Tesla’s Cybertruck is selling surprisingly well. It’s outselling other electric pickups like the Ford F-150 Lightning and was also the best-selling vehicle over $100,000 this summer. Given the notoriety and novelty of the truck’s design, some owners think they’re sitting on an art piece that will make them a quick buck on the used market.
There are currently almost 300 used Tesla Cybertrucks for sale on Autotrader right now, reports the Autopian and most of them have asking prices at or over MSRP on a brand-new truck.
Despite completely cutting its base model, you can still get a Cybertruck for much cheaper than say, six months ago: a brand new Tesla Cybertruck for $79,990; $99,990 will get you into the tri-motor Cyberbeast. Early adopters, however, shelled out big bucks to be the first with a Cybertruck, as the Autopian points out:
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.
It’s not just the trucks listed on Autotrader. Taking a look at some of the trucks on the market, base Cybertrucks are going for Cyberbeast money and then some. Like this example for sale at a Dallas dealer called Premier Autos. A base Cybertruck, it has just over 5,900 miles and the dealer is asking $101,994.
Cyberbeasts are going for lightly used, few-year-old Porsche 992 money. A Mitsubishi dealer (of all places) in Ewing, New Jersey is selling a Cyberbeast with just 463 miles for $119,000.
Private sellers are even more clueless and many of them that are listed for sale are obvious flips. Take this Cybertruck Foundation Edition owner in LA who listed their truck on Facebook Marketplace. Whoever this is had no intention of driving the truck as it has just 38 miles on it. Asking price: $152,000.
There’s another, glaring problem with these prices. Before, the people willing to buy these things and quickly flipping them were banking on availability issues. In late 2023, Musk himself said that full scale Cybertruck production wasn’t going to be reached anytime soon. Nearly a year later however, everyone who wanted one has one and new ones coming off the line are collecting dust in storage lots. This has had a big affect on resale and market values.
Given Tesla/Musk’s penchant for playing with vehicle pricing, many of these owners would very likely be upside down in no time if they took out a loan to purchase the truck. Whatever the market has planned for Cybertruck values, pricing is likely going to not make much sense for a very long time.