There's very little (if any) income at a dealership that couldn't be captured by a state with the right tax structure, and that would apply to a manufacturer owned dealership just as much as a private one.

It seems like the only person really losing in that scenario would be the dealership owner, which explains why they lobby so heavily to keep those laws in place.

> it's less about avoiding monopolies and more about making sure more of the money stays in the state, but I'm just speculating.

If that was the goal, then the state government should have opened their own dealerships and distributed the profits amongst the state's residents. Or better yet, simply operated the dealership at break even.

Americans generally don't like the government running things that aren't natural monopolies.