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If You Try to Sell Your Cybertruck, You Are Going to Get a Terrible Surprise

If You Try to Sell Your Cybertruck, You Are Going to Get a Terrible Surprise

Yahoo16 hours ago
Folks who shelled out to buy Elon Musk's ugliest electric car are in for an upset should they try to sell or trade in those Cybertrucks.
As flagged by Gizmodo, the CarGurus vehicle marketplace and analytics firm found that over the last year, the value of a used Cybertruck has plummeted more than 30 percent, to an average of roughly $84,000.
And with recent price cuts putting the Long Range Cybertruck, Tesla's entry-level version of its matte steel monstrosity, at just under $70,000, any potential buyers could just grab a brand new one instead.
Add that to how shoddily made these electric geometric behemoths have proven to be since their late 2023 launch, and any Cybertruck drivers with buyer's remorse find themselves in a cruel bind: hang onto their lemon as it devalues further, or lose a bundle trying to unload it.
Indeed, in an "as-told-to" editorial from April of this year, luxury car dealer George Saliba told Business Insider that he had been shocked to watch the resale value of Cybertrucks plummet so significantly in the 16 months since it had been released.
Whereas "athletes, famous people," and general status-seekers used to be the ones buying the Tesla trucks from his New Jersey dealership, Saliba said that as of this past spring, it felt like he could not "sell a Cybertruck to save my life."
"People started giving me middle fingers," the car dealer detailed. "My friend called me and said, 'I gotta sell my Cybertruck. Someone just threw a rock at me while I was driving, my kids were in the backseat.'"
That same month, a YouTuber who goes by the handle "Dirty Tesla" posted on X that he was furious to find that his Cybertruck was valued at only $54,000, down nearly 50 percent from what he paid for it. In response, the person running the Cybertruck account — we can't help but wonder if it might be the company's boorish CEO, Elon Musk — attempted to make a joke of the whole thing.
"One more post like this," the account responded, "and you will be getting $0 when I do an Irish exit in the middle of the night."
Adding insult to injury, the Cybertruck's shoddy resale value seems to be a reflection, Giz notes, of just how poorly America's most unpopular car has performed in new sales.
In its most recent report, Cox Automotive's Kelley Blue Book found that Cybertruck sales were down nearly 51 percent year-over-year from the second quarter in 2024 — and with only about 4,300 selling in Q2 of this year, those figures are pretty bad indeed.
Naturally, this problem isn't exclusive to Cybertrucks.
In that same CarGurus data, Tesla values were down 13.56 percent year-over-year to roughly $28,000. What's worse: in the last three months alone, the Musk-owned EV company's value has dropped 4.3 percent, bringing the cars from just under $29,000 to its current low hovering around the $28K-mark.
As usual, one can take their pick of reasons why Cybertrucks are selling for so cheap. Is it the many, many headlines about how often the cars malfunction and fall apart? Is it the Tesla owner's ever-decreasing popularity? Or might people simply be buying cars less as we continue to hurdle headlong into a recession that Musk and his erstwhile boss stoked from the very start of this year?
More on Cybertrucks: The Air Force Says It Needs to Buy Some Cybertrucks So It Can Blow Them Up With Missiles
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Tesla, industry price cuts boost EV sales in July ahead of tax credit expiration
Tesla, industry price cuts boost EV sales in July ahead of tax credit expiration

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Trump screwed over Nvidia's Chinese sales, then let them happen
Trump screwed over Nvidia's Chinese sales, then let them happen

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  • The Verge

Trump screwed over Nvidia's Chinese sales, then let them happen

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If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to The Verge, which includes unlimited access to Regulator and all of our reporting. See you next week! Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Tina Nguyen Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Column Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Regulator

How Energy Companies Can Leverage EVs To Prevent Summer Blackouts
How Energy Companies Can Leverage EVs To Prevent Summer Blackouts

Forbes

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  • Forbes

How Energy Companies Can Leverage EVs To Prevent Summer Blackouts

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EVs can therefore serve as a highly flexible source of electricity demand during heatwaves, when consumers are less likely to want to switch off their air conditioning in response to alerts from their local utility. 2. Enable Customer Self-Sufficiency And Resilience To Blackouts Automotive companies have made great strides to enable EVs to serve as a source of backup power. Energy companies can empower their customers to be self-sufficient during blackouts by harnessing the energy stored in their EV batteries to keep the lights on. For instance, the Ford F-150 Lightning can supply up to 19.2 kW of power—enough to power a typical American home for up to three days. In Michigan, for example, DTE Energy has partnered with Ford to pay customers $500 per year to coordinate charging and discharging during summer heatwaves to ensure customer resiliency during blackouts while supporting long-term grid stability. (Full disclosure: Ford is an investor in ChargeScape. DTE Energy is a partner of ChargeScape.) 3. Reward EV Drivers Who Export Power Back To The grid The California power grid cannot build new power plants fast enough and is turning to batteries and EVs to provide generation capacity in their place. In response, California's energy companies have launched programs such as Demand-Side Grid Support, which pays customers for their grid export between May and October each year. Companies such as Tesla now offer the program to their customers, offering them $350 per season, and electric fleet companies such as Xos are aggregating capacity from their trucks' mega-batteries to send power back to the grid. From Grid Strain To Grid Support As the strain on America's aging power grid intensifies, EVs represent a uniquely scalable, already-deployed solution that can be harnessed to improve grid reliability, reduce peak demand and provide backup power when it's needed most. The infrastructure is in place. The technology is ready. 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