Electric truck visits MLK Center, Herald

The giant electric truck rolled onto Long Island earlier this week, stopping at the MLK Center in Long Beach and at the Herald newspaper office in Garden City, seeking support for legislation to increase sales.

Currently, the cap of five stores in New York State is, according to the lawmakers and the manufacturer, Rivian Automotive Inc. of Irvine, Calif., a significant impediment to the sales of electric vehicles in the state.

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Long Beach Democrat, and Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, a Democrat from Albany, are sponsoring a bill to increase the cap on direct sales.

Kaminsky and Fahy said in a press release that, “Nearly 80% of zero-emission vehicles purchased in the United States come from zero-emission vehicle-exclusive manufacturers that sell directly to customers. The current cap of five stores is the most significant impediment to electric vehicle adoption in the State.”

In an interview Wednesday, Kaminsky said Rivian should have the right to make direct sales to the public.

In New York, cars must be sold through traditional dealerships. The one exception is Tesla, which received permission to open five showrooms after settlement of a lawsuit in 2014. Nineteen states have no cap on the number of direct-sales locations.

Kaminsky and other lawmakers note that New York State is behind others in electric vehicle sales. New York has achieved only 3 percent of its goal of having 850,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2025.

The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association has been lobbying hard against removing the cap.  It argues that consumers can negotiate lower prices by visiting different dealerships. They can also get their cars serviced if a particular dealership goes out of business. They argue also that they are fighting billionaires such as Elon Musk of Tesla.

Kaminsky said that the bill, currently in the Transportation Committee, faces a tough road ahead., given the lobbying effort by the dealers association.”

It’s not an easy proposition,” Kaminsky said. But, he said, ”It’s my objective” to get the bill passed this session.

At the MLK Center on Tuesday, Leslie Hayward, a spokeswoman for Rivian, talked to young people about electric vehicles and showed them the R1T truck,  a 6,800-pound vehicle that is 217 feet long.

Hayward drove the truck to the Herald office in Garden City and allowed reporters to take it for a drive. The truck’s pickup was extraordinary and the ride was smooth and quiet.

“New York is doing everything right, but they’re not allowing sales,” Hayward said.