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Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves Signs Dumb New Restrictions On Electric Vehicles

from the not-so-free-market dept

If you’re an automaker or oil giant keen on slowing the rise of electric vehicles, there’s no shortage of captured lawmakers ready and willing to implement your terrible ideas, however harmful or impractical.

In North Carolina, Republican leaders have pushed a bill demanding locals destroy any free electric vehicle stations on public land, if local authorities don’t build free gas and diesel pumps alongside them. In Wyoming, state Republican leaders tried to implement a ban on electric vehicles, though the ban itself is little more than performative, oil industry ass kissing.

In Mississippi, Republican Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill recently restricting electric car manufacturers from selling vehicles in person unless they open traditional, franchised dealerships. Reeves is pretending the move, clearly a futile bid to protect oil interests and automotive companies that have lagged on EVs, is all about protecting small businesses:

“Almost 200 small businesses in communities across our state are seeking assurances that big manufacturers can’t just destroy their businesses. That’s fair!” Reeves, a Republican, said in a statement posted to social media. “I also recognize that innovation in this industry is inevitable. And with innovation comes new companies with new business models. I am committed to find long-term solutions—in an ever changing market.”

That justification, of course, makes absolutely no fucking sense in context of what the bill actually does.

Republicans have spent decades pretending to be dedicated to free market innovation. Though their actual track record of coddling giants (see: telecom, banking, energy, airlines, insurance, health care) widely disproves the claim. More recently, they’ve pretended to be a party super interested in “antitrust reform,” though those efforts are also as hollow as a cheap Easter chocolate bunny.

In this case, Mississippi’s more “traditional” restrictions don’t ban the sale of electric cars, but if you’re oblivious or indifferent to Musk’s reputational implosion and in the market for a Tesla, they’ll force you to visit the state’s only sanctioned (via carve out) Tesla dealer in Brandon. EV makers in general are restricted from opening any new stores unless they adhere to the traditional, dated and convoluted franchise model people have been complaining about for decades.

Granted there are still some Republicans that realize this kind of mindless oil and traditional auto industry ass kissing is both harmful and idiotic:

Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, had hoped Reeves would veto the legislation. Lawmakers were aiming to attract Tesla to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, an area Wiggins called the state’s economic driver.

“In today’s world, if you don’t innovate, you lose out. We as a state cannot afford to lose out,” Wiggins told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “My vote against the bill was a vote for capitalism, competition and innovation rather than for a policy of protectionism.”

Yet the new restrictions still passed the state legislature 39-13, driving would be EV buyers to a neighboring state. You know, out of an undying love of small business innovation.

Filed Under: big oil, climate change, corruption, electric vehicles, ev, franchise dealership, mississippi, regulatory capture, republican, restrictions, tate reeves