Man buys ‘world’s cheapest Tesla’ for $11,500 and experts are shocked after learning why it was so cheap
A man who supposedly purchased 'the cheapest Tesla in the world' revealed why it was so cheap.
Last year, an 18-year-old Winston Pemberton purchased a Tesla for $13,000. The catch? The fact that it was pretty bashed up having been involved in a serious collision.
Pemberton then set himself the challenge of remodelling the Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD (all-wheel drive) so that he could give it to his mom.
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$13,000 is a pretty good bargain for a Tesla, but Pemberton went on to fork out another $10,000 dollars to restore it.
While this was a lot of money to have to pay, it still worked out substantially cheaper than purchasing a new Tesla Model 3, with a 2024 model of the electric vehicle costing as much as $54,990, as per MotorTrend.
But beating Pemberton's bargain-hunting is car aficionado Alex Kersten, who goes by @autoalex on his social media channels.
In a YouTube video posted earlier this year, Kersten claimed that he bagged himself a Tesla for just £8,900 ($11,500), making it 'the cheapest Tesla in the world'.
The 2017 Tesla Model S was listed on Facebook Marketplace for £13,700 ($17,750), but Kersten managed to talk the seller down.
Before he bought the car, the Tesla had been used as a taxi. With this in mind (as you'd probably expect), the car had quite an impressive mileage racked up on its odometer - which is what made the EV such a bargain.
"The cheapest Tesla in the world, it is also the one with the highest mileage," Kersten said as he revealed that the car has a whopping 450,000 miles on it.
Apparently, a Tesla Model S can get up to 800,000 miles on its odometer.
Kersten's friend, car expert Taylor Hetherington, was undeniably flabbergasted at the news. Making him even more surprised, Kersten revealed that the car was still under warranty at Tesla.
"It's still in warranty," he boasted. "I've still got one year left. If the battery decided to s**t itself, if the motor decides to s**t itself, I take it back to Tesla and they will change it."
He has run into some issues, though. Explaining that he doesn't have a wall charger at home, Kersten revealed that he had to use a three-pin plug to charge the car, which takes up to 12 hours for just 100 miles.
Kersten also thought he had 50 miles range left in one instance, and found that the car all of a sudden went down to zero miles while he was driving on the highway, meaning the car went into 'limp home mode'.
Niamh Shackleton