Tesla will sue you for $50,000 if you try to resell your Cybertruck in the first year
businessinsider.com
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:
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/08/gm-restrains-customers-from-flipping-cars-but-not-dealers-from-charging-ridiculous-markups/
(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.
Yeah, pretty much every Hummer EV I saw was at a dealership lot, used, and marked up $100k
I really like your second paragraph!
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 just shy of 6 feet so not excessively tall by any means, but I test drove the Fiat 500 some years ago, and found there is no way for me to be comfortable in it. Interestingly the Mini Cooper was very comfortable, and could have easily accommodated someone taller - as long as anybody sitting behind you didn't have legs.
Yeah the Fiat is VERY small and I concur on the Mini. I'm a bit over 6' and I found regular Minis to be very comfortable with headroom with the countryman's being a bit better on the backseat situation 😂
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.
I suppose it depends: would you like to at least have the item or be able to buy it only at a 3x price, if ever ?
Other high brand cars have even more stringent clauses (like, you cannot repaint the car in a certain color to not ridicule the brand). People are even perpetually banned from buying from the brand in some cases.
It is not benevolence, it is a try to solve a real problem that they think it could arise.
I think it is not in anyone's best interests to lessen their ownerships rights to maybe save money. Their choice is also bad for me in that it shows companies they can to it too and could become the norm.
If a manufacture has a good reason to not sell to someone that would be fine but it is none of their business what colour I paint my car, or who I can resell it too.
If they wanted to solve the problem they could make more cars to meet demand (without the needless use of microchips, if that is still the bottleneck).
While yours are valid concerns, that type of restriction works only on specific items. I don't see a car manufacturer pull the same stunt on a mass production car (or any other mass production item for the matter) because the problem this try to solve does not exist in the first place, maybe Tesla just think (true or false that it can be or based on the data they have) that the Cybertruck will be some sort of "status symbol" which would attract scalpers or the like of them.
In the end this is a battle Musk cannot win: he will be damned if he do (to ban resell in the first year) and he will be damned if he don't (and thus allowing scalpers). He can only choose why he will be damned so he choose a way that maybe is more friendly (or less enemy from your point of view) to the consumer.
I can agree with you, but the fact that the manufacturer put these restrictions and people still buy their cars means that maybe it does not really matter to the buyers since having the car is much more important that being able to repaint it pink, in their view.
People often choose what isn't in their best interests but that doesn't invalidate the criticism. I am unsure if this should/could simple be illegal but I will argue social stigma should be applied to people who don't care about themselves or others.
My concern is companies will do it anyway for their own gain, regardless of if it was actually a cure to the issue of scalping, because users will let them.
Musk's has enough variety of questionable choices but I'll damn him here for needlessly making low supply, the cause of scalping in the first place.
Agree on people. But to decide if this is illegal, we should know the term of the contract. What I can think is that this is not blatantly illegal, I am sure Tesla has lawyers that draft the contract, maybe we all are making a case where there is not since the contract state that for the first year the car is just rented. Questionable but not illegal.
The point of discussion is if Musk want to have a low supply or he just cannot avoid it.
In my opinion he cannot avoid it, at least as the production start and until it goes to capacity, which is true for every new car that make to the market and not only for Tesla, so he takes some (questionable) steps to try to solve what he deem a problem.
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
Or... Get this... You can just not buy the fucking car if you don't like the terms. You're not forced to buy a Cybertruck at launch.
Once production increases I'm sure this restriction will be removed just like most other vehicle resale restrictions from other manufacturers. Not all though, Ferrari has limitations even on things like paint color and wraps, Deadmau5 completely got rid of his wrapped Purrari because of that bullshit once Ferrari started trying to enforce it.
But none of you people will be in comments talking about the resale restrictions being removed once production is ramped, just complaining now about hypotheticals for a vehicle you never intend on purchasing to begin with because you either don't like Tesla or Musk specifically.
Problem is, the more manufacturers pull this kind of shit the more it becomes normal. At some point your entry level yaris has some kind of stupid rules like this and maybe it spills over other industries too. Again, how about we stick to my property is my property and I decide what to do with it, the way it should be.
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?
Stock does not just appear out of thin air. Manufacturing takes time to ramp up. So it's often not possible to produce enough for a high demand product.
So maybe don't release a model until you have at least a decent amount of units? Still doesn't explain why cars are any different than other products that are scalped. Why are they not lobbying to create laws against such practices?
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.
It's not possible to track how much it was sold for in a private transaction
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!"
Ticketmaster owns the resale sites too. And the venue.
Ford notoriously sued John Cena for exactly that reason with his Ford GT
It really is to protect consumers from scalpers.
Dealerships are the biggest scalpers.
Dealerships suck and everyone except the dealers themselves will be over the moon once they're gone, manufacturers most of all.
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.
...forreal? You do realize dealership markups in the past few years have jumped as high as 40%?
https://markups.org
If you're as much of a snake as they are, maybe. For the rest of us, not so much.
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.
I imagined them stacked on top of each other haphazardly, piled up in a garage with a sad white 30ish year old guy standing in the driveway looking sad.
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.
Oh, yeah, I know, I was talking about the GM cars.
Same with Ford F150 Lighting when it came out. Not sure if it still stands.
It’s to prevent ~flipping~ scalping
Somehow I get this weird feeling that the cybertruck will flip all on its own. ;)
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.
This is what people don't understand and is why so many freedom and privacy-violating practices have invaded modern life. That being said, a nerfed version of this clause that only prevents you from selling it for more than you bought it for would be great for preventing scalping.
as is customary nowadays with everything now
"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.
I appreciate this, and I agree with you completely. However, I think you're greatly overestimating the strength of principles and the willingness to boycott of the average person. Which is why we have $12 hot dogs.
Yeah, I completely agree. There's no way it would ever happen, but damn wouldn't it be beautiful to watch if it did.
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!
The dumbass agreement is the problem, not the buyer.
Imagine this:
If I were the second hand buyer of such a vehicle (yes, that means the original buyer has violated the dumbass agreement), would you say then that I am bound to the dumbass agreement too?
Freedom for scalpers! Yay!
“ 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
$199 per month?! Fuck me that's moronic.
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? :::
It actually came out that one of the self-driving companies has live operators watching every car and intervening in 2.5% of all decisions, so your intent may have been sarcastic but there is actually a reason to suspect there could be brain cells involved.
Especially when you realize how bad, unfinished, and dangerous it is. You’re literally paying to be a crash test dummy / AI trainer for them. They should pay YOU.
For my region it's one time fee 9k $ "only".
It is hilarious given the fact you can't legally use it so it turns into better break asistent 😅
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.
They should make a discount for every person the self driving software hits. That shit would be basically free.
Wait so another owner can never have that or..?
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.
I must have misunderstood, because I know you have to pay $12,000-15,000 (seems the price has lowered) for the FSD to be available, then pay subscription on top of that. For some reason I thought they were saying the initial $12k+ “unlock” wouldn’t transfer.
You either pay for FSD via a monthly subscription OR the full price. So it's either $200/mo or $12,000. It's not both. The subscription option gives you an option to try it before purchasing, or to add and remove it when you want, like for long road trips or something like that.
It's just two different options for people to pick from.
Thank you very much for clarifying. It makes sense if a subscription is not transferred but if someone does the outright payment that should be transferred. Asshole move if the one time unlock isn’t.
AFAIK the one time unlock stays with the car.
When I sell you my PC, you don’t get all my software licenses, games, and my internet service for free with it. You have to get your own licenses / subscriptions to those.
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.
for thee, not for me
as always
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.
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.
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.
It is bizarre how much of a comic book villain Musk has turned in to.
What do you mean "Turned into" ?
He probably always was a bit of a right-wing loon, but everything about him over the last few years screams "cry for help".
If he were a normal pleb, he'd have probably lost his job, or had a friend tell him that he needs to seek professional help. Because he's a billionaire, I assume people just say he's "eccentric" and laugh while people push him to do more crazy shit.
He doesn't realise it, but people are laughing at him, not with him. He's a performing monkey for the apathetic, and aspirational for the morally questionable.
I think he has an inkling of that now. Since he got booed off stage multiple times and locked himself in isolation for a while.
It was always there. He just has the wealth not to care what anyone thinks now.
I don't think any amount of money replaces human interaction, and because of his status, his perception of himself is probably so fucked up that I'd be shocked if he did anything but care.
I don't want to infantise Musk, nor do I want to excuse what a total cunt he is, but if he were a child you'd basically call it a cry for attention or help. The primary difference between us and him is he can mask whatever mental health issues he's got with money and social media...
He has the wealth, but not the ego.
I think the correct phrasing should be "turned out to be"
Apparently some people are okay with extreme racism so long as you convert it into money first.
There was a time when he was like “watch this, I’m going to make the entire auto industry go electric to help save the planet.”
And he has pretty much done that. Great for him. But yeah other shit like his antisemitism and childish tweet wars have dialed up in recent years. Now he’s ruining Twitter itself because he doesn’t believe in content moderation or rules of engagement in a forum. Unless it’s tweeting already-public data about his plane transponder! Oh then it’s wrong! His pro-Texas bullshit and his anti-union bullshit has gotten stronger and stronger. He’s posting pictures of his gun now.
Yeah. The guy has changed. Maybe this is always who he was going to be. Maybe this was always who he wanted to be. But he wasn’t necessarily this guy, always, outwardly.
Jokes on them. I’d never buy one of these hilariously abhorrent piles of shit.
I used to think Teslas were cool. Now I just see the specter of Elon. Regardless, these look like a test for suckers.
Behind the wheel of one, I'd feel like an asshole.
Have you actually encountered a Tesla in the wild? They actually are all assholes.
I am from the vaginal canal of Tesla. Toyota Camry status.
In my experience they're all Indian.
I honestly would rather have a cyber truck than a generic F150. Fuck Musk though, so I'll pass.
There's a reason Ford sells so many F150s.
They're great trucks.
They sell based on name recognition and history. Their father, grandfather, and great grandfather all bought a Ford so they will too. They have tens of decades of repair shops with experience, cheap third party parts replacements, and because many people just keep buying the same thing without ever doing any comparison or thinking about it.
Forget the obvious bullshit that is being unable to sell it. What's this about autopilot/FSD not being transferable?
Who the hell would buy this monstrosity of a truck. Be sure not to buy FSD since it will be a lost cost and never recouped for a capability that really doesn't work yet. $12,000 down the drain.
Who would buy it? The same type of people buying new BMWs. We all hate them, but they sell like crazy.
If you pre ordered it, you locked in the fsd price at the time which was 7k I believe.
If you add FSD to a trade in service, you'll get 2-3000 back.
So it's not as terrible a deal as buying it at full price right now where its unquestionably not worth it.
But don't expect anything beyond level 2 for the lifetime of the vehicle.
You wouldn't preorder a car.
Or what was the saying again...
Reminds me of the you wouldn't download a car.
But maybe with this polygon count its possible
I mean that is slightly better. Still a waste of money. Get enhanced autopilot and leave it there.
So is this thing actually called a "Cybertruck"? Because that sounds like something my 7-year-old would come up with. I hadn't really given it much thought until now...
That's how Musk names everything. He loves the letter X, he named the Tesla models "S", "3", "X", and "Y", the Cybertruck, his five most recent children including "Techno Mechanicus"... He's absolutely unfit to be in charge of anything.
Oh my fucking word, it's true
If this was 40k, Techno Mechanicus would be an amazing name 😂
It'd still be a job title
Yeah, true that
Wow I never realized the letters/numbers for the Tesla models spells "sexy" in l33t5p34k
He wanted the E instead of 3 but I think GM had the trademark on it.
It also looks like someone drew the initial plans for it in crayon on a napkin, so that checks out.
I can't see it without seeing Homer Simpson in that car he designed.
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer
Musk being childish and you've only realised now? What hole have you been in (and is there space for one more?)?
Oh no, I know Musk is childish. This was just the first time I thought about the name "Cybertruck."
The glass punch during presentation was the sign of things to come.
Cybertwuck
Yeah, that's probably how my 7-year-old would pronounce it.
Absolute deal-breaker. I will not be dictated to on what I may or may not do with my personal private property, beyond the bounds of the law.
Isn't the fact that the thing is ugly and poorly-designed more of a deal-breaker?
There are multiple deal-breakers, yest.
Well here's the thing, they don't want it to be your personal private property, nevermind that you bought it they still want it to be theirs.
Fun fact, I could give a fuck what they want.
Because otherwise, you would have bought one.
In fact, I would not. But even if I would, this bullshit would be a deal breaker. It's basically saying "we know you're going to regret this purchase, but we're going to put a barrier in place to keep you from dealing with it." That's a gigantic red flag for any product.
Did you write this on a PC or iPhone?
I borrowed your mom's Zune.
damn its ugly af
It’s shit behavior that should be illegal, but I also can’t feel bad for any moron that sees this truck and still agrees to buy it.
Is this to be an asshole, or to avoid people reselling the car at x2 the price because of the lack of supply during the first year?
I hate Musk, but if this is intended to prevent price go urging, it might be a good thing (see nvidia scalpers)
Even with the best of intentions, which I doubt is the case here, a company that sells you a product shouldn’t be allowed to dictate what you do with the product once you’ve purchased it. They can be selective about who they sell products to, and use that as a barrier to attempt to stop scalpers. But once I own something if I want to turn around and resell it the manufacturer should have no say in that.
So because your personal taste is not in favor of this car, you don't feel bad for people who happen to like it. Got it. Moral superiority is alive and well.
Agree with the sentiment but not the tone.
what game is this
Satisfactory
Hahahahhahaaa!
Something on the PS1
Twisted Metal 2023
Looks like someone modded Gran Turismo 2 and is playing on an emulator on a 8-year old PC.
Maybe trying to discourage reselling market because of high demand and low supply. Similar to graphics cards, except nvidia does not do anything
Yeah if Nvidia did this It would actually be amazing
Implying they produce enough to sell any at all, anyone is dumb enough to buy one, anyone if dumb enough to buy it off another dummy who bought one.
This is just Tesla stirring up a story, and trying to make it seem like anyone wants one of these monstrosities, and that they can make them.
I have a friend who preordered a cybertruck. But then again he also bought a model 3 and model X.
This is great: I was so frustrated by lack of availability for XBox, from all the scalpers. Same with tickets to pretty much everything. Same with Raspberry Pi. Look at how the eEVs like the Hummer and Lightning were hurt by both dealers and scalpers making vehicles hard to get and excessively priced
Scalping works great for those lower ticket items with tiny profit margins and high demand. Idk if it's something cybertruck needs to worry about being none of those things.
Apparently it was a problem when previous Tesla models released
That was when everyone thought Elon actually had a brain
How is this legal in the US given the first sale doctrine?
Ferrari has some similar bullshit, but you agree to it in a contract when you buy the car. If you refuse they simply don't sell you the car.
(Ferrari chooses you, not the other way around)
Sure, question is of course: will they be able to do something about it if you agree to the terms and sell it anyway. I don't think 'breaking' an agreement based on unlawful stipulations is actionable (ianal)
For Ferrari, if you break their stipulations, they put you on a blacklist and won't sell you another ever again. I can't find any other hard-and-fast things they do because there's a lot of rumor milling, but barring you from purchases and ending your dealership maintenance seem to be "for sure". I imagine it comes with some other stigmas from the community too. But much like real estate covenants if you agree to something in a contract, and then break it, you're subject to civil action. In a Covenant, the contract holders are permitted to buy back your house and evict you.
If I recall correctly, Ferrari being assholes is why Lamborghini isn't just a tractor brand.
That is correct
Even at the time of the quarrels con Ferrari, Lamborghini was already producing both tractors, air conditioners and boilers.
Yeah for the people in question (buying ferraris/teslas) that blacklisting part might be deterrence enough. Still, even in that real estate covenant construction you mention, that 'something' they stipulate cannot be unlawful I think.
If they simply forbade resale, it would be an unenforceable term. The obligation on them to buy it back (at an agreed price) in order to enforce the term likely makes it legal.
Deadmau5 was threatened with a lawsuit over his "Purrari" Nyan cat livery.
How does Monsanto avoid this?
They sell you seeds. You can grow things with those seeds, but you cant plant the grown plants' seeds.
In that case, it's a patented product that happens to reproduce itself as part of its normal operation.
In this case, it's just shitty business behavior.
(To be clear, no, living organisms should not be patentable. But it'd be fucking hilarious if patented genes went feral.)
On the plus side, some of those patents have already expired.
It's even worse than that. You can buy seeds from the market place have no agreement with Monsanto but can't plant those seeds.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.
How is that legal?
I saw an episode of LegalEagle (I think it was about NFTs) and it's a terms of sale thing and he spoke about John Cena doing something similar with Ford:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/12/02/ford-sues-actor-wwe-superstar-john-cena-over-his-car/915846001/#:~:text=Ford%20Motor%20is%20trying%20to,violation%20of%20his%20purchase%20agreement.
I found the LegalEagle episode:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=C6aeL83z_9Y&si=vONBqJ14_KZ65lF8
It's around 6:49
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=C6aeL83z_9Y&si=vONBqJ14_KZ65lF8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This sounds like the kind of thing Ferrari does, that people accept because if you own a Ferrari you're kinda part of an exclusive club of rich assholes. Teslas are expensive but they're not "exclusive club" expensive, they're more like BMWs.
Complete with asshole drivers.
Yeah, there's also the fact that rich wankers buy a limited edition car on pre-order, then sell that pre-order for more than they paid for it because it turns out even richer wankers also don't tend to plan ahead and will pay extra to jump the queue and have this year's fancy new model at the last minute.
I know somebody that did this a few times, and then got stuck with a £100k sports car when a recession hit.
Hah.
I can't wait to make fun of one of these in the wild. What a stupid, ugly vehicle.
are we doing the jerk off motion? I think it'd be pretty neat if everywhere you drove one of these people did the jerk off motion at you
You need more meaningful things going on in your life.
Hey, now... Don't go tearing on people's hobbies!
I actually have developed a language of pure meaning, it's communicated entirely via the jerk off motion
They are usually seen grazing together with tech bros
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is this even legal ?
Presumably, as a term of delivery, you'll sign an agreement not to sell with 50K USD as the liquidated damages. So, yeah probably.
You can sue anyone anywhere anytime. If you have really good expensive lawyers you might just win.
It probably is, a la Ferrari.
Hopefully it gets challenged.
it's been done before by plenty of other auto companies. I remember Toyota had that for the LFA, Ford did it with the GT, etc.
I do not believe it would be unless you had previously signed a contact agreeing to the conditions. If that doesn't hold water I could see tesla arguing that you are allowed to sell the vehicle however you may not sell the software included in the vehicle as that's their intellectual property and they only authorized you to use it. And since you can't separate the software from the vehicle it would accomplish the same thing.
Sorry, I don't want to buy a car that looks like old Tomb Raider where Lara's boobs are triangular.
That vehicle looks like its trying too hard to be futuristic.
It's like an extremely high resolution... Of what it would have looked like in a PS1 game. This looks like this is an asset from like Deus Ex on PlayStation.
Even cars in psx games looked like normal cars. This is like that one snes 3d racing game.
It's not cool enough to be S.T.U.N. Runner. It's more along the lines of Atari's 1980 vector hit, Battlezone, which was later edited into a training sim for the US Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
There wasn't a SNES version of S.T.U.N. Runner, but hot damn that game was sick
Would look right at home in the original Starfox game.
I actually really like the way it looks but
It would be a really cool truck, and I think the looks wouldn't be so bad, if it actually lived up to the promises.
Can't look like trash, especially ironically, unless everything else is 200%. Same reason fashion models can dress up in trash but regular people can't.
I recently saw one of these in the wild and they’re even more ridiculous looking in person. The photos don’t do it justice lol
I’ve seen one or two in Austin. I assumed it was to drum up interest. They certainly stand out.
I wonder how many people signed up for the intent of flipping and will now back out. 🤞
This is a good thing!
It will reduce the number of flippers that but the truck just to sell it for more the next day.
Any idiot willing to overpay for that whateverthefuckitis gets what they deserve.
As much as I dislike Musk, I think this is a right move, as scalpers became a real plague during Covid.
But I am genuinely curious if they will ever sell it outside the US. This design seems far too dangerous for pedestrians and I can't believe that EU authorities would approve it. Aren't car hoods supposed to be of a very soft aluminium which is supposed to soften slightly the impact on a pedestrian in case of an accident? And what about if this monster is involved in front collision with some small car, like Renault Twingo here? I guess the chance of survivability of the Twingo passengers would be near zero.
Plus correct me if I am wrong but what happens if you have a small accident? Are they going to charge you for the full cast? Why aren't people more concerned about this? The repairability of this car looks terrible.
Surely scalping can be addressed without infringing in my right to do what I like with my own damn property. Why is it better to let Tesla sue consumers than to just... limit the number of trucks a person can buy? 🤔
Lol ferrari took away Steve Wyns Las Vegas dealership because he flipped his LaFerrari for an extra million. I will never not find that hillarious.
That's a business relationship.
Useless. Here we have nominal tickets for events and that does not solve the problem by a very long shot, I suppose it would be the same for cars.
Ticket scalpers are blowing up because of collusion by Ticketmaster. Tickets are also a virtual product. Surely we can be clever enough to limit the sale of physical goods the size of cars
How ? But even if you succeed, what is stopping me from buying 1 cybertruck at X and resell it at 3X the next day ? And other people to do the same ? We all buy 1 car after all.
I think that here there will not be a Ticketmaster scenario, but more a scenario where a number of Musk haters will buy a cybertruck to resell it at a premium to a number of Musk fanboys just because.
So limiting the sale of it to 1 per person don't really solve anything.
Interesting questions; let's see:
Nothing should stop you from doing that, or at least trying. You are one person with one car, so there will be other stock available at a lower price for others to buy if they want. The problem of scalping becomes an issue when one person can buy a large portion of the product & artificially control the supply. If everyone decides to buy 1 and then resell higher, nothing is stopping consumers from also buying their 1 and getting lower prices from the manufacturer.
Cybertrucks are a large ($50k) investment, and as a physical good that's also regulated through the DMV, they are a lot more work to resell. So in this scenario you think there is such a large number of Mush haters with both the disposable income & free time for resale that they eat up a significant portion of supply. AND that there is such a large amount of consumers with disposable income & desire for a truck that they would support such a resale market. If that ever becomes a reality then... Good for Tesla? Those"haters" would be significantly contributing to Tesla's profit.
Also, here is an academic paper that looks at the effectiveness of US anti-scalping laws on ticket sales, and it concludes future policies should focus on acquisition, not resale.
Or when a high enough number of people buy each one a small number of the few items available in a low supply to resell them. True, the item should be some sort of "status symbol" or necessary item for this scenario to work out. I' ve seen it in more menial situations where just a couple of people scalped on a low supply needed items (at least until production has gone to capacity).
The cybertruck situation is different from the ticket situation, you cannot produce 50000 cybertruck and then sell them, you need the space to store them, and the production needs to go to capacity so it will start low anyway. That's because it could be vulnerable to scalping, at the beginning you have a small number of items so you need a small number of people that are willing to try to buy to resell.
Since I am talking about haters and fanboys, I would not bet that they would act rationally. I would not exclude that there are people that hate Musk so much to pull out these kind of stunts to other people that love Musk so much to be the perfect target.
Hmm, one thing I'm not understanding is that in these scenarios it sounds like every truck made is going to a scalper, and the issue is that even with one per person, the number of scalpers equals the number of cars. But why would they get dibs? A lucky scalper can't get first dibs and buy out the whole stock before others get a chance, because it's 1 per person. The real question is what is the portion of scalpers vs long-term owners.
Let me know if you have better numbers, but this article from back in January suggested 10k cybertrucks to be filled in 2023. Let's say there are 10k potential scalpers, and 1M potential long-term buyers. That doesn't mean the 10k trucks will get scalped by the 10k scalpers, it means we would expect 100 to be (again, individually) scalped, and the other 9,900 trucks to go to long term buyers. Additionally, since those scalpers only have 1, they will be competing against each other on resale price.
I think that's an ok assumption, but the question is more about the number of people who would act so outrageously. It seems very odd to me that there would be so many people who hate Mush and are ok dropping $50k and have the bandwidth to resell, in such numbers that they significantly match or outnumber long-term buyers.
I am thinking that the proportion will be, at least at the beginning, more in favor of scalpers. Not that every cybertruck would go to them but I think that the first batch would go to scalpers and other people who want it just for a variety of reasons but will not be a long term buyer.
In the end my idea is that Tesla want to make sure that while the production goes to capacity, all the cybertrucks (or nearly all of them) is sold to long term buyers. That even assuming that like you said, the problem with the scalpers exist in the first place.
They don't need to match the long-term buyers, they just need to be able to get some and then sell them to people who maybe is on the waiting list for a late 2024 delivery and it is enough fanboys to accept to pay a higer price now instead of the right price in a year. And if only the 10% pull the stunt, haters will have something more to hate Musk (and Tesla) for or to point as a failure for EV cars or Tesla itself (in their haters mind).
If there's more people buying cybertrucks who don't like them than the people who want them long-term, how would a scalping market sustain itself?
I don't know man, I'll believe it when I see it.
I suppose we only need to wait to see how
all this will end, but in the end tesla probably is making choices based in data we have not, so they think they are right.
Let's see how it ends...
Doubt suing will do better
Tesla have no right to sue somebody selling their own property. This is just another attack on the concept of personal ownership by corporations.
If the car is leased, fair enough, but the fact Musk thinks he can do this shows how all the power is with the wrong people.
If it's leased, they can't sell it anyways
Scalpers will find a way. Only normal buyers will be hurt by this move. Also car companies are putting in more and more proprietary stuff that only they can repair practically, and charge a fortune for it. Tesla is leading in that too afaik.
Maybe it'll stop scalpers. More likely it has made the scalper's market at least 50k pricier to offset Tesla's desire to double dip on these trucks
I expect Cybertruck will sell in places with a big truck culture. The US, Canada and Australia probably I think they will sell terribly in Europe where trucks are generally quite rare and disliked because they're not practical on public roads. I also foresee that the EU might get pissed off with Tesla's laissez faire attitude to safety critical stuff like - "unbreakable" glass, door releases, position of indicators, pedestrian safety and force them to change design to comply with more stringent regs.
I don’t see this being very popular in Australia. It misses the mark for why people buy a Ute or dual cab here.
It’s basically the Sun Crusher of cars
The lawsuits won't succeed due to the first sales doctrine
I don't think anything about any car is designed to soften the blow for a pedestrian. They usually have a crumple zone to dissipate energy in a collision but that isn't designed with pedestrians in mind. Also they would likely repair this like any other vehicle since the body is made up of several panels.
They absolutely design cars with some pedestrian safety in mind. That's why hood ornaments went away and bumpers moved away from solid steel.
I don't remember the exact numbers, but they have a metric along the lines of "X% of pedestrians survive impacts up to Y speed" that they need to meet.
I can't find this rating anywhere. It was proposed this year but that's all I can find.
Yeah, I'd love to see the cars safety certificate.
They should just break down, go full camp with it, and make it look like a Warthog from Halo. At least then it would have a gimmicky reason to purchase one.
Wonder how long it will take for body kits to come out for these things.
I'm thinking not long. Tesla body repair is already known to be super expensive, so applying that to flat stainless steel panels? I'm not even sure body repair is going to be immediately available.
So in its stead, I'm betting a full on body replacement is ultimately going to be cheaper (and not in the ss that Musk insisted on).
It was just up until last year that I dreamt of owning a Tesla. But now with all this shit and musk’s shit I’d be ashamed to own one.
I kinda feel bad for the people who already had one before Musk showed his ass to the whole world. It's like they need to put a disclaimer on a bumper sticker.
They exist.
Oh he showed his ass long before the Twitter debacle you just had to look beyond the fake Tony Stark persona that had many people entranced
His behavior during the pandemic was the eye opener for me. Sad to say it took that long to see through his bullshit.
I really dont understand this sentiment. Musk arguably started the whole push to EVs. He didnt invent tesla but for about 5-10 years, his presence at Tesla and their cars was what people thought when they said EVs. The tesla super charger system single handedly paved the way for future legislation.
So this thing is really happening huh?
Not really, no. From what I read the first shipments are kind of a stunt because they still haven’t worked out their production issues. They are having to do a lot of work on each vehicle by hand. Which means each unit is going to have costs like a Bentley but be expected to sell for the price of a Ford.
I really think this is a Potemkin delivery.
Did anyone mention that it looks like a video game car but not from a good game, like one of those racing games that came free with the console in the 90s? If I see one on the side of the road I am going to hear a voice in my head scream "Wipeout! Radical dude!"
I cannot wait to point and laugh like Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons every time I see one of these fugly pieces of shit on the road.
It's contending against the PT cruiser for dumbest looking vehicle on the road.
I actually felt like the PT Cruiser and the Pontiac Aztek fell well within the “so bad it’s good” category. To be transparent, I’ll also disclose I also like the Volkswagen Thing and I love dune buggies.
PT Cruiser is really low on that list, IMO. The Nissan Cube is a thing. The Pontiac Aztek is a thing (although I have a soft spot for that one in particular). Heck, even the last few model years of Prius were absolutely hideous to look at (The 2023 model year looks like they finally decided to give it a more sleek and sporty look with the front and rear redesign, a welcome change).
Some of us like the look... Still not worth the price though.
Looks are for whores. If this is a better way to do cars go ahead and do it. I am making my jokes but that isn't me saying it's stupid.
Looks like a nightmare to repair.
Can I set up an LLC and use that company to buy the car? Then, collapse the LLC, and sell the car at a giant markup to whoever’s dumb enough to buy it
So you don't own the thing you brought, you're going to be the biggest mug buying this
Tesla is making it harder and harder to dare buy an electric vehicle.
You can buy one, just don't buy a Tesla
All the cool kids buying Leafs.
So, basically you can rent one of these pieces of shit for a whole year, for free, as long as you cover the gas and mileage fees? Cool cool. I personally wouldn't take one if you paid me to, but that seems like a good deal for some people who may want to take advantage.
But if you resell it to some chump for enough money then that is just Tesla taking their cut of the resale.
They just keep giving me more and more reasons not to buy a vehicle from Tesla.
Good grief, I have Hyundai Ioniq 5 and feels like it is better although my Ioniq is far cheaper than Tesla.
From what I read, Musk’s insistence on the stainless steel design as well as his overriding his design engineers on multiple aspects of the program are forcing the first set of trucks to ship to have a significant amount of hand assembly, pushing the unit cost towards $200k.
I’m going off of memory here, but the low end version of the truck was supposed to be in the $40-50k range. While they can bump those prices (I assume - I’m guessing the reservations people got let Tesla change the price), they’re going to see a lot of people dropping it.
I can’t look at it without remembering the Simpson’s episode where Homer says “In the 80s, this is what the future looked like!”
Shit and they still haven't fixed that low-LoD bug yet?
I recently saw my first Tesla Semi and also Tesla Truck in the wild. The semi was pretty cool but the truck looked like a toy or a prop and was smaller than I expected.
Good. I don't want that piece of crap.
This is odd for us but Ferrari has similar contracts.
People may remember how Deadmau5 had to give up on his "Purrari". He was threatened with a lawsuit by Ferrari who was unhappy with his Nyan cat livery and colors. And this is not a one-off, Ferrari won't let you paint it in non-Ferrari colors and I believe they have restrictions on who you resell it to.
Deadmau5 replaced the car with a Japanese sports car that was happy for the marketing opportunity.
How can that shit conceivably hold up in court? What's mine is mine.
I bet someone determined could fight it but it would cost, and take time, and good luck getting your expensive, maintenance-heavy car serviced during and after the whole ordeal.
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Oh yeah, I'm by no means advocating to get a Ferrari. 🤣
Those cars are garbage.
I thought deamau5 git a couple McLarens after that.
I suppose only US buyers can be gutted that way
Nope, depending how you write the contract, you can do it even in EU, although probably you must write it as the now quite common offers in which you pay something for the first X years as if it was rented and then you can pay the rest or give back the car. Basically a rent with an option to buy the car at the end of the rent at a previously agreed price.
This way you obviously cannot resell the car before the X years passed since it is not legally yours.
Yea, you are describing leasing, which is a totally different thing.
If you would try these shenanigans in a regular contract, your company would be a) sued to the ground b) don't sell one car...
Legally speaking, no. Leasing and this type of contract (called "long term rent") are differents things here were I live even if the end result looks very similar.
a) not sure about that.
b) I would not bet on that.
Makes me wanna buy one just to fucking destroy it put it in the fucking crusher and strap dynamite to it.
And send it back directly to Elin?
Elin Moosk
In small pieces.
and any damages and repairs
On a car that is known is be east to scratch?!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tesla added a section titled "For Cybertruck Only" to its Motor Vehicle Order Agreement, which laid out the new rules.
But if a customer has a good reason to sell their Cybertruck, Tesla may agree to buy it back at the original price minus "$0.25/mile driven, reasonable wear and tear, and the cost to repair the Vehicle to Tesla's Used Vehicle Cosmetic and Mechanical Standards."
The Full Self-Driving feature, which costs up to $199 per month, is not transferable to a new owner, Fast Company reported.
First announced in 2019, the Cybertruck is Tesla's first new product in years, and it is expected to shake up the electric pickup-truck market.
Tesla originally said the price of the truck would start at $39,900, but it's likely to be much more expensive due to pricey building materials.
Elon Musk said in an earnings call earlier this year that it would take a year to 18 months before the EV truck can become a significant cash-flow contributor, adding that he hoped production of the Cybertruck would reach a quarter of a million annually by 2025.
The original article contains 331 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 45%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
They should let people sell at a loss if they want to, but otherwise I see no problem with this.
Edit: I guess it would be easy to fake the amount paid for the vehicle if they allowed selling to anyone.
Considering the state the world is in, I'm at a point where news like this leave me totally indifferent. I used to feel concerned about privacy and freedom of choice when it comes to consumer goods but right now, with this company? I couldn't give less of a shit.
If you are rich enough to buy one of these abominations, you are rich enough to put pressure on the manufacturer to tell them you are not ok with this (if in fact that is the case).
What If its shite I it's past return and I don't want it anymore
Read your contract. They get first chance to buy it back, only if they decline can you sell it elsewhere.
What is this, a dog rescue?
While this is an asshole move, companies like Ferrari do stuff like this too. They, for example, do not allow certain modifications on their cars and if they find out that you have done them, they will ask you to restore those parts back to originals. It is unreal how much car companies try to get from us.
Poor Usamericans who can't defend themselves against such a sh**