If you buy a Cybertruck, Tesla says you can't sell it for a year

This doesn&#x27;t seem unreasonable for a limited supply product, to prevent price scalping.<p>If you saw these terms for a console launch or graphics card launch, you wouldn&#x27;t complain.<p>It&#x27;s probably not enforceable, but the idea isn&#x27;t crazy.<p>EDIT: I was referring to the resale clause. Just saw the remote deactivation point too, which really is awfully dystopian.

&gt; “You agree that, you will not sell or otherwise attempt to sell the Vehicle within the first year following your Vehicle’s delivery date,” without getting permission. Breaking the deal could result in your truck being remotely deactivated.<p>This passage seems to have been removed from the linked PDF [0].<p>Might have been related to:<p>&quot;No Resellers; Discontinuation; Cancellation. Tesla and its affiliates sell cars directly to end-consumers, and we may unilaterally cancel any order that we believe has been made with a view toward resale of the Vehicle or that has otherwise been made in bad faith, and we’ll keep your Order Fee, Order Deposit and Transportation Fee.&quot;<p>&quot;If you are in default, we may, after any legally required notice or waiting period: (i) do anything to protect our interest in the Vehicle, including repossessing the Vehicle using legally permitted means, (ii) locate and disable the Vehicle electronically using our remote dynamic vehicle connection described in our Privacy Policy, [...]&quot;<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US&amp;model=m3&amp;saleType=Sale" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US...</a>

I can see quite a few people regretting buying such an original car (to put it in a non offensive way). It would be more fair to add a clause that doesn&#x27;t let you resell it above a specific % over the original price.

Although you can’t sell it for a year, you can still sell someone an option to buy it after a year has passed for some agreed upon price and mileage. Or maybe you can do a lease-to-own type deal.

So people seems to be confusing two different aspects when buying a Tesla truck. You are buying the physical truck and the &quot;suscription&quot; to use with Tesla services (supercharges, updated, warranty, etc).<p>Yes, you own the physical truck and you can do whatever you want with it. It&#x27;s yours. You can destroy it, you can set it on fire, you can paint it as you want. And you can sell it before the year. But doing this last one (and some of the ones before) will break your agreement for the suscription&#x2F;services part.<p>I do not support this idea, although I understand where it is coming from. Just explainign this because a few comments are saying &quot;I don&#x27;t own the truck?&quot; and yes, you do, but you don&#x27;t own access to their services forever.

This isnt new; I got a Mercedes van this year and had a 1-year no-sale clause in my purchase contract.

This isn&#x27;t a new idea; Ferrari has been doing this for a &quot;while&quot;.

Can they do this?<p>I mean, they can decide to only provide maintenance and software upgrades to the original buyer in the first year. That&#x27;s their business decision and the market will decide whether this makes their product less alluring or not.<p>But if I <i>buy</i> something, it becomes my <i>property</i> and I can do whatever the hell I want to do with it. Or did I miss a memo?

This is apparently a change to the order agreement. I can&#x27;t see how it&#x27;d be held up in a court of law if they don&#x27;t make people sign the new terms.<p>(archive.org links to prevent those from changing from under me)<p>v20211124 Cybertruck preorder terms: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20230614191305&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US&amp;model=ct&amp;saleType=Sale" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20230614191305&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla...</a><p>v20220720 Model 3 order agreement (archived just yesterday): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20231113101113&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US&amp;model=m3&amp;saleType=Sale" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20231113101113&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla...</a><p>Model 3 order agreement, live link (v20230201 at time of posting): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US&amp;model=m3&amp;saleType=Sale" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;configurator&#x2F;api&#x2F;v3&#x2F;terms?locale=en_US...</a><p>It is notable that all models seem to have the new section about ordering for resale being banned, but none that share the reported 1-year limitation on resale for the cybertruck.<p>Supposedly this is a new section titled &quot;For Cybertruck Only&quot; [0] but when I play around with the URL I find the preorder agreement for the cybertruck, and the other models don&#x27;t seem to have the cybertruck-only section.<p>[0] as reported by business insider: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;tesla-sue-cybertruck-buyers-they-resell-in-first-year-2023-11" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;tesla-sue-cybertruck-buyers-...</a>

Discussed previously<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38236701">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38236701</a>

[dupe]<p>Does no one read the site anymore?<p>Lots more discussion over here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38237287">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38237287</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38236701">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38236701</a>

Tesla is REALLY WORRIED about a price collapse for used Cybertrucks once owners experience them.

So you are leasing

It remains to be seen whether there will be a strong second-hand market for this vehicle in six month&#x27;s time.

I&#x27;m guessing this restriction wouldn&#x27;t hold up in most (state) courts.<p>Also, you would have to be a huge fanboy to accept a restriction like this. There&#x27;s a reasonable chance that actual life with that truck might be less pleasant than imagined, and that selling it after a few months would be a reasonable desire (not just flipping it for $$$).<p>That said, I think the effective scalping that goes on these days with limited quantity items is lowest common denominator human behavior. So given that some truck sales will go to people who merely intend to flip it for a profit, I can understand the desire to try to restrict the resale.

I hate scalpers. I&#x27;m too busy doing HFT to deal with the problems they make.

If I buy something surely I own it and can make that decision myself?

And there go the last vestiges of the concept of ownership.

I think that this is a hype-building technique on Tesla’s part

Eh, price scalping sucks. This is the lesser of two evils.

Freedom!