Tesla Quietly Starts Taking Cybertruck As A Trade-in And Confirms What We All Know

Tesla Cybertruck owners hoping to trade their vehicles in for one of the automaker’s other products have found the company unwilling to play along in recent months. For the stainless steel EV’s earliest adopters, this was predictable; Foundation Series reservation holders had to agree to a clause forbidding them from selling their vehicles for a year. But Tesla’s reluctance to accept Cybertruck trade-ins has persisted well beyond that, until it seemingly ended last week. Two owners have shared the automaker’s offers for their Foundation Series trucks that cost $99,990 when new, and they indicate that there was a pretty good reason why Tesla was avoiding this until now.

One owner, who posted a screenshot of their offer on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum, noted that Tesla returned a trade-in estimate of $65,400 for their example with just 6,211 miles recorded. Another, who drove their 2024 Cybertruck more than 32,000 miles since taking delivery, was offered $60,500.

On the surface, this is pretty alarming depreciation; these Cybertrucks cost about $100,000 when new, and they’ve already lost around 35% to 40% in value. There are a few additional factors to consider for these particular cases. The owner of the lower-mileage vehicle said they received a $7,500 commercial EV federal tax credit with their purchase. Ordinarily, that rebate wouldn’t apply to a Cybertruck Foundation Series because its MSRP was above $80,000, but vehicles purchased for business aren’t subject to that cap. Second, the screenshots of both orders stipulate that the owners may transfer their Full Self-Driving (Supervised) subscriptions, which came with their trucks, to their new Tesla vehicles. FSD costs $8,000 as of this writing, but since these owners would be selling to and buying from Tesla, the company may have worked that into its own estimates.

Still, whatever incentives Tesla may have offered upon sale don’t change the fact that these were effectively $100,000 vehicles with no tax rebate available to personal buyers. The barely-used one has sunk by $34,590 in about 18 months, while the other vehicle, which has obviously been driven much harder, has lost $39,490. Remember that Tesla CEO Elon Musk once famously predicted that his company’s vehicles would become “appreciating assets” because of their autonomous future-proofing.

It’s reasonable to guess that part of the steep decline may have something to do with Tesla’s current trouble selling Cybertrucks. As of today, the inventory tracking website Tesla-info reports that there are 4,322 unsold Cybertrucks already manufactured and waiting to be sold to buyers in the United States. Tesla would likely rather shift those than take in additional stock. On top of that, Tesla could’ve been turning away owners because it didn’t want to eat that huge drop in value. And you’ve got to imagine that selling new Cybertrucks to the public becomes an even harder task once potential buyers learn how much they could stand to lose in a year.

Setting all that aside (we haven’t even touched on the monumental impact of Tesla’s flagging popularity), electric pickups are hardly stellar at holding their value in the first place. Kelley Blue Book predicts that a 2024 F-150 Lightning Platinum—the most expensive trim Ford sells—with 5,000 miles would lose $30,707 in a year against its $87,090 starting price. That’s a 36% drop. One 2024 Lariat in Pennsylvania with 7,608 miles cost at least $79,000 when it was new, and it’s now listed at $62,500. Twenty-ish percent is certainly better, but don’t forget—that’s what a dealer is trying to sell the truck for, not what it’s worth. This practically new 2024 Chevrolet Silverado RST is going for $76,995, even though it would’ve cost around $96,500 new.

As for Cybertruck owners, those who are suffering but would prefer to stick with Tesla now have a way out. It may not be the investment some of them hoped it would be, but then the reality of the Cybertruck owner experience has proven to be quite different from the hype.

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