Everything I've read said it had very little to do with concern for the consumer. As I understand it, car dealerships lobbied for these laws because, according to them, the manufacturers were being anti-competative and squeezing car dealers out of business. So the laws were passed to protect "small" dealers from big car manufacturers, not to protect the consumers.

But now they use that ubiquity to get higher prices through shady tactics. It needs changed again, this time in favor of the consumer.

Because monopoly is the way to solve things :)

A lot of these laws were created very recently. It was a response to Tesla's business model. That was the main argument used this time as well, and it's not wrong.