A message left for Tesla was not immediately returned.