Tesla confirmed today that it has discontinued its ‘Resale Value Guarantee’ (RVG) program as of July 1st – first reported by The Verge. When purchasing through the company’s financing program, RVG allowed Model S and X owners to sell their car to Tesla during the period between 36 months to 39 months of the ownership for 50% of the base price of the vehicle at the time of the purchase, plus 43% of the original purchase price for all options.
The company says that it will instead focus on keeping interest rates “as low as possible” for its financing program. Here’s the statement a Tesla spokesperson sent to Electrek:
“We have discontinued the Resale Value Guarantee program as of July 1 so that we can keep interest rates as low as possible and offer a compelling Lease and Loan program to customers. We will continue to support customers currently financed through the RVG program.”
The program was first announced in May 2013 to improve the company’s financing products and CEO Elon Musk even personally backed the guarantee with his own fortune. The original announcement was made during a more difficult time for Tesla, which still had a lot to prove when the company was just starting to ramp up production for the Model S.
At the time, there was little data about how Tesla’s vehicles will be able to retain their value, but now 3 years later, we find out that the Model S has a better value retention than the competition.
In a NADA report last year, the group found that the Model S retains an impressive 57.2% of its value after 3 years versus the segment average of 49.5%. Here are the results for electric vehicles after one and two years of ownerships:
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