Dealer reluctance to sell EV's has been well known as a huge obstruction to the industry since CARB first told the industry to start building EVs in 1990.
Most dealer profit (at least in the US) comes from service, then from used cars. New cars sales are barely above break-even for dealers. Explaining the new tech in an EV means a dealer typically has to spend 3-4 times as much time with an EV customer as they do with an ICE customer; and then presumably the EV will need less service. More work for less money - no wonder most dealers are not excited.
Of course, it is more complicated than that. There are thousands of dealers; they are each small companies staffed by individuals. Just as some of us consumers only drive EVs and other would never consider them, some dealers are more excited about it than others. While most US dealers still don't offer a plug-in vehicle of any type, a few dealers are doing very well in the EV business - and loving how connected the customers are; they tend to get a lot of referrals. And a dealer with sales staff sitting in an empty lot most weekdays may be more interested in EVs than a very busy dealer.
It also depends on the type of EV, which is partly determined by the automaker's ROI strategy for the vehicle (which, in a circular fashion, partly depends on dealer preferences). While most dealers really hate compliance EVs (high ramp up time, high sales effort, low-volume, low-profit car that cannibalizes ICE sales - worst case scenario for a dealer!), other types of EVs are not always so bad. A volume EV (if one existed) would still not be great, but at least the dealer ramp up would pay back easier with higher volume, and the dealership could sell more cars (dealers prefer higher margins to higher volumes, but are being forced to higher volumes by commodity markets and automaker pressure - the good news is that automaker pressure is largely from financial incentives when they move high volumes). Conquest cars, while only low-to-mid volume, at least bring in NEW customers as long as the design is not cannibalizing as with the LEAF and i3; dealers that aren't already swamped with customers could find the extra effort for new customers worthwhile (though they still wouldn't want a cannibalizing design that trades an ICE sale for an EV). And dealers love halo cars; they generally don't do much to sell them, they just park one in the showroom and let it drive traffic - who they then try to steer towards an ICE. (At least in theory; in practice the automaker may have a large set of requirements for halo cars, like training, EVSEs and very expensive repair equipment that make them less attractive to dealers).
Automakers are both required to build EVs and (other than Tesla in some states) to sell them through dealers; but there are no requirements on dealers to sell them, so dealer preferences have a large effect on the type of EVs that automakers build. This is a large part of why Tesla doesn't have competition yet, most EVs look funny, and the advertising is so odd when it exists at all. I've written much more on how the auto industry approaches EVs in
THIS thread.