Really? I would love to be able to shop for a car and know that no matter where I shopped I was getting the exact same price. I absolutely HATE having to negotiate on the price, and the popularity of services like truecar suggest that a huge number of people agree with me.
That would be called price fixing. If I go shopping for a washing machine and I visit a bunch of websites I should expect to see a variety of prices. All non negotiable, but all transparent and available. Imagine now you could only buy a Bosch washing machine from the Bosch website. There is no longer any competition on price at all. "Ah" someone might say "but you could price compare your Bosch machine to the price for a somewhat equivalent Zanussi on the Zanussi site!", yeah but you're not comparing like with like and it's still not remotely the same competition when I want a Bosch not a Zanussi.
Why? Tesla sees dealers for the unnecessary middle men that they are. They've already shown that they would rather not enter a market than open a franchised dealership. I don't see any reason that this would change.
Because too many states have laws that prohibit direct sales. And as I said while I think most car dealers are scum, the law is there to ensure competition, not their sales ethics. But Tesla does have the means to exert some ethics of its own and open up the sale of its vehicles at the same time. Dealers would want to be able to do after sales service like servicing, selling parts, trade ins etc. There are obvious reasons they might sign up to some franchise or programme that ensures a consistent sales experience.