Tesla will sue you for $50,000 if you try to resell your Cybertruck in the first year::Tesla may agree to buy the truck back at the original price minus “$0.25/mile driven” and any damages and repairs.
This is, surprisingly, not that unusual for vehicles in high demand. It’s to prevent flipping.
GM does it on certain vehicles as well:
(the C8 Corvette Z06, GMC Hummer EV, and Cadillac Escalade-V if you want to know without clicking the link.)
GM wasn’t harsh enough IMHO. They should have black listed people who immediately flipped base C8s for significantly more than MSRP. Base C8s (not Z51) going for over 100k, with miles on them, was fucking ridiculous.
I’ll say it now: car dealers are useless dinosaurs and there is no point to having them anymore. I don’t need a dealer to tell me what options I want on my car. I can select those on a webpage after I’ve reviewed the available options. I need a place to take my car for service if it’s a factory failure / warranty work. I can do the rest myself or pay another focused professional to do the work.
Agreed, but I absolutely need somewhere to test drive the car as well before purchasing. There’s no way I would buy a car without it.
I would agree with that. I had a car shipped by an online sales company and when I showed up to test drive & but it, I didn’t actually fit in the car properly, so I didn’t end up buying it. Such is the life of being tall.
I’m no fan of flipping/scalping but the choice of the degradation of ownership is much worse. If they really own the car then they aught to be able to resell it.
Prediction; this will extend beyond just high end cars.
Like with other manufacturers with similar limitations, the limitation for resale is only for the first year. It literally is just to try and prevent people buying and flipping the car for a profit. If you don’t like the vehicle you can sell it back to Tesla outside the normal return window. Or wait a year and sell it to someone else.
The reduction in ownership rights is worse than scalpers. Not sure why you assume this is pure benevolence instead of companies making more money via their control of property you paid for.
the limitation for resale is only for the first year.
I hate the “slippery slope” argument, but in this case…
What if the limitation was 2 or 5 years? What if the fine was $100,000 or a million? If they get away with lesser restrictions, why wouldn’t they? The point is, companies already have way too much power over what a private person does with things they legally bought (Right To Repair, anyone?) and this seems like an escalation of that…
Only for the first year is bs. I bought an object, I own it and I decide when to put it on sale for whatever reason I want, because you know, I own it.
If Tesla doesn’t like that they can stop selling vehicles to the public. Or they can come up with something creative like renting them, or only selling one of this trucks to someone who has proven to be a fan boy and have already brought 1 or 2 Tesla’s before
I feel like if they want to prevent flipping for profit, make the agreement that you can’t sell it for more than you bought it for, but still allow the sale. Otherwise you’re not policing the right thing.
How about the manufacturer builds enough stock so scalping makes no sense? I believe that if I buy a product I am entitled to do whatever I want with it as long as it doesn’t brake the law. I hate scalping too, no1 did anything when it happened to GPUs or consoles or toilet paper during covid, so why are cars special?
Real estate and Ticketmaster: “Fuck yeah, flip that shit and inflate our markets to insanity!”
Auto industry: “Fuck you, we do the inflating around here. Pay me!”
Not really. I don’t particularly like them, but they don’t contribute much to the cost of cars. They barely make anything selling the car. That’s why they are always pushing extended warranties, accessories and trying to get you back in for service. Most of these guys are just hustling and getting as bad a deal as the rest of us.
The dealers are under huge pressure from the manufacturers to move cars. They are given sales targets they have to hit or they don’t get paid. That’s why they end up selling a car for like $500 profit or even break even. There’s a good episode of This American Life called “Cars”.
Of course, none of this applies to high-demand cars that sell themselves. They will mark those up like crazy to survive because the manufacturer doesn’t pay a bonus for those and barely gives them any inventory.
Shame though. Would absolutely love to see a guy with a garage full of these things because he couldn’t find enough crypto bros to gouge.
Kinda curious why the company doesn’t raise their prices to fit demand then, since clearly, demand exists that allows those products to be sold for more (else the scalpers couldn’t profit). Not saying they should charge more, I’m just curious why an entirely profit-driven entity like a company wouldn’t charge as much for something as demand would allow for, it seems out of character?
Part of it is allowing the dealers to profit. If they price too high, there’s no wiggle room and incentive for the dealers to order the car.
Tesla has no dealers. They sell directly, which is why they cannot sell vehicles in some states. Some states require vehicles to be sold through dealers.
