Typically, the used-car market is where one finds deals. Depreciation does its thing, lops thousands off of the cost of a nearly new vehicle, and second-hand buyers reap the savings. Those in the market for a Tesla Cybertruck aren’t having that experience, though. In fact, the situation is actually better for them since they can get a brand new Cybertruck for less than every single one on Autotrader as of this writing.
That’s right, every example of the Cybertruck on Autotrader right now, all 296 of them, have an asking price above the current price of a new one from Tesla itself. What that means on the flip side of the transaction is less rosy. It appears as though all of these sellers have a giant obstacle to overcome if they want what they’re asking for their Cybertrucks. That obstacle is Tesla itself.
What’s wild is that this entire situation isn’t just one of supply and demand either. Tesla is ready to ship new Cybertrucks to buyers right away. This might just be a hard lesson about the market impact of cars like the Cybertruck for those who bought in early in hopes of flipping for a profit.
Tesla is relatively unique in the automotive world since it sets its prices and customers can just go buy a car online whenever they want. There is no dealer markup which is great but there is a potential downside too. Let’s say you were one of the first Cybertruck owners. You would’ve forked over at least six figures, probably close to $120,000 or more to be an early adopter.
To get one quickly, the used market offered an opportunity at ownership with a much higher cost. Not long after production started, however, Tesla axed prices, and suddenly a new Cybertruck could’ve cost as little as $79,990. For buyers who intended to keep their pickup for good that might not matter too much but they’d still have an object technically worth a lot less than when they first bought it only a few months previously.
Interestingly, Tesla has actually yo-yo’d the price of the Cybertruck a few times already and today, a brand-new dual-motor version again costs $79,990. The Cyberbeast trim with its trio of motors costs $99,990. The automaker does this sort of price switching for whatever reasons it deems appropriate but the result for buyers and potential flippers is the same.
What’s wild is just how underwater the used market appears to be. Of the 296 Cybertrucks available on Autotrader right now, the least expensive example has an asking price of $89,900. It has 7,500 miles on the odometer too. Hey, at least you get a fancy black wrap job on it and some “oversized premium wheels.” Hilariously, the second-cheapest Cybertruck is set to $89,995 and has 9,054 miles on it.
On the other end of the scale, one seller has their Cybertruck listed for $189,000. It’s worth noting that some of these pickups are a bit more unique than what is available through Tesla now. In particular, they’re part of the Foundation Series, akin to a first edition of the Cybertruck that is now out of production.
Early buyers could pick up either trim of the Cybertruck, AWD (dual motor) or the Tri-Motor Cyberbeast with the Foundation Series package which basically meant they were fully loaded. That package added $20,000 to the total of each trim so pricing initially sat at $99,990 and $119,990 respectively. Today, buyers can still spec an AWD or Cyberbeast the same way a Foundation Series truck would’ve come from Tesla but they have to individually add options.
Some of this pricing would make more sense if Tesla was struggling to deliver new Cybertrucks to customers. That’s just not the case though as even in the middle of nowhere Arkansas, I can evidently expect delivery within the month should I order a new Cybertruck today. If Tesla can get one to me that quickly, imagine how fast it can get one to almost anywhere else in the nation.
On top of that, it’s not as though the vast majority of the CTs on Autotrader are priced near the low end of the spectrum. Over 210 of the ones there have an asking price north of $99,000. It’s not as though all of these trucks have a ton of extra features or options that buyers can’t get now. Most Cybertrucks are near exact copies of one another since Tesla limits buyers to two interior colors and two trims in total for now.
Take this Cybertruck as a great example. The seller wants $114,995 because he’s buying a tri-motor Cybertruck and his wife won’t let him have two. For that cash, the next owner will get a truck with no wrap, stock wheels, and 9,272 miles on the odometer. From what the photos show, this isn’t a Foundation Series truck either. It must be a tough time to move these considering Tesla’s own pricing.
Cybertruck fans and owners online don’t seem shocked at all. Here are just a few comments from those on a Cybertruck group on Facebook.
Of course, it’s worth saying with all of this that at any moment Tesla could jack the price of the Cybertruck back up to whatever numbers Elon Musk feels like and the used market could once again be priced beneath that of new trucks. I should probably go check that one more time before we hit the publish button.
So Cybrtrkkks are bought by douchebags. Who knew?
You’re telling me 1% of all Cybertrucks are currently being flipped on one website? lol
Did they not learn anything from the Corvette “investors?” At least they have the decency not to shoot their new cars.
“Include Est. 6-Year Gas Savings of $6,500” Lol what.
Oh yeah. A scam if I’ve ever seen one. What if I’m upgrading from another Tesla? Do I still get my $6500 of gas savings? (LOL NO)
They’ve been doing that for years.
Every weekday I now see over a dozen Cybertrucks. It’s because I drive past a newly opened Tesla dealership on my commute.
I’m not sure how you plan to sell a used car above asking price when there are so many new ones on the lot.
Unfortunately, I see a lot of them here near Clearwater. They are nasty.
Yo, those are all unmolested examples. Hardware hasn’t been modded the tiniest bit from factory. The pedal covers still slide out as The Elon intended when he personally glued every single cover to the soapy pedals. These are worth quite a lot if you know your way around
a suckerthe used CT market.Lay off those sellers, They know what they’ve got.
Would love to see the service history on one of those incel caminos pushing 10k miles
I’m also wondering how many gremlins remain hiding in “foundation” trucks?
It’s not a gremlin it’s a “feature”!
Maybe they are fishing for the biggest sucker to extract even more money from down the line. Who else would willingly spend $120k on a used, buggy, beta-version of a $80k billboard that shouts “I’m a douche AND idiot!”
Definitely save that guys number under “Snake Oil Buyer”
If we could harness idiocy & greed as power sources, we’d be overwhelmed with renewable energy.
Corporations and politicians mastered that skill long ago.
About a year ago the car broker I work with discouraged me from buying an electric car. He said if I want one, lease one because resale values are tanking.These guys shoulda talked to him before buying their CT.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take…
Some shots are best missed.
🙁
Punctuation Rules?
Punctuation rules!
If you can’t write in the proper way
If you don’t know how to conjugate
Maybe you flunked that class
And maybe now you find
That people mock you online
Word Crimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjUOXJoM6rI
My mother was an English teacher. I love this.
Were hear two look at car’s, knot b bulied fore r spellin!!
Oh give me a brake
I ragret nothing.
Grammar: The difference between knowing your sh!t, and knowing you’re sh!t.
What a shock that pinwheel-eyed, Elon sycophants weren’t able to deduce what was going to happen.
High and mighty, aren’t we?
It’s hilarious people didn’t know this was going to happen. The massive price cuts shortly into production have happened with every single model Tesla has mass produced. Remember the Model S Plaid launch? It was massively, deeply into the 160k+ Territory, then Tesla cut the price to 90k. Similar deal for Model X, 3, and Y.
This was going to happen, we all knew it was going to happen.
Yes but “2 million reservations” and “it will be until 2027 before we can clear the reservation list”. Yeah most people should have seen this one coming a mile away.
TBH, the CT is a decent vehicle for an electric pickup. I’ve spoken with several CT owners. Either Tesla fans who wanted a pickup or local contractors who were going more green. Just normal-ish people.
Now, the jackwagons who are flipping these CT’s must have sniffed one too many of Musk’s emissions tests. If they seriously thought they’d make money flipping a production vehicle in active mass production they’re cuckoo on Cocoa Puffs. Zero sympathy here.
Why is everyone assuming the flippers are huge Musk fans, since if they were actually Tesla fan boys they would have known this happens all the time with new Tesla models?
People will take any opportunity to hate on Musk and his fanboys (I have yet to actually meet any of them in real life, just lots and lots of haters), but in doing so they usually fail a few critical thinking checks. The flippers are likely to be the same people who flip all of the other models deemed desirable: they’re just scalpers, looking for some profit. If you ignore them, eventually they go away.
I’m not saying they’re fans. Their behavior in flipping is silly. Just like Tesla stan behavior can be.
I dunno what world you live in, but money is money. It failed.
It has nothing to do with one dude. That segment of the population that believes in Elon doesn’t actually believe in him as a savior, rather his ideas. Which are sound in principle.
Not everything has to be personal.
Because there needs to be some blind disregard of the market to think you could flip a CT like this.
I’d suggest 290 of them thought they’d make a quick buck on this. So no tears being shed here.
The remaining people decided it wasn’t for them and/or financial situation change, so sucks for them, but that is early adopter risk.
There is an obscene amount of scalpers out there, and most of them are idiots.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes they actually provide value, and in that case I don’t call them scalpers.
For example I bought a couple pairs of now out of production slip resistant regular Crocs (with the vents on the side and top) and an adjustable rear strap for $100 each off of a Sneakerhead website. I couldn’t buy them from Crocs anymore, and I couldn’t buy them off of Amazon in black, so I paid the premium and got the Crocs I wanted.
However there are a ton of drop shippers and such who just buy shit just to mark it up hoping some dumb schmuck will buy it and they’ll pocket the difference. I believe these people fall into that category.
The ‘Greater Fool’ method of investing
CROCS are certainly a choice, lol. I bet they are comfortable, though. I rock cargo shorts all day, every day. 🙂
Eh, I got them more as outdoor slippers, like when I need to take out the trash.
The slip resistant soles are leagues better than the regular ones when it comes to snow and ice, however all of Crocs’ current slip resistant offerings (except for a collab one in a specific color scheme that is almost out of stock) lack the side vents and the top vents, and Crocs without vents make for instantly sweaty feet. I don’t care if it’s below freezing, still sweaty as soon as you put them on.
Nice. I have the Adidas Lite Racer Adept slip-ons. I’m not sure how many people know about them, but they have Cloudfoam soles. Cloadfoam is where it’s at. They are mesh as well.
They are the legit secret weapon for runs to the mailbox/garage. Not even expensive.
I think they make Goretex ones as well…
Gonna have to give a hearty Nelson Muntz style “HA HA” to that.
I see all sorts of things listed at crazy prices. I guess it doesn’t hurt to try.
This is the feel-good story of the day.
My girlfriend is delighted by how thoroughly and instantly my face sours the instant I see one of these. As for the rubes trying to find even bigger tubes and flip these angular turd machines, I hope someone trades you some NFTs for it.
Idiots buy Cybertrucks on a gamble that there are bigger idiots willing to pay even more for a Cybertruck only to find out they are actually the biggest idiots of all.
What a journey.
Imagine having so little social awareness as to actually admit to the world that you own a CT and also want a second one.
Heavens To Betsy!
Is that how you live? Worried about others?
Yikes.
This site wouldn’t exist if they though this way.
My memory only goes back to the 1970s. When did cars go from consumable transportation tools with limited life spans and utility, to investments that one must minimize depreciation and potentially make a profit? I am a gear head and have always enjoyed cars and car culture but do not look at them as $$$ investments but as transportation. Was it the dramatic increase in car prices vs everything else in the 1990s?
Covid, When the supply chain broke down, and no new cars existed. People got used to being told their used car was worth more than what they paid new. Those market conditions no longer exist. Additionally, of interest to cyber truck buyers, the Hummer EV beat it to the market, and many were flipped for double or triple MSRP, because GM could only make so many, so fast. These issues did not exist for Tesla, and after the initial wave of hype died down, they have been easily able to meet demand.
I well remember a copy of Hot Rod magazine having an article about a Michigan dentist who bought 13 1978 25th anniversary Corvettes—one to drive, and the dozen to store for posterity. Was unable to find further info searching his name a few years back when I kinda wondered how that worked out for him
People also bought and stored away the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado “Last Convertibles”. Only in the post-Covid classic-car bubble did their resale value finally surpass their original MSRP – not adjusted for inflation.
It didn’t help that the threatened rollover standards that killed off the convertibles in the ’70s never came to pass … and that Cadillac itself started sawing the roof off Eldos again in the mid-80s.
Nevertheless, whether we’re talking convertibles, Cybertrucks or PT Cruisers, the American urge to make a fast buck survives, despite all reason.
Note to self: Never take investment advice from a dentist.
Assuming a ~$10,000 MSRP for those Vettes, he spent $120K.
Best case I can see for selling them now would be something like $50K (here’s an untitled one speculated to be worth that amount; no sales are recorded anything like that high). So $600K in theory, if there are even 12 buyers out there for a mint condition late C3.
https://www.corvsport.com/1978-chevrolet-corvette-25th-anniversary/
Meanwhile $120K invested in the S&P 500 in 1978 would be worth something like $7M today without adding another penny to it.
Don’t forget the cost of 1100sf of rodent-free, climate controlled storage space for 46 years.
Portfolio storage is far less expensive.
Sure, plus registration, insurance, etc.
Basically don’t try investing in cars.
I feel like a lot of children of Boomer parents are about to find out what a bad plan that is.
Dad’s muscle car and hot rod collection is not worth what he thinks it is. There are going to be a lot of billet aluminum parts in recycle bins.
Although barely a teen at the time, I wondered then about warehousing those cars—mostly due to my grandfather’s dire warnings about how bad it was for cars to just sit
I think it’s a general culture shift toward a collectible mentality. People are buying almost everything from toys to cars with an eye on appreciating value, which usually doesn’t happen (at least not in the short term). This has been augmented by the flipping mentality that was characterized by all those idiot TV shows, usually produced by realtors or home improvement companies. And, of course Antiques Roadshow. All of this leading to jackpot thinking as so many look to be rich by 40.
Sadly for me, I played with all of my toys and read all my comic books multiples times (the ones that didn’t expire in a basement sump pump flood), listened to all of my vinyl records until the turntable needle began to just surf across the top of the discs, and drove all of my cars till the wheels fell off. No jackpots for me. Always the lottery, though.
There will be a desert dump spot full of CTs in a few years. It can be right next to ET game cartridges and the truckloads of Funko Pops.
It feels as though the lessons of Beanie Baby bubble “stuck” for 20 years and are starting to wear off. That came about due to a unique confluence of factors;
– eBay was just starting to become a thing, and dominated by vintage merchandise which would once be bought by professional antiques dealers prepared to display them in a tucked-away physical shop for years until a buyer came along, those were now selling in days being put before a national audience.
-Boomers nostalgic for their old toys were pushing the price up for 1950s/60s kid stuff. We all knew an old lady barely scraping by on Social Security who’d have been summering in Florida on the proceeds of her sons’ baseball cards if she hadn’t thrown them out in 1968. But nobody made the connection that those things were valuable because they were rare because nobody thought they’d ever be worth anything.
I still shame my Mom for throwing away my 72 Topps cards – we laugh about it. Had some great ones: Aaron, Mays, Clemente… The reality is they were probably worthless because they were totally trashed and stored in a paper grocery bag
Flip side of the coin, most of the Topps cards are valuable because most were thrown away by moms.
This is the part that more modern day collectors miss. I remember commemorative Elvis stamps and the Death of Superman comic books in the ’90s when people were buying as many as they could as “investments”. I told my friend, who was one of those people and was far more aware of comic book history than I ever was and why old comics were so valuable—because they were rare because hardly anyone kept them and even fewer kept them in good condition—and he bought them anyway to store in plastic sleeves and never open, like a million other people did. Since then, it seems there’s more of a speculative bubble behind the drivers of most collectables/hot fad where it’s more a matter of timing a lucky early purchase to the hype inflation before it inevitably pops instead of the older method of just holding onto something, expecting the value to inevitably rise over time.
We are already seeing that in cars. Limited edition bubble cars hardly appreciate, while we are seeing stupid prices on hum drum things like corrollas and stripper civics. Cars that were common but got used up.
As a old gen xer, I hate boomer nostalgia with a fiery passion.
Ah yes, the idiot TV shows that give the impression every abandoned storage locker is filled with priceless treasures and the hardest part of flipping a house is deciding what color to paint the kitchen. Now, those have given way to idiot “influencers” on a 30 second vertical video telling you that making $20k a month online is as easy as dropshipping crap from China or a stock footage account and some AI prompts (if you buy their $500 master class, that is).
Flip side of the coin, you enjoyed all those items. I have alot of my old hot wheels. Do I check if any of them are valuable? No. I’d rather play with them with my daughter.
I bet it seems like only yesterday she was just a tiny egg in a clutch laid in a damp pile of leaves.
Stop it. You are making me… well not tear up. I don’t have tear ducts. But I am getting all emotional thinking about it.
I think it all started with the first Hellcats, absurd dealer mark ups as well. If I remember correctly (I’m not taking the time to look it up) they were supposed to be limited production at first or maybe they were just hard to get. The resellers made a lot of money on those even after the dealer mark ups, many articles were written and it kind of opened the floodgates.
So you are saying that the people attracted to Cybertrucks don’t have a firm grip on reality?
Or at least not a firm grip on economics.
You’d think at least some of the tech bros would have heard the term ‘bubble’
Oof, that cuts deeper than a CyberTruck door.
COTD