DETROIT _ Electric automaker Tesla filed a lawsuit Thursday against Michigan officials, escalating its multi-year battle to sell vehicles directly to consumers in the state.
Tesla named Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, and Gov. Rick Snyder in its lawsuit filed in federal court.
The action comes as part of an escalating conflict playing out nationwide _ through legislatures, regulatory agencies and the courts _ between the upstart Palo Alto, Calif.-based automaker and dealers associations as states sort out whether Tesla should be allowed to sell directly to customers.
The lawsuit was filed less than a week after Johnson rejected Tesla's application to establish dealership and service facilities in the city of Grand Rapids. Tesla, unlike other automakers, wants to sell directly to consumers through its company-owned stores, not dealerships.
Nationwide, various states have taken different approaches to Tesla's efforts to set up customer-direct retail centers, with some states seeking to ban the practice entirely, some allowing exceptions with restrictions, and others not objecting to the practice at all.
Snyder signed a law in 2014 that prohibited Tesla from selling cars directly to consumers by requiring all automakers to sell through a network of franchised dealers.
For Tesla, the stakes to have more of its own showrooms may be heightening, as the manufacture aims to launch a new model priced at $30,000 _ much lower than its predecessors and more appealing to a mass market. The company has received about 400,000 deposits of $1,000 each from consumers who want the new model.
Tesla's lawsuit takes aim at the heart of the dealership sales model, alleging it amounts to a state-sponsored monopoly.
"Tesla Motors brings this lawsuit to vindicate its rights under the United States Constitution to sell and service its critically-acclaimed, all-electric vehicles at Tesla owned facilities in the State of Michigan," the automaker said in its complaint.
Tesla submitted an application for a dealership license in the fall of 2015 with a plan to open a retail gallery in Grand Rapids. In a hearing earlier this month, a panel of administrative law examiners led by Jay Thomas Todd heard arguments. Last Thursday, they rejected the license for Tesla.
"The license was denied because state law explicitly requires a dealer to have a bona fide contract with an auto manufacturer to sell its vehicles," Johnson, Michigan's secretary of state, said in a statement.
Tesla's Model S and Model X are priced between $75,000 and $115,000, but late next year, Tesla intends to launch a new Model 3 that will be priced at about $30,000 after federal tax credits.
The automaker's lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare that the state and the state's laws violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as the Constitution's Commerce Clause.
"Particularly egregious protectionist legislation was passed by the Michigan Legislature in 2014," Tesla says in its complaint. "The Michigan Legislature quietly enacted an outright ban on Tesla's direct-to-consumer sales model, effectively giving franchised dealers a state-sponsored monopoly on car sales within Michigan."
Some lawmakers and others have urged the state to change the legislation.
