I received my Massachusetts registration last night by email, so all I had to do today to be fully legal was get the car inspected. As I noted in a previous post, one of Tesla’s unique challenges in Massachusetts is that it is not allowed to inspect its cars like a normal car dealership. Why? Well, Tesla doesn’t have a MA-certified emissions exhaust system in its service centers, and that’s a requirement for an inspection station. The fact that all of Tesla’s cars are zero emissions doesn’t seem to eliminate the requirement, and it’s a fairly expensive system to install to never use it. Ergo, my Tesla had to visit my local gas station, where I will never buy gasoline, to make my car legal.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I do have MA plates on the car, but I’ve blurred them out for privacy reasons. They aren’t actually the final plates for the car anyway; I have ham radio operator plates being made by the RMV, but they haven’t arrived yet.