- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Tesla will sue you for $50,000 if you try to resell your Cybertruck in the first year::Tesla may agree to buy the truck back at the original price minus “$0.25/mile driven” and any damages and repairs.
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This is, surprisingly, not that unusual for vehicles in high demand. It’s to prevent flipping.
GM does it on certain vehicles as well:
(the C8 Corvette Z06, GMC Hummer EV, and Cadillac Escalade-V if you want to know without clicking the link.)
GM wasn’t harsh enough IMHO. They should have black listed people who immediately flipped base C8s for significantly more than MSRP. Base C8s (not Z51) going for over 100k, with miles on them, was fucking ridiculous.
I’ll say it now: car dealers are useless dinosaurs and there is no point to having them anymore. I don’t need a dealer to tell me what options I want on my car. I can select those on a webpage after I’ve reviewed the available options. I need a place to take my car for service if it’s a factory failure / warranty work. I can do the rest myself or pay another focused professional to do the work.
Yeah, pretty much every Hummer EV I saw was at a dealership lot, used, and marked up $100k
I really like your second paragraph!
Agreed, but I absolutely need somewhere to test drive the car as well before purchasing. There’s no way I would buy a car without it.
I would agree with that. I had a car shipped by an online sales company and when I showed up to test drive & but it, I didn’t actually fit in the car properly, so I didn’t end up buying it. Such is the life of being tall.
I’m just shy of 6 feet so not excessively tall by any means, but I test drove the Fiat 500 some years ago, and found there is no way for me to be comfortable in it. Interestingly the Mini Cooper was very comfortable, and could have easily accommodated someone taller - as long as anybody sitting behind you didn’t have legs.
I’m no fan of flipping/scalping but the choice of the degradation of ownership is much worse. If they really own the car then they aught to be able to resell it.
Prediction; this will extend beyond just high end cars.
Real estate and Ticketmaster: “Fuck yeah, flip that shit and inflate our markets to insanity!”
Auto industry: “Fuck you, we do the inflating around here. Pay me!”
Ticketmaster owns the resale sites too. And the venue.
Ford notoriously sued John Cena for exactly that reason with his Ford GT
It really is to protect consumers from scalpers.
Dealerships are the biggest scalpers.
Dealerships suck and everyone except the dealers themselves will be over the moon once they’re gone, manufacturers most of all.
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Not really. I don’t particularly like them, but they don’t contribute much to the cost of cars. They barely make anything selling the car. That’s why they are always pushing extended warranties, accessories and trying to get you back in for service. Most of these guys are just hustling and getting as bad a deal as the rest of us.
The dealers are under huge pressure from the manufacturers to move cars. They are given sales targets they have to hit or they don’t get paid. That’s why they end up selling a car for like $500 profit or even break even. There’s a good episode of This American Life called “Cars”.
Of course, none of this applies to high-demand cars that sell themselves. They will mark those up like crazy to survive because the manufacturer doesn’t pay a bonus for those and barely gives them any inventory.
…forreal? You do realize dealership markups in the past few years have jumped as high as 40%?
They barely make anything selling the car.
If you’re as much of a snake as they are, maybe. For the rest of us, not so much.
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There’s nothing to stop anyone from buying a single unit and scalping it
It’s not “bizarre” in the slightest unless you’ve never heard of the concept of scalping.
There’s nothing to stop anyone from buying a single unit and scalping it
Except, you know, the economic principles of supply and demand
Except, you know, supply and demand are flipped on their fucking heads. That’s why this clause exists in the first place?
How
Presumably there’s going to be very few Cybertrucks. Supercar manufactures, with their very low production rates, generally have some kind of wait list, Ferrari goes to extremes and won’t even consider selling you most stuff if you’re not already driving a more entry-level Ferrari.
It’s not really about the money, though: If a Sheikh comes along and wants your car, he’s just going to add double the penalty amount to his offer. It’s more about getting shitbinned by the manufacturer.
Shame though. Would absolutely love to see a guy with a garage full of these things because he couldn’t find enough crypto bros to gouge.
I imagined them stacked on top of each other haphazardly, piled up in a garage with a sad white 30ish year old guy standing in the driveway looking sad.
Same with Ford F150 Lighting when it came out. Not sure if it still stands.
Kinda curious why the company doesn’t raise their prices to fit demand then, since clearly, demand exists that allows those products to be sold for more (else the scalpers couldn’t profit). Not saying they should charge more, I’m just curious why an entirely profit-driven entity like a company wouldn’t charge as much for something as demand would allow for, it seems out of character?
Part of it is allowing the dealers to profit. If they price too high, there’s no wiggle room and incentive for the dealers to order the car.
Tesla has no dealers. They sell directly, which is why they cannot sell vehicles in some states. Some states require vehicles to be sold through dealers.
Oh, yeah, I know, I was talking about the GM cars.
Hey look, freedom!
Not sure what you are talking about. I have the freedom to not sign some dumbass agreement with tesla and not purchase a shitty looking cyber truck, and I will use that very freedom. No one is being forced to take this deal.
You have the freedom as long as it stays niche. Having no protections against such practices means they have a chance of becoming so commonplace as to be unavoidable.
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as is customary nowadays with everything now
“Just don’t buy it” is a time-limited argument. If it becomes the norm to require signing a contract for ownership then you’ll have to argue “just don’t buy a car”. If you don’t like cars then maybe that’s okay but for other items that position sucks ass.
At some point, people need to band together and do something. Like $12 hotdogs and beer at stadiums. If people would just collectively say no to shit like that and refuse to buy them for a number of games, they would be forced to bring the prices back down to something more reasonable. But we as a group just cannot seem to do things until an extreme is met. To put it in perspective what I am saying is, if everyone just didn’t buy it, then it wouldn’t become the norm.
I appreciate this, and I agree with you completely. However, I think you’re greatly overestimating the strength of principles and the willingness to boycott of the average person. Which is why we have $12 hot dogs.
Yeah, I completely agree. There’s no way it would ever happen, but damn wouldn’t it be beautiful to watch if it did.
It’s an extreme edge case that car companies use when they have low units and very high demand, this applies to like 10 car models lol. Definitely no indication that it’s going to become the norm.
If there’s monetary intensive for them to control reselling then I think it’s fair to assume. Cars manufactures have already tried to charge a subscription for heated seats already in the car and presumably stopped due to a perceive a backlash which would cost them more money (for now).
In software it’s very common to be unable to resell a purchase and it should be no surprise when car manufactures try to prevent functionality being used by 2nd hand owners (if they are not already doing that).
Pfft, look at this cat over here…Why would you not want to own a life size version of a poorly made pinewood derby car-truck? I, for one, am willing to let them install a 5G chip in my brain as an accountabili-buddy. I bet I survive at least 3 months with the bill gates chip!
“ Given the subscription model of much of the software Tesla EVs use, resale can be complicated. The Full Self-Driving feature, which costs up to $199 per month, is not transferable to a new owner, Fast Company reported.”
Just another reason I’m never buying
$199 per month?! Fuck me that’s moronic.
You don’t understand. It’s not like the self-driving feature is just software where they can price it at whatever they want. It’s physically consuming brain cells every month. And those aren’t free you know!
::: spoiler Do I really need a \s tag for this or does this tin foil hat make me look fat? :::
It actually came out that one of the self-driving companies has live operators watching every car and intervening in 2.5% of all decisions, so your intent may have been sarcastic but there is actually a reason to suspect there could be brain cells involved.
They should make a discount for every person the self driving software hits. That shit would be basically free.
That’s just the new subscription cost. It is meant a san alternative to the full purchase cost.
As functionality has been added, the price has increased over the years, the current price is $12,000 for the FSD upgrade over basic Autopilot.
The subscription also lets you try it out and cancel if you don’t want it instead of having to make the decision up front for thousands of dollars.
Wait so another owner can never have that or…?
I mean it’s not actual “full self drive” to begin with. It’s a lame impersonation of more advanced self driving vehicles that aren’t even being sold yet. That doesn’t matter to the elon fans though.
The lie that actually gets people killed, while also tainting the overall perception of autonomous vehicles. Thanks elon.
It’s just that the license isn’t transferable. The second owner has to (re)license the software from Tesla. Irrespective of whether the seller has a “perpetual” license.
I guess if your license could be transferred to your new vehicle this would kinda make sense —- although frankly I’d expect a recurring revenue subscription model instead. Basically this feels like they’ve just been throwing shit at the wall while failing to deliver the feature.
I read it as the second owner would have to pay for it themselves to (re)unlock it. So Tesla would get paid twice for the feature in one car.
It is a monthly subscription. I am not sure what the problem is? the new owner can choose to pay it or not.
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I must have misunderstood, because I know you have to pay $12,000-15,000 (seems the price has lowered) for the FSD to be available, then pay subscription on top of that. For some reason I thought they were saying the initial $12k+ “unlock” wouldn’t transfer.
You either pay for FSD via a monthly subscription OR the full price. So it’s either $200/mo or $12,000. It’s not both. The subscription option gives you an option to try it before purchasing, or to add and remove it when you want, like for long road trips or something like that.
It’s just two different options for people to pick from.
Thank you very much for clarifying. It makes sense if a subscription is not transferred but if someone does the outright payment that should be transferred. Asshole move if the one time unlock isn’t.
AFAIK the one time unlock stays with the car.
When I sell you my PC, you don’t get all my software licenses, games, and my internet service for free with it. You have to get your own licenses / subscriptions to those.
Capitalism is so schizophrenic. Is supply and demand in a free market meant to decide the value of goods or not?? If regulations and penalties are required, why not across the board??
A company is not capitalism. Pure capitalism without any regulation doesn’t work, because it tends towards having one big company that controls everything. However, every single company by itself strives towards that goal, bribing politicians to get its way when necessary. Thus, if those bribes go unpunished (like through the Citizens United decision in the US), capitalism eventually eliminates itself.
Tesla doesn’t want some other company to buy all its vehicles and turn around and sell them at a higher price, damaging the press around the Tesla brand and stopping its cars from getting to would-be Tesla super fans. It’s the same reason stores will sometimes say “limit 2 per customer” on certain items.
That’s one reason, anyway.
It’s all well and good in theory but when you have a hit item to sell, you don’t want to make scalpers rich doing it. Absolute freedom = shit show every time. Peolle really need to grow up and learn how to be conservatives without being literalist absolutists about every damn thing.
you don’t want to make scalpers rich doing it
But why not? Surely people have the freedom to spend their money on legal goods?
I understand the situation; Tesla can’t make money selling to the general public at scalper rates, and scalpers are somewhat eating into Tesla profits. It’s all a scheme to ensure money goes to corporations first. That’s why the pharmaceutical industry is so fucked.
sUrElY pEoPlE hAvE thE FrEEdoM tO SpENd tHEir MoNeY oN lEgAl gOOds
Way to argue against a point no one made.
Arbitrage subtracts value from both vendor and buyer while producing no value. It’s a rent-seeking behavior applied to retail. It sucks, period. As you can see, Tesla wants none of it, and buyers don’t want a bunch of assholes boosting prices.
And there are perfectly legal ways to stop it, too. Have you ever been to a concert where the.l name of the ticket buyer has to match the name of the attendee’s ID? Tom Waits did that on the Mule Variations tour and it’s a) the only reason I was able to see him and b) the only reason I was able to see him for $40.
Fuck scalpers.
If regulations and penalties are required, why not across the board??
for thee, not for me
as always
The best solution to this problem is not to buy one in the first place.
While this is an asshole move, companies like Ferrari do stuff like this too. They, for example, do not allow certain modifications on their cars and if they find out that you have done them, they will ask you to restore those parts back to originals. It is unreal how much car companies try to get from us.
Papa Enzo knows best. Don’t understand how that’s legal unless it’s some sort of lease agreement
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Well, you’re welcome to not buy a Ferrari if you don’t like the strings attached, right?
Sure. But ownership comes with certain rights by definition. If you don’t have those rights, you don’t really own the thing. You’re just paying to subscribe to their club.
Sure. But, again, just don’t buy it if you don’t like the conditions. Not sure why that’s so controversial to say.
I think because it goes against the concept of ownership that you can’t do certain things with it after you buy it. I get that with digital or conceptual things, though I don’t agree with that either in many cases. But not being allowed to alter, resell, or repair a physical object you bought can be frustrating.
It’s because they have a brand to protect and that brand belongs to Ferrari, not the owner of the car.
I am also not welcome to buy a Ferrari because
- I can’t afford one.
- if I could afford it, I would buy something sensible and invest most of my cash for the future. (Land, Gold, etc.)
Implying this, less attractive than a Lego brick, thing is as desirable as a Ferrari is… Insane
Ferraris are dogshit just the same as this.
Can I mount a towing hook for my camper?
One of the things they don’t allow is removing their logos and the ferrari name off the car, so I suppose adding a hook would be fine. I don’t know if those cars are built for it, but I do think they would allow it… Felt really stupid typing that, as if they need to “allow” anything on a car you would own.
Jokes on them. I’d never buy one of these hilariously abhorrent piles of shit.
I used to think Teslas were cool. Now I just see the specter of Elon. Regardless, these look like a test for suckers.
Behind the wheel of one, I’d feel like an asshole.
Have you actually encountered a Tesla in the wild? They actually are all assholes.
In my experience they’re all Indian.
I am from the vaginal canal of Tesla. Toyota Camry status.
I honestly would rather have a cyber truck than a generic F150. Fuck Musk though, so I’ll pass.
There’s a reason Ford sells so many F150s.
They’re great trucks.
They sell based on name recognition and history. Their father, grandfather, and great grandfather all bought a Ford so they will too. They have tens of decades of repair shops with experience, cheap third party parts replacements, and because many people just keep buying the same thing without ever doing any comparison or thinking about it.
Forget the obvious bullshit that is being unable to sell it. What’s this about autopilot/FSD not being transferable?
Who the hell would buy this monstrosity of a truck. Be sure not to buy FSD since it will be a lost cost and never recouped for a capability that really doesn’t work yet. $12,000 down the drain.
Who would buy it? The same type of people buying new BMWs. We all hate them, but they sell like crazy.
If you pre ordered it, you locked in the fsd price at the time which was 7k I believe.
If you add FSD to a trade in service, you’ll get 2-3000 back.
So it’s not as terrible a deal as buying it at full price right now where its unquestionably not worth it.
But don’t expect anything beyond level 2 for the lifetime of the vehicle.
You wouldn’t preorder a car.
Or what was the saying again…
Reminds me of the you wouldn’t download a car.
But maybe with this polygon count its possible
I mean that is slightly better. Still a waste of money. Get enhanced autopilot and leave it there.
Absolute deal-breaker. I will not be dictated to on what I may or may not do with my personal private property, beyond the bounds of the law.
Isn’t the fact that the thing is ugly and poorly-designed more of a deal-breaker?
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but I’d really, really love a car that doesn’t ding if you look at it the wrong way.
Well you better hope you never ding the Cybertruck unless you want to replace an entire stainless steel panel and hope it aligns properly.
Also it’s stainless steel, not scratchless steel. Anyone who’s scrubbed a stainless steel pan knows they scratch up quickly.
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sounds like you’d be best off getting an electric conversion if you really want something like that, I don’t think any manufacturer will be producing something like that anytime soon
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Perfect panel alignment is more than one can expect from a Tesla direct from the factory
And the “bare stainless steel body panels” isn’t a new thing on a production car.
Unsurprisingly they had a ton of issues with it back then too.
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I don’t know if you’ve ever owned anything with brushed stainless panels, but ding-proof they are not, and they’re generally WAY more noticeable. They also still need to be clear coated, otherwise every panel will become discolored over time.
otherwise every panel will become discolored over time.
Yeah I don’t care about that. My issue with my current truck is many of the places (50?) where I’ve scratched the paint off, and cleaned/re-painted it as soon as I could, have started to rust - which is probably going to result in the car being sold for scrap metal even though it’s still perfectly drivable. Eventually that rust is going to become more than just a cosmetic problem and the car definitely isn’t worth the time required to fix it properly (cut out the rust and put new sheet metal in it’s place).
I won’t be buying a cybertruck… but I definitely would prefer stainless steel over mild steel body panels. I’d like aluminium even better (stainless steel does still rust, just not as easily).
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Is an electric vehicle really the best choice for you if you live in the mountains? I’m pro-electric vehicle but the thing about them is they really shine in denser areas where everything is close by. Unless your remote mountain region also has an adequate amount of superchargers but I feel like I probably wouldn’t.
Absolutely. You can easily create electricity on a remote mountain. Creating gasoline… that’s not really possible. You have to pay a fortune for someone to deliver it (or worse, go get it yourself). You can’t get gasoline delivered in bulk either - common ethanol blended gasoline can spoil in just two months and wherever you’re buying it from might have already stored it for a month or more.
Gas prices in back country areas are often double or quadruple what people pay in the city and living there also means driving a lot more per week. Electricity on the other hand is practically free if you produce it yourself (small scale hydro for example can cost a couple thousand dollars for reliable continuous power and if you’re in the mountains then you probably have that option).
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, but I’d really, really love a car that doesn’t ding if you look at it the wrong way.
Then don’t buy a Tesla, those pieces of shit fall apart if a bird shits on it.
There are multiple deal-breakers, yest.
Well here’s the thing, they don’t want it to be your personal private property, nevermind that you bought it they still want it to be theirs.
Fun fact, I could give a fuck what they want.
Because otherwise, you would have bought one.
In fact, I would not. But even if I would, this bullshit would be a deal breaker. It’s basically saying “we know you’re going to regret this purchase, but we’re going to put a barrier in place to keep you from dealing with it.” That’s a gigantic red flag for any product.
Did you write this on a PC or iPhone?
I borrowed your mom’s Zune.
You weren’t buying one anyway, what a weird comment.
You seem highly interested in whether I would have purchased one or not. What a weird comment.
damn its ugly af
It’s shit behavior that should be illegal, but I also can’t feel bad for any moron that sees this truck and still agrees to buy it.
In this situation there would be two morons
Very true.
Is this to be an asshole, or to avoid people reselling the car at x2 the price because of the lack of supply during the first year?
I hate Musk, but if this is intended to prevent price go urging, it might be a good thing (see nvidia scalpers)
Even with the best of intentions, which I doubt is the case here, a company that sells you a product shouldn’t be allowed to dictate what you do with the product once you’ve purchased it. They can be selective about who they sell products to, and use that as a barrier to attempt to stop scalpers. But once I own something if I want to turn around and resell it the manufacturer should have no say in that.
So because your personal taste is not in favor of this car, you don’t feel bad for people who happen to like it. Got it. Moral superiority is alive and well.
Agree with the sentiment but not the tone.
Implying they produce enough to sell any at all, anyone is dumb enough to buy one, anyone if dumb enough to buy it off another dummy who bought one.
This is just Tesla stirring up a story, and trying to make it seem like anyone wants one of these monstrosities, and that they can make them.
I have a friend who preordered a cybertruck. But then again he also bought a model 3 and model X.
It is bizarre how much of a comic book villain Musk has turned in to.
What do you mean “Turned into” ?
He probably always was a bit of a right-wing loon, but everything about him over the last few years screams “cry for help”.
If he were a normal pleb, he’d have probably lost his job, or had a friend tell him that he needs to seek professional help. Because he’s a billionaire, I assume people just say he’s “eccentric” and laugh while people push him to do more crazy shit.
He doesn’t realise it, but people are laughing at him, not with him. He’s a performing monkey for the apathetic, and aspirational for the morally questionable.
It was always there. He just has the wealth not to care what anyone thinks now.
I don’t think any amount of money replaces human interaction, and because of his status, his perception of himself is probably so fucked up that I’d be shocked if he did anything but care.
I don’t want to infantise Musk, nor do I want to excuse what a total cunt he is, but if he were a child you’d basically call it a cry for attention or help. The primary difference between us and him is he can mask whatever mental health issues he’s got with money and social media…
He has the wealth, but not the ego.
I think he has an inkling of that now. Since he got booed off stage multiple times and locked himself in isolation for a while.
I can’t wait to make fun of one of these in the wild. What a stupid, ugly vehicle.
are we doing the jerk off motion? I think it’d be pretty neat if everywhere you drove one of these people did the jerk off motion at you
You need more meaningful things going on in your life.
Hey, now… Don’t go tearing on people’s hobbies!
I actually have developed a language of pure meaning, it’s communicated entirely via the jerk off motion
They are usually seen grazing together with tech bros
It’s like he saw a
and was like “Ya that’s what I want, but uglier, and less useful.”
How is that legal?
I saw an episode of LegalEagle (I think it was about NFTs) and it’s a terms of sale thing and he spoke about John Cena doing something similar with Ford:
I found the LegalEagle episode:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=C6aeL83z_9Y&si=vONBqJ14_KZ65lF8
It’s around 6:49
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=C6aeL83z_9Y&si=vONBqJ14_KZ65lF8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
lobut’s explainer video explains the contract law provision, but to be honest, it’s a deeply cynical use of contract law. The reason is that typically (and for nearly every piece of retail-sold property), you have property rights exactly like what everyone in this thread is intuiting. Those property rights absolutely would give you the right to resell.
Contract law trumps those rights, and Cena signed a contract. That is where the discussion keeps ending. But a court, if it’s circumspect enough, may continue the case long enough to examine how property and contract rights are in conflict. And it’s entirely possible property rights may win in the end.
Why? Because the contract may be invalid if it is “illusory.” An illusory contract is as it sounds based on a false presumption of exchanged value (“consideration”) or a false promise of performance from Tesla. Here, Tesla may be technically complying with contract consideration requirements by lumping the actual Cybertruck into the value exchange, which sounds right from a contract law perspective. However, if Tesla is not offering substantial value beyond what a typical retail sale would be, and if they are only offering the same ongoing services as typical retail customers, there is a small chance a court may decide that the contract is a pretext to in fact simply (and illegally) limiting property rights.
That said, I’d give it maybe a 5% chance of success. Contract law is one thing most judges will almost never interfere with. Which is why Tesla and others are doing it. They typically only do it with cars like high-end sports cars.
But importantly, it could become commonplace for anything you buy even at retail when combined with “clickwrap” agreements - i.e., agreements like in software that activate when you use or open the product. So it’s very very important that we continue to push back on this.
