Rules dating to the Great Depression have turned franchised auto dealers into a mandatory middleman — one that a new report says costs buyers up to $5,000 per vehicle. Dealers add add an estimated $3,934 to $4,992 to the price of a new vehicle, functioning as a “middleman tax.” State laws that prohibit automakers from selling cars directly to consumers add between $3,934 and $4,992 to the price of a new vehicle, according to an issue brief released Monday by the International Center for Law & Economics, a nonprofit research organization. The findings arrive as legacy automakers struggle to compete with Tesla’s factory-direct sales model and as software-defined vehicles increasingly depend on seamless digital integration that franchise dealers are structurally ill-equipped to support. The report, written by Kristian Stout and Subiksha Ramakrishnan, updates a 2000 Goldman Sachs analysis and a subsequent review by the Justice Department. It argues that franchise protection laws enacted during the New Deal era — originally designed to shield small-business dealers from being undercut by powerful manufacturers — have since calcified into protectionist barriers that fragment the national market and insulate incumbents from competition. “Protecting an incumbent distribution channel is not the same as protecting consumers,” the authors write. The study breaks down the estimated price premium into several components. Dealers are required by most states to maintain on-lot inventory, a carry cost the authors calculate at $1,045 to $1,105 per vehicle, compounded by floorplan financing rates that currently run between 6 and 9 percent. The make-to-stock manufacturing model that results from the dealer system generates roughly $1,600 per unit in additional costs, as automakers are forced to push unwanted inventory through discounts and incentives rather than building to order. Commission-based sales staff and sprawling physical retail footprints add an estimated $1,200 to $1,900 more. In