While visionary businessman Elon Musk has been invited to launch his SpaceX cargo and astronaut transport models to the International Space Station, his electric car company, Tesla, can't get off the launchpad in Iowa.

The Iowa Department of Transportation has canceled a Tesla test-drive event held for Iowans interested in learning more about the company's all-electric experience, according to a report by ecomento.com.

The California-based startup, for which Musk is CEO and lead designer, is the only automaker that doesn't sell cars through dealerships -- meaning it's not a licensed auto dealer in Iowa and, as an automaker, can't sell cars directly to the public, per state law, reports the Des Moines Register.

Tesla countered with a statement that it didn't think the state laws applied to the test drives, since the company wasn't going to sell anything.

Nevertheless, Iowa officials, reportedly acting on a tip from the state's auto dealers association, joined several states, including Arizona, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas and Virginia, where Tesla's unconventional market efforts have been short-circuited -- either through limits or outright bans on any customer development efforts.

"You can't just set up in a hotel parking lot and sell cars," IADA President Bruce Anderson told the Des Moines Register. "Independent dealers are aggressive in pricing against each other ... If you wanted to buy directly from Chevy or Ford, the price on the sticker would be the price."

That means Iowans will have to travel to showrooms in other region like neighboring Chicago or Minneapolis, where Tesla's more welcome.

Tesla was recently told by officials in New Jersey it would have to limit its activities to specific "galleries" there, while the company is still wrangling with authorities over when it can and can't do in Georgia, said the story by ecomento.com.

The case in Georgia, the ecomento.com piece continued, is particularly frustrating for Tesla, as the Peach State has one of the greatest adoption rates of electric vehicles in the country, but maker-operated stores are limited to 150 sales a year.

On top of that, the Georgia Automobile Dealers Associations is pushing to see Tesla stripped of its ability to sell at all, on the grounds the company surpassed its sales limit.

Iowa underscores some of the barriers Tesla faces in more localized markets.