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.
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
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…
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!”
Ford notoriously sued John Cena for exactly that reason with his Ford GT
It really is to protect consumers from scalpers.
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.
There’s nothing to stop anyone from buying a single unit and scalping it
It’s not “bizarre” in the slightest unless you’ve never heard of the concept of scalping.
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.
Hey look, freedom!
Not sure what you are talking about. I have the freedom to not sign some dumbass agreement with tesla and not purchase a shitty looking cyber truck, and I will use that very freedom. No one is being forced to take this deal.
You have the freedom as long as it stays niche. Having no protections against such practices means they have a chance of becoming so commonplace as to be unavoidable.
“Just don’t buy it” is a time-limited argument. If it becomes the norm to require signing a contract for ownership then you’ll have to argue “just don’t buy a car”. If you don’t like cars then maybe that’s okay but for other items that position sucks ass.
At some point, people need to band together and do something. Like $12 hotdogs and beer at stadiums. If people would just collectively say no to shit like that and refuse to buy them for a number of games, they would be forced to bring the prices back down to something more reasonable. But we as a group just cannot seem to do things until an extreme is met. To put it in perspective what I am saying is, if everyone just didn’t buy it, then it wouldn’t become the norm.
It’s an extreme edge case that car companies use when they have low units and very high demand, this applies to like 10 car models lol. Definitely no indication that it’s going to become the norm.
Pfft, look at this cat over here…Why would you not want to own a life size version of a poorly made pinewood derby car-truck? I, for one, am willing to let them install a 5G chip in my brain as an accountabili-buddy. I bet I survive at least 3 months with the bill gates chip!
“ Given the subscription model of much of the software Tesla EVs use, resale can be complicated. The Full Self-Driving feature, which costs up to $199 per month, is not transferable to a new owner, Fast Company reported.”
Just another reason I’m never buying
You don’t understand. It’s not like the self-driving feature is just software where they can price it at whatever they want. It’s physically consuming brain cells every month. And those aren’t free you know!
::: spoiler Do I really need a \s tag for this or does this tin foil hat make me look fat? :::
That’s just the new subscription cost. It is meant a san alternative to the full purchase cost.
As functionality has been added, the price has increased over the years, the current price is $12,000 for the FSD upgrade over basic Autopilot.
The subscription also lets you try it out and cancel if you don’t want it instead of having to make the decision up front for thousands of dollars.
I mean it’s not actual “full self drive” to begin with. It’s a lame impersonation of more advanced self driving vehicles that aren’t even being sold yet. That doesn’t matter to the elon fans though.
The lie that actually gets people killed, while also tainting the overall perception of autonomous vehicles. Thanks elon.
It’s just that the license isn’t transferable. The second owner has to (re)license the software from Tesla. Irrespective of whether the seller has a “perpetual” license.
I guess if your license could be transferred to your new vehicle this would kinda make sense —- although frankly I’d expect a recurring revenue subscription model instead. Basically this feels like they’ve just been throwing shit at the wall while failing to deliver the feature.
I read it as the second owner would have to pay for it themselves to (re)unlock it. So Tesla would get paid twice for the feature in one car.
It is a monthly subscription. I am not sure what the problem is? the new owner can choose to pay it or not.
Capitalism is so schizophrenic. Is supply and demand in a free market meant to decide the value of goods or not?? If regulations and penalties are required, why not across the board??
A company is not capitalism. Pure capitalism without any regulation doesn’t work, because it tends towards having one big company that controls everything. However, every single company by itself strives towards that goal, bribing politicians to get its way when necessary. Thus, if those bribes go unpunished (like through the Citizens United decision in the US), capitalism eventually eliminates itself.
Tesla doesn’t want some other company to buy all its vehicles and turn around and sell them at a higher price, damaging the press around the Tesla brand and stopping its cars from getting to would-be Tesla super fans. It’s the same reason stores will sometimes say “limit 2 per customer” on certain items.
That’s one reason, anyway.
It’s all well and good in theory but when you have a hit item to sell, you don’t want to make scalpers rich doing it. Absolute freedom = shit show every time. Peolle really need to grow up and learn how to be conservatives without being literalist absolutists about every damn thing.
you don’t want to make scalpers rich doing it
But why not? Surely people have the freedom to spend their money on legal goods?
I understand the situation; Tesla can’t make money selling to the general public at scalper rates, and scalpers are somewhat eating into Tesla profits. It’s all a scheme to ensure money goes to corporations first. That’s why the pharmaceutical industry is so fucked.
sUrElY pEoPlE hAvE thE FrEEdoM tO SpENd tHEir MoNeY oN lEgAl gOOds
Way to argue against a point no one made.
Arbitrage subtracts value from both vendor and buyer while producing no value. It’s a rent-seeking behavior applied to retail. It sucks, period. As you can see, Tesla wants none of it, and buyers don’t want a bunch of assholes boosting prices.
And there are perfectly legal ways to stop it, too. Have you ever been to a concert where the.l name of the ticket buyer has to match the name of the attendee’s ID? Tom Waits did that on the Mule Variations tour and it’s a) the only reason I was able to see him and b) the only reason I was able to see him for $40.
Fuck scalpers.
The best solution to this problem is not to buy one in the first place.
