Tesla will charge customers of its new Cybertruck a hefty penalty for reselling their vehicle within the first year of ownership, according to a recently added section of the vehicle’s order agreement.
“You agree that you will not sell or otherwise attempt to sell the Vehicle within the first year from the date of delivery of your Vehicle,” Tesla says in a new “For Cybertruck Only” section of its customer agreement.
The clause states that resellers of the Cybertruck, Tesla’s long-awaited electric pickup truck due to begin deliveries on 30 November, could be banned from ever buying another Tesla vehicle. Tesla is also threatening legal action against resellers, seeking injunctive relief of at least $50,000. Elon Musk’s electric car maker is asking anyone who wants to dump their Cybertruck to sell it back to Tesla or get written permission from the company before selling it to a third party.
The last thing Tesla wants is for customers to dump Cybertrucks, said Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives on Bloomberg Radio Monday. This decision is all about the estimated 750,000 people with reservations for the Cybertruck, Ives said, and making sure that people on that list don’t cancel because they got one used. It’s expected to take years for Tesla to fulfil those reservations, and a thriving resale market could cause a significant wave of cancellations.
“That was really a big part of the black eye we saw at Rivian,” Ives said. “Reservations continued to be kicked down the road, and others were ultimately cancelled.”
It seems Tesla is trying to keep profits in-house and limit the lucrative resale market that’s so popular in the car world. The move could be to boost sales of the Cybertruck, as Tesla lost 20% of its valuation last month in a shrinking EV market.
Tesla’s CEO unveiled a prototype of the Cybertruck in 2019, and has been teasing its release ever since. The futuristic-looking truck has a bulletproof stainless steel body and is “waterproof enough” to cross rivers like a boat, among a long list of claims that only seem useful in an apocalypse. The electric truck weighs 7,000 pounds, according to Musk, making it about as heavy as a Ford F-150, but can accelerate from 0-60 in less than 3 seconds.
Tesla is including a clause that anyone who wants to sell their Cybertruck can only sell it back to Tesla at a discounted price. If Tesla refuses to buy your vehicle for unspecified reasons, you can only sell it to someone else.
Cybertruck’s head of supply chain, Mustapha El Akkari, left Tesla this summer to work at Rivian, one of many bumps in the road that have stalled the release of the company’s first pickup. Production of the truck has reportedly been a nightmare for Musk, who is renowned for his manufacturing expertise. The billionaire said Tesla had “dug our own grave” with the Cybertruck on its recent earnings call, noting that mass production of the truck will not begin until 2025.
