I have only passing familiarity with FPGAs, so perhaps you can excuse my ignorance.
I was under the impression that FPGA vendors often license functional blocks (like PCIe SERDES) to FPGA users. Might it be that part of the purpose of obscuring the bitstream format is to make it more difficult for customers to use those functional blocks without paying the toll?
The problem (from Tesla's perspective) with giving you a franchise is that the current franchise laws make it effectively impossible to take back that franchise, short of going to bankruptcy court. There are some truly awful dealerships out there, but Chevrolet had a hard time closing bad ones, even with the help of a bankruptcy court. Maybe you'd do an better job than Tesla of holding the customers' hand through the process of their first electric car purchase, but maybe in five years you'll decide there's more profit in high-pressure sales techniques. The cows have already left the barn at that point and there is nothing Tesla can do to stop you (so your promise to only take a $100 commission on each sale is worthless).
You seem skeptical that dealerships are adding a large markup. Maybe that's true, but then why are the dealer's so adamant that Tesla only be allowed to sell cars through franchise operations? The dealers have nothing to worry about if you're right. It's not as if Tesla is taking away a current franchise. They're simply not franchising in the first place.
I was under the impression that FPGA vendors often license functional blocks (like PCIe SERDES) to FPGA users. Might it be that part of the purpose of obscuring the bitstream format is to make it more difficult for customers to use those functional blocks without paying the toll?