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As OK’s anti-Tesla bill moves forward, its author believes a compromise is possible
The electric vehicle community in the United States took a collective gasp earlier this month when a proposed House Bill in Oklahoma unanimously passed a committee vote. The bill in question, HB 3994, aims to update and change parts of existing Oklahoma statutes related to the state’s auto industry. Now, this may sound harmless enough, but a look at the 70-page bill shows that companies like Tesla could lose out heavily if HB 3994 becomes law.
Tesla is already not allowed to directly sell its cars to consumers in Oklahoma, but HB 3994 could give the company even more headaches. What is particularly alarming with HB 3994’s language is the fact that it could be interpreted as a means to prevent automakers like Tesla from delivering and servicing vehicles in the state. This may result in Oklahoma-based Tesla owners being required to travel out of state just to have their vehicles serviced.
Tesla takes the bill very seriously, with the company urging owners on its Engage page to vote “No” to HB 3994. “If passed, this bill could force Tesla to close its existing locations in Oklahoma and prevent Tesla from shipping cars to anyone in the state, which would force locals to travel out-of-state to service their cars or pick up their new Tesla vehicles. Oklahoma should focus on increasing revenue and jobs in the state, not stifling competition and limiting consumer choice,” Tesla noted on its Engage page.
Oppositions and Risks
To state that Oklahoma-based Tesla owners are passionately trying to prevent HB 3994 from progressing further would be an understatement. Tesla owners are currently lobbying against the bill, with some even heading to the capitol last week to speak with the bill’s author, Representative Mike Dobrinski, who has an extensive background in the state’s auto sector. As per Dobrinski’s LinkedIn page, he was the Owner/Dealer of Dobrinski Chevrolet, Inc. until March 2017, and he was the Dealer/Owner of Dobrinski of Kingfisher, Inc., a Chevrolet-Buick-GMC dealership, until October 2018.
The Tesla owners’ talk with the Representative at the capitol last week was brief, according to information shared with Teslarati. Dobrinski highlighted the idea that HB 3994 is a way to protect Tesla owners in Oklahoma because if the EV maker refuses to cover its customers under warranty, then consumers will have no backup. Such a scenario seems unlikely, however.
Senator Mary B. Boren (Credit: Oklahoma Senate)
It’s not just Tesla owners in the state who are against HB 3994. Oklahoma Senator Mary B. Boren, who drives a Tesla Model 3 herself, has openly criticized the bill. In a short conversation with Teslarati, Senator Boren noted that Oklahoma must let the product and the market decide if the state wants innovation to flourish. Initiatives such as HB 3994, which could result in automakers with no dealerships getting the short end of the stick, are counterproductive.
The Senator’s statements could very well ring true. Just recently, reports emerged that Tesla battery partner Panasonic has decided to acquire a factory site in the United States for the production of high-capacity lithium-ion batteries. Panasonic has reportedly shortlisted its preferred US locations to Oklahoma and Kansas. Senator Boren remarked that the presence of bills like HB 3994 could potentially discourage companies like Panasonic from investing in Oklahoma.
“If you have capitalistic laws being passed to protect a particular industry and their business model and to insulate them from the market demands that require them to adjust, then any innovative industry related to EVs will notice that — and they will notice that cronyism is at play. They will find friendlier environments,” Sen. Boren said.
Insights from HB 3994’s Author
The fact that HB 3994 unanimously passed a committee vote earlier this month shows that the bill is also seeing substantial support, despite its harsh repercussions on companies like Tesla and its local electric vehicle owners. When asked by Teslarati about the rationale behind the controversial bill, Rep. Dobrinski explained that HB 3994 is a request bill from the Oklahoma Auto Dealer Association.
“A request bill from the Oklahoma Auto Dealer Association, it seeks to strengthen the position of franchised dealers from the ever-increasing demands and requirements of their legacy manufacturers. Doing so requires addressing Direct Shippers, including Tesla, that are not currently regulated by the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Commission like franchised dealers are. Proper legislation and regulation will ensure that existing service facilities may remain open and consumers will have additional protections,” Dobrinski noted.
Representative Mike Dobrinski (Credit: Oklahoma State Legislature)
Interestingly enough, the Representative admitted that while HB 3994 includes provisions that may be used to force Tesla into closing its service centers in the state, he does not expect that part of the bill to make it to HB 3994’s final iteration. “I do not expect that provision to be included in the (bill’s) final language,” Dobrinski later stated.
The Representative deserves praise for his honesty with HB 3994, though one may wonder why the controversial bill’s most heavy-handed provisions were included in the first place. When confronted by Tesla owners online, Dobrinski has maintained that HB 3994 is far from finished, but it has already opened the doors for communication among automotive businesses in the state.
“This bill, as introduced, is far from the finished product. It is forcing engagement from franchise auto dealers, legacy manufacturers, and new EV manufacturers, including Tesla. These folks are all talking now for the first time ever to work on a plan of regulation going forward that ensures competition and improves customer satisfaction under the purview of the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Commission,” Dobrinski wrote.
A Price for Compromise?
Considering the statements of HB 3994’s author, it appears that the bill could partly be seen as a way to achieve a compromise of sorts between companies like Tesla, electric vehicle owners, and the state’s franchised auto dealerships. However, existing Tesla owners in Oklahoma fear that if HB 3994 passes into law, it could adversely affect not only their ownership experience but also their daily lives.
Cristen Winter Huber, a Tesla owner and a foster mother, is one of them. Being a foster mother, Huber is unable to take her foster children outside Oklahoma without a judge’s permission. According to Huber, the harsher portions of HB 3994 could effectively disrupt her family dynamic, and it might motivate her to leave the state.
“It’s not feasible for my family to drive out of state frequently. I’m a parent and foster parent. I have to get approval from a judge to take my foster child out of state. If I have to leave the state to service my car, I might as well move to a state that welcomes growth and innovation,” Huber said.
Jochen Hoppert, the President of the Tesla Owners Club of Oklahoma, noted that HB 3994 is not only a step in the wrong direction — it can have repercussions far beyond Tesla. The Tesla Club President also stated that so far, the EV maker’s service centers in Oklahoma City and Tulsa are proving that Tesla is serious about supporting its customers.
“Tesla is still not permitted to sell or deliver vehicles from those locations. We hope that will change in the future, yet this anti-competitive bill is clearly a step in the opposite direction. It’s worth noting that this move would not only negatively affect Tesla and the local Tesla community but other up-and-coming electric vehicle manufacturers wishing to do business in the state.
“Rep. Mike Dobrinski, the creator of this bill… has shared his perspective, which includes the notion that this bill would provide benefit to the consumer by allowing the state to manage the presence of warranty, service, and other such things for the consumer as required features of the electric vehicle marketplace. The Tesla service centers in Oklahoma City and Tulsa already demonstrate Tesla’s desire to provide its customers with such services,” Hoppert said.
Following its unanimous committee approval, House Bill 3994 has now advanced to the House Floor. But before the bill could become a law, the Oklahoma Governor would have to approve it first. With this in mind, Tesla owners and electric vehicle advocates still have some time to fight against the bill, or at least lobby for significant changes. Rep. Mike Dobrinski himself has been consistent with the idea that HB 3994 is still open for edits, so it may be a good idea for Tesla owners in the state to push their efforts even more from this point forward.
Those interested in speaking up and supporting Tesla’s efforts against Oklahoma’s HB 3994 could click here.
A copy of Oklahoma HB 3994 could be viewed below.
Hb3994 Int by Simon Alvarez on Scribd
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Tesla Cybercab is set to launch in Austin, Texas, on September 3, as the company has officially started sending out invitations to a dedicated event it will hold in the city where its headquarters is located.
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated ride-sharing vehicle: it features just two seats and has no steering wheel or pedals. It is aimed at fully autonomous passenger transport, and will operate in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Tesla Model Y, which has been performing driverless rides for real-world passengers for more than a year.
Thank you so much @Tesla for inviting us to the Cybercab launch in Austin! 🤠 pic.twitter.com/F1rAR8zd5O
TESLARATI Premium Membership
$19.99 USD— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 22, 2026
The launch of the Cybercab marks the next chapter in Tesla’s autonomy story. The company has been developing autonomous transport for years with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform, which is available in any vehicle the company has built with the proper hardware and software capabilities.
Its capabilities vary by hardware and software version, but Tesla says its latest hardware version, known as AI4, can deliver full autonomy. However, future vehicles will operate with even more robust hardware packages, as Tesla will develop AI4.5 and AI5 for even more capability in its vehicles.
Following a report from The Information that surfaced earlier this week, the writing was on the wall that Tesla was set to launch Cybercab in the near term. The report stated Tesla could launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Tesla came close and has booked it for September 3.
The big thing with this event being scheduled is not necessarily that Tesla is launching a new vehicle, but instead that it is launching a vehicle that has no steering wheel or pedals and will operate exclusively on a self-driving program that is evidently nearing full autonomy. If the event allows vehicles to take passengers on public roads and drop them off wherever they please within the City of Austin, it will be a drastic advancement in the company’s self-driving story.
People have ridden in Cybercab previously: Tesla had the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, which allowed people to experience fully autonomous rides in a closed circuit at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
🚨 Ride in a Tesla Cybercab with us
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 11, 2025
Additionally, Tesla launched employee rides in Cybercab in July.
It’s a drastic step forward for Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, has promised for years that the company would release a fully autonomous vehicle and platform capable of allowing drivers to relinquish any responsibility behind the wheel.
Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla will launch Cybercab on September 3
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
