The manufacturers take revenue on shipments to the dealer, not the sell-thru to the end consumer. This allows them to stuff the channel to hit their numbers. Of course, this becomes unsustainable once the effectiveness of discounts & incentives hits the wall and they can't clear the inventory in time for the next stuff job. See 2008 Big-3 explosion, the dealer channel had YEARS worth of inventory of some makes/models.

It's very fair to assume this is a fundamental reason the manufacturers will defend the dealer network to the death. Without it, sales numbers would, by necessity, become a reflection of true demand... Short-term thinking for sure, but very hard to unwind.

Society could simply allocate its resources more efficiently if the law is dropped for all manufacturers. Protecting the status quo at the cost of inefficient allocation can not be justified.

These other companies signed away their point of sale long, long ago. Then everyone gets laws passed which demand that anyone in the future add middle men so they will be equally inefficient.

Of course the argument always comes up, "it's the law, they should abide by it." This argument is always paired with the implied notion that they shouldn't even challenge the law. They should just go along with the law that their competitors wrote to prevent competition. It's a bad law, it needs changing. If it gets changed then everyone can enjoy the same "privilege".

Tesla wants to make something and sell it. This shouldn't require government "privilege" to accomplish. The notion of government planning of industry needs to be squashed.