Britt Jones
When Kyle Conner paid a pretty penny for his Tesla Model S, he probably thought he’d get back a decent chunk of money once he sold it, but he was shocked at how much it was worth.
The YouTuber who posts under his channel Out of Spec Reviews, detailed his journey of selling his electric car, which was created by the Elon Musk-owned company.
Conner had originally paid $140,000 when he bought the whip in 2022 and wanted to sell it this year.
But it didn’t go as planned.
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According to TikToker Chris Pearce (@thechristopherpearce) who covered the breakdown of Conner’s invoice, it is ‘insane how fast Teslas depreciate’.
Pearce went on to pull up the invoice after Conner had his car appraised by Tesla, to find that it had depreciated much more than a gas car.
The total price read that it was valued at $140,490 at the time it was bought.
Then, in a screenshot at the time of Tesla’s appraisal.
Pearce read for his viewers: “So with just 37,000 miles on the odometer, Tesla offered him a whopping $46,400.
“That’s a loss of $94,000 or 67% of its original value.”
While Pearce shared that Conner may have gotten more for his car had he chosen to sell privately, other car appraisal sites also offered less than half the value of what the car cost.
He said: “The appraisal came straight from Tesla, so it could be a lowball offer.
“But even sites like Edmunds, or Consumer Reports wouldn’t give him more than $59,000 at the absolute highest.”
To compare the Tesla’s decrease in value to a standard gas car, Pearce pulled up a BMW car for the same price in the same year and compared it to what it would be worth today.
He said: “I did us all a favor and found a comparable gas to compare the depreciation.
“The BMW M5 CS came out in 2022, the same year, for around $140,000 — the exact same price. It’s not a perfect comparison, but they’re both saloon-performance sedans. If you go on any of those sites I mentioned, you can buy the M5 CS for $140,000 today. Meaning this car has depreciated maybe $10,000.”
He then gave some advice to future Tesla owners.
Don’t be fooled by big brands, and they might not be worth their stuff.
According to a study by Diminishing Value Carolina which was conducted in March of this year, Tesla vehicles depreciate 70 times faster than Chevrolet cars.
Also, GMC and Porsche were found to have some of the lowest levels of depreciation in car industry.
If you’re wondering what other cars would see a fast depreciation, it was Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lincoln, and Volvo cars that were high on the list after Tesla.
Redditors on the r/TeslaMotors sub went on to detail their own experiences - and were at a loss for words.
We posted the most glowing review possible of the new Long Range RWD Model 3… nobody shared
— Kyle Conner (@itskyleconner) October 30, 2024
I posted two screen shots about a Model S with a single word “depreciation” and everyone writes about it
Huge Tesla hate bias in the media. https://t.co/cCWFpEPuOU pic.twitter.com/3mYVJecOPi
A user wrote: “Imagine how much lower it would be if people could buy out their leases. That’s probably one of the large reason why Tesla doesn’t allow lease buyouts, so that they can have more control over used prices.”
According to the Diminishing Value Carolina study, it’s not just Tesla.
It’s electric vehicles in general.
Someone wrote: “It’s almost as if Tesla makes a product that has an artificially inflated price because of fanboys that love getting ripped off.”
Another commented: “All the commenter’s not understanding that yes cars depreciate, but typically only about 60% over 5 years, losing 67% in 2 years is awful.”
Conner’s not too pleased with the fame his depreciation brought him.
Recently he tweeted: “We posted the most glowing review possible of the new Long Range RWD Model 3… nobody shared I posted two screen shots about a Model S with a single word ‘depreciation’ and everyone writes about it Huge Tesla hate bias in the media.”
UNILAD reached out to Tesla for comment.