I'm not sure it's a bad deal. New car dealership owners are often pretty successful and politically connected small local businessmen. It is generally true though that distribution isn't a business that the auto manufacturers wanted to be in at the time the current system developed. It's not a wildly profitable business to be in but, like other types of franchises, it's a decent enough living for many of the owners.
It's not that they didn't want to be in the business, but that manufacturers couldn't scale their own dealerships across the country fast enough. So they opened up ownership to third parties.
Tesla, however, was in the unique position of having enough capital to open their own dealerships, which has caused a lot of friction with more traditional, "family-owned" dealerships.
