Motor vehicles; licensure; entities requiring licensure; prohibiting factory engagement; dealer management system providers; security standards; actions; revocation or suspense of license; effective date.
HB2158 revises Oklahoma’s motor vehicle franchise and dealer licensing laws, with a strong focus on the relationship between new motor vehicle dealers, powersports dealers, manufacturers, distributors, and factory-affiliated entities. The bill updates statutory definitions to include and distinguish powersports vehicles and dealers, adds a definition of “consumer data” and “common entity,” and clarifies which businesses must be licensed by the Oklahoma New Motor Vehicle Commission. It also expressly bars factories and factory-affiliated entities from acting as dealers, while preserving limited exceptions already recognized in existing law.
A major part of the bill addresses dealer management system providers and dealer data security. It allows providers to condition access on commercially reasonable data security standards, but prohibits access fees and unreasonable restrictions on dealer data sharing or integration with authorized third parties. The bill requires express written authorization for authorized integrators, sets out revocation rights, and creates indemnification rules allocating liability for unlawful access or disclosure of protected dealer data. It also limits factory interference with dealer data systems and permits factories to charge only actual costs for system modifications needed to create secure interfaces.
HB2158 also expands and reorganizes the grounds on which the Oklahoma New Motor Vehicle Commission may deny, suspend, revoke, or fine licenses. The bill adds or clarifies numerous factory and dealer practices that can trigger enforcement, including coercive allocation practices, unfair performance standards, warranty reimbursement disputes, facility and site-control requirements, direct sales to consumers, lead handling, and requirements tied to electric vehicle charging stations and EV distribution plans. It further modifies rules for relocation, adding line-makes, right of first refusal in dealership transfers, and compensation for used vehicles subject to stop-sale or recall conditions.
The bill’s impact on state law is to strengthen dealer protections and regulate manufacturer conduct more tightly, especially in areas involving franchise leverage, data access, and EV-related requirements. It amends multiple sections of Title 47 governing licensing, definitions, and disciplinary authority, and it creates or expands enforceable standards that dealers can use in disputes before the Commission. The act takes effect November 1, 2025.
Overall sentiment appears strongly favorable and largely noncontroversial in the Legislature, as reflected by unanimous or near-unanimous committee votes and overwhelming floor passage in both chambers. The only notable opposition came on House third reading, where the bill passed 89-2. The main points of contention likely centered on the bill’s restrictions on factory control over dealers, data access, and EV-related mandates, since those provisions limit manufacturer leverage and expand dealer rights, but the recorded votes show broad bipartisan support.
HB2158 amends several provisions of Oklahoma’s motor vehicle franchise law in Title 47, including Sections 562, 564, 564.3, and 565. It changes licensing and definitional rules for new motor vehicle dealers, powersports dealers, manufacturers, distributors, factory branches, and representatives; prohibits factory-affiliated entities from functioning as dealers except in narrow circumstances; and adds detailed rules governing dealer management systems, protected dealer data, authorized integrators, and data-security obligations. It also broadens the Commission’s enforcement authority by adding or clarifying grounds for license denial, suspension, revocation, and fines, while imposing new limits on manufacturer conduct involving allocations, warranty reimbursement, facility requirements, direct sales, and EV charging station or EV distribution plan obligations.
The bill appears to have enjoyed broad support throughout the legislative process. Committee votes were unanimous in the House Business Committee, House Commerce and Economic Development Oversight Committee, and Senate Business & Insurance Committee, and both chambers passed the bill overwhelmingly. The House third-reading vote was 89-2, and the Senate third-reading vote was 44-0. That voting pattern suggests the bill was viewed as a substantial but acceptable update to dealer-franchise law, with little organized opposition visible in the available record.
The most likely areas of disagreement are the bill’s limits on manufacturer and factory-affiliated conduct, especially provisions barring direct sales, restricting factory ownership or control of dealerships, limiting coercive facility and site-control demands, and preventing manufacturers from imposing certain data-access or integration conditions. The dealer-management-system provisions may also have been contentious because they regulate how providers, manufacturers, and third-party integrators can access protected dealer data and impose indemnification duties. The EV-related sections, including charging-station requirements and reimbursement for withdrawn EV programs, likely reflect another contested area between dealers and manufacturers, but the vote record indicates those disputes did not prevent broad legislative approval.