A spokesperson for the Commission said the new regulations would take
effect April 1. They referred all further questions about the matter to
the office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Tesla shares are off
about 2.5%.
On Tuesday, Tesla launched
a preemptive strike against the proposal and accused the Christie administration of having acted in bad faith. In a
blog post on the company site and series of tweets from its official account, Tesla said it had been negotiating with
officials in New Jersey to be allowed to directly sell its cars there in
the face of "attacks" from the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive
Retailers. Tesla argued the governor's office promised to handle the
question of allowing direct auto sales in New Jersey "through a fair
process in the Legislature" and instead "decided to go outside the
legislative process by expediting a rule proposal that would completely
change the law."