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Tesla direct sales in New Mexico gains ground as “Tesla Bill” gets approved
A piece of New Mexico state legislation to amend local automotive franchise laws through a “Tesla Bill”, specifically allowing vehicle manufacturers like Tesla to operate as a dealer and sell direct, was approved by the Public Affairs Committee last Thursday.
Similar to other states with dealership protections, car makers wanting to do business in the “Land of Enchantment” must sell their vehicles through a franchise dealership network, and efforts to amend those requirements are always met with significant resistance from lobbyist groups whose members stand to be impacted most. After facing a party-line vote, Democrats ‘for’ and Republicans ‘against’, the law (Senate Bill 243) passed the state’s Public Affairs Committee and advanced to the Corporations and Transportation Committee. After another review and vote, the bill will advance to the Senate floor for a final vote if successful. Given the state’s balance of power – Democrats are in the majority in both houses of the state’s legislature as well as the governorship – Tesla may be well on its way to a full victory in New Mexico.
Prior to the Public Affairs Committee vote, a panel was held wherein advocates both for and against amending the state franchise laws voiced their positions. Overall, supporters (particularly those focused on Tesla’s desire to do business in the state) argued that the bill in question aims to work within the dealership model, not eliminate it. According to Meredith Roberts, senior policy adviser and counsel representing Tesla, “We’re not here to upset (the franchise model)…It’s only additive,” she said in the panel hearing. The language of the bill supports this position via its narrow applicability, allowing direct sales only if the following conditions apply:
- The business does not have any existing franchises in the state.
- The business sells and services only vehicles that it manufactures.
- The vehicles sold must be electric and powered by batteries or fuel cells.
Despite the estimated $4800 tax income New Mexico would gain per average electric vehicle sold, 15-50 new jobs per store opened, and $1 million dollars local economic impact gain from a direct-sales manufacturer like Tesla would bring to the state, those in opposition to the bill maintained that changes to the existing franchise laws would not be beneficial. During the hearing, Charles Henson, president of the New Mexico Automotive Dealers Association, cited the millions of dollars already invested by dealerships, arguing that Tesla’s sales model would create unfair direct manufacturer competition. Another state senator, Jacob Candelaria (D-Albuquerque), likened EV manufacturers’ direct-sales models to giant tech company monopolies. To be fair, with the popularity of the direct-sales model increasing, as all-electric fleets come into being (a stated goal of many current ICE vehicle makers), franchises may end up becoming a thing of the past as the future of clean energy transportation sets in.
While the hand-off from one committee to another is a good step towards the end goal of in-state, brick-and-mortar sales presence for EV manufacturers, the bill still may face an uphill battle despite the political leanings of the state’s legislative majority for reasons outside lobbyist efforts. Specifically, some legislators are a bit put-off by Tesla’s history in New Mexico. A manufacturing plant was announced in 2007 (to be succeeded by the current Fremont factory) and a Gigafactory was teased in 2014 (to be succeeded by the current Sparks, Nevada factory). Since neither of those projects came to fruition within the state, it seems there may be some leftover sour grapes. However, given Tesla’s current inability to do normal sales business in New Mexico, it’s understandable that the all-electric car maker may have based part of their location decisions on their customers’ purchasing abilities in the states where they set up shop, thereby limiting potential liabilities and run-ins with dealership groups. This is something Volvo USA is already experiencing with its company-directed vehicle subscription service.
At this juncture, Tesla is all too familiar with the franchise vs. direct-sales fight. In December last year, a Connecticut judge ruled in favor of Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles on a motion prompted by the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Trade Association (CARA), finding that Tesla’s business activities within the state violated the states automotive franchise law system. The EV company only had one location in the state – a gallery located in Greenwich to inform interested parties about its products, not sell them – but even that was determined to constitute competition and thus banned activity. Legislative efforts to amend Connecticut’s laws by state representatives in favor of Tesla’s sales approach have, thus far, failed. Ironically, Connecticut is also controlled by Democrats in both the legislature and governorship.
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Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s newest model is coming very soon, and from what it sounds like, it could be “the last big piece of the puzzle,” as CEO Elon Musk said in late November.
During the xAI Hackathon on Tuesday, Musk was available for a Q&A session, where he revealed some details about Robotaxi and Tesla’s plans for removing Robotaxi Safety Monitors, and some information on a future FSD model.
While he said Full Self-Driving’s unsupervised capability is “pretty much solved,” and confirmed it will remove Safety Monitors in the next three weeks, questions about the company’s ability to give this FSD version to current owners came to mind.
Musk said a new FSD model is coming in about a month or two that will be an order-of-magnitude larger and will include more reasoning and reinforcement learning.
He said:
“There’s a model that’s an order of magnitude larger that will be deployed in January or February 2026. We’re gonna add a lot of reasoning and RL (reinforcement learning). To get to serious scale, Tesla will probably need to build a giant chip fab. To have a few hundred gigawatts of AI chips per year, I don’t see that capability coming online fast enough, so we will probably have to build a fab.”
NEWS: Elon Musk says FSD Unsupervised is “pretty much solved at this point” and that @Tesla will be launching Robotaxis with no safety monitors in about 3 weeks in Austin, Texas. He also teased a new FSD model is coming in about 1-2 months.
“We’re just going through validation… https://t.co/Msne72cgMB pic.twitter.com/i3wfKX3Z0r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2025
It rings back to late November when Musk said that v14.3 “is where the last big piece of the puzzle finally lands.”
With the advancements made through Full Self-Driving v14 and v14.2, there seems to be a greater confidence in solving self-driving completely. Musk has also personally said that driver monitoring has been more relaxed, and looking at your phone won’t prompt as many alerts in the latest v14.2.1.
This is another indication that Tesla is getting closer to allowing people to take their eyes off the road completely.
Along with the Robotaxi program’s success, there is evidence that Tesla could be close to solving FSD. However, it is not perfect. We’ve had our own complaints with FSD, and although we feel it is the best ADAS on the market, it is not, in its current form, able to perform everything needed on roads.
But it is close.
That’s why there is some legitimate belief that Tesla could be releasing a version capable of no supervision in the coming months.
All we can say is, we’ll see.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon. Musk replied, basically confirming it.
Elon Musk confirmed through a post on X that a SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) is on the way after hinting at it several times earlier this year.
It also comes one day after Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was aiming for a valuation of $1.5 trillion, adding that it wanted to raise $30 billion.
Musk has been transparent for most of the year that he wanted to try to figure out a way to get Tesla shareholders to invest in SpaceX, giving them access to the stock.
He has also recognized the issues of having a public stock, like litigation exposure, quarterly reporting pressures, and other inconveniences.
However, it appears Musk is ready for SpaceX to go public, as Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger wrote an op-ed that indicated he thought SpaceX would go public soon.
Musk replied, basically confirming it:
As usual, Eric is accurate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2025
Berger believes the IPO would help support the need for $30 billion or more in capital needed to fund AI integration projects, such as space-based data centers and lunar satellite factories. Musk confirmed recently that SpaceX “will be doing” data centers in orbit.
AI appears to be a “key part” of SpaceX getting to Musk, Berger also wrote. When writing about whether or not Optimus is a viable project and product for the company, he says that none of that matters. Musk thinks it is, and that’s all that matters.
It seems like Musk has certainly mulled something this big for a very long time, and the idea of taking SpaceX public is not just likely; it is necessary for the company to get to Mars.
The details of when SpaceX will finally hit that public status are not known. Many of the reports that came out over the past few days indicate it would happen in 2026, so sooner rather than later.
But there are a lot of things on Musk’s plate early next year, especially with Cybercab production, the potential launch of Unsupervised Full Self-Driving, and the Roadster unveiling, all planned for Q1.
Tesla has added the 15th automaker to the growing list of companies whose EVs can utilize the Supercharger Network this year, as BMW is the latest company to gain access to the largest charging infrastructure in the world.
BMW became the 15th company in 2025 to gain Tesla Supercharger access, after the company confirmed to its EV owners that they could use any of the more than 25,000 Supercharging stalls in North America.
Welcome @BMW owners.
Download the Tesla app to charge → https://t.co/vnu0NHA7Ab
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) December 10, 2025
Newer BMW all-electric cars, like the i4, i5, i7, and iX, are able to utilize Tesla’s V3 and V4 Superchargers. These are the exact model years, via the BMW Blog:
- i4: 2022-2026 model years
- i5: 2024-2025 model years
- 2026 i5 (eDrive40 and xDrive40) after software update in Spring 2026
- i7: 2023-2026 model years
- iX: 2022-2025 model years
- 2026 iX (all versions) after software update in Spring 2026
With the expansion of the companies that gained access in 2025 to the Tesla Supercharger Network, a vast majority of non-Tesla EVs are able to use the charging stalls to gain range in their cars.
So far in 2025, Tesla has enabled Supercharger access to:
- Audi
- BMW
- Genesis
- Honda
- Hyundai
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Kia
- Lucid
- Mercedes-Benz
- Nissan
- Polestar
- Subaru
- Toyota
- Volkswagen
- Volvo
Drivers with BMW EVs who wish to charge at Tesla Superchargers must use an NACS-to-CCS1 adapter. In Q2 2026, BMW plans to release its official adapter, but there are third-party options available in the meantime.
They will also have to use the Tesla App to enable Supercharging access to determine rates and availability. It is a relatively seamless process.
Tesla FSD’s newest model is coming, and it sounds like ‘the last big piece of the puzzle’
SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms
