Tesla Quietly Kills Car Buyback Program
Last month, Tesla cut the base price of its Model S sedan to $66,000; this happens at a time when Tesla has missed its sales targets in the first two quarters this year. Then earlier today, Musk also added a lower-priced version of its Model X crossover. The new Tesla Model X 60D is priced from $74,000, $9,000 less than the Model X 75D. Equipped with a 60kWh battery,
But the real sign that Tesla is concerned about flailing demand for its cars came later in the day, when Tesla said it had discontinued its resale value guarantee program that assured buyers that cars would retain value over time.
As Reuters adds, the discontinuation of the buyback program, as of July 1, shows the company stepping back on a pledge begun in 2013 that Tesla would buy back its cars financed through specified loan partners for a predetermined resale value after three years. The program was intended to help Tesla control its secondary market and assure buyers that cars would retain value.
Even with all the government subsidies, no one wants his carp. Ler’s face it, electric vehicles are nonsense. They been around longer than Mercedes-Benz and they just don’t cut it.
As soon as the oil price collapsed, everything connected to alternative energy was a dead man walking. The numbers just don’t add up, no matter how much the government steps on the scale. It’s taking some time to wind down but it is getting there.
About 3 years after the Prius was introduced … I was looking for a new (used) car … on Craigslist (among others) and started noticing a very unusual characteristic of almost EVERY used Prius (that I tripped across).. An unusual number of them were being sold with “salvage” titles. In other words, the auto insurers were claiming that the cost of repair exceeded the market value of the car. None of these autos appeared to have body or frame damage that would warrant a salvage title. Rather, I surmised it was because a 3year old Prius was going to need a VERY EXPENSIVE battery soon. These used Priuses were NOT selling. They had virtually no value on the resale market. Why ? It’s the battery, STUPID! You cannot alter the physics of a chemically-reactive battery … it has a finite life span and degrades rapidly over time.
So I was not surprised to originally read about Tesla offering their “guaranteed” buyback program to artificially, prop-up the resale value of their “wonder cars” … nor am I surprised that Tesla has quietly ENDED this economic suicidal program. Now Tesla buyers have joined the REAL physical world of caveat emptor. Good luck with your really EXPENSIVE Eco sedan. I hope the admiration of your fellow faux-Eco saviors is WORTH it …
I can see Obama successfully claiming to have facilitated (with taxpayer $$$$$) a million electric cars in America. But he probably didn’t envision them all sitting in strip mall used car lots. Who killed the electric car ? The battery did … It’s the battery STUPID !
Hello, Duracell? Energizer? Anyone? Anyone? No?
just turn them all into forklifts:-)))
Ontario is now going to open 500 recharging stations. How many cars in Wyntario? Let me guess,
probably more than 2 million. HMM! Dear! where is my calculator? What is 2 mill divided by 500
and what is their range until the battery is dead and how long does it take to charge. and how far is that from …… …. Aw forget it.
everything will be just fine as long as the wind is blowing, the sun is shining and you are not the 1250th person in the line up.
Tesla is the mother of all green tech companies. The mirage of a success has been a real anchor for the enviromovement – they cite it as a business case for the green movement – that money can be made.
When – not if – tesla fails it will do enormous PR damage to their cause. It can’t happen soon enough IMO.
As of July, 2015, Musk’s companies had received $4.9 billion dollars in government subsidies.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Billionaire Musk is a subsidy farmer. He would have been out of business long ago without being propped up by his pals in government. Musk supports the liberal agenda, and kicks back money to politicians. It’s a win–win, except for the taxpayers, most of whom don’t make enough money to buy one of Musk’s cars.
It would appear the crumbling has commenced.
Musk has been nothing more than a Huckster, playing the shell game with gullible customers, while quietly working the backrooms for political payola. Eventually, the ruse has to end, the chickens come home to roost. He did wrench $300,000,000 recently out of gullible fanboys, for deposits on his expensive $50k entry level models, but, that delivery timeline has already been challenged as not possible.
Ecowarriors seem immune to logic
And when it becomes apparent that the cost to repair latest crop of electric cars exceeds their value, they’ll become “salvage” at an untimely age, just as did the EV-1. This time maybe we might not have to endure another “Who Killed the Electric Car” documentary with all its hackneyed “Big Oil” demonizing. That film was the appetizer for fat-cat Al Gore’s gluttonous and “Inconvenient” main course.
“If you want a really good picture of the unreality of Tesla, go to http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/TSLA and sign up so you can read the articles and comments. It’s great entertainment”
From a comment at Jo Nova
I am laughing my ass off at all LEFTISTS here in the Bay Area tooling around in their fancy new $ 130K Tesla saloons. A shiny new Tesla creeping up silently on unsuspecting pedestrians is the only socially acceptable form of conspicuous consumption here in the Socialist-Lite Bay Area. Stopping for pedestrians at a crosswalk in Palo Alto in your beautiful new Lexus SUV is likely to draw sneers if not a spitball from the passing proletariat. However … the oversized Tesla family sedan will garner thumbs up and admirable stares. People are so funny and so shallow. They can do amazing morality gymnastics in their hipster brains … too funny.
frs said: This time maybe we might not have to endure another “Who Killed the Electric Car” documentary.
I sure hope so. I never watch or paid attention to the documentary, but I always had to ask “Who are they kidding, big oil does not manufacture cars, and somehow I doubt that they can intimidate Big Auto companies and tell them what to do. Big Auto will do what is in its best interest, not Big Oils.”
Current market cap is 30 billion. When it does go down a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money and have a very bad taste of green in their mouths.
A message to Tesla. Drive to a S. California Rod shop where the boss wears Brycreem, combs his hair like Elvis, sports a black T-shirt and Levis jeans and a tattoo of Superman on his right bicep. Ask him to drop a 5.4 liter Ford with twin turbos and Flowmaster exhaust in your worthless science fair project, get out on the highway, enjoy life and let her roar! Better yet–turn the radio on and listen to this song!!
https://youtu.be/l1nJC4CXsok
How about a flaming car with no sparks?
Rocket 88 – Bill Haley and the Saddlemen
From around 1951.