Tesla is following through with its threat to go after early Cybertruck owners selling their electric pickup trucks.
Before turning its reservations into orders, Tesla tried to take precautions against early buyers flipping the Cybertruck for profits.
The automaker added a “no resell” clause for early VIN Cybertrucks, threatening to sue for $50,000 (or more) and added that it may not sell the sellers any future vehicles.
However, there are limitations when it comes to enforcing these things. After all, you should be able to do what you want with a product you own, including reselling it for a profit, but Tesla can also decide not to do business with you anymore.
That’s apparently exactly what is happening.
Unsurprisingly, we have seen Cybertrucks sell for over $200,000 at auctions. Ford even bought one, seemingly to reverse-engineer it.
Now, one of the owners who put his for sale reports that Tesla has contacted him to let him know that they canceled his two other Cybertruck reservations (via Cybertruck’s Owners Club):
“[Tesla’s] Loss and Prevention flagged me and Store Leader reached out to let me know they cancelled my other reservations.”
Tesla refunded him the $100 in deposit for each order, but it also told him that it won’t in the future. The owner shared this screenshot of the conversation:
At least, the automaker are not suing him for $50,000.
Electrek’s Take
Top comment by HalfwitWizard
I'm conflicted. I think Tesla is actually in the right here, they can put this into a purchase contract in clear language for the original buyer, many automakers have been doing this for decades (Ford Famously sued John Cena and they settled out of court). But I also hate scalpers and hope they are inconvenienced at every step in their lives.
I think Cybertrucks buyers should be able to do whatever they want to do (legally, of course) with theirs vehicles, and Tesla should be allowed to do whatever it wants also, including not doing business with specific people if they don’t want to.
My only problem with this is “why did Tesla allow people to reserve 20 Cybertrucks for $100 each then?” This guy reserved three. Do they really think he was going to keep all three of them?
Of course that was going to happen. Consumers should have been limited to one vehicle during the reservation process and then, free-for-all when orders are opened. If you represent a business and you need a fleet, you can talk directly with Tesla’s fleet unit.
That would make more sense to me.
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