But the trade in would be less than if it didn't have an accident on it's history I would expect so unless Tesla didn't car, they didn't even look at my trade.... ???
Coming back to this thread more than a year late, so thought I'd just finish my tale for completeness, as there's still a bit of activity here (which is how I stumbled back here ha ha)...
Yes, for sure a major repair would impact the resale/trade value, and if we'd known upfront it was going to be such an expensive (as well as lengthy) repair, we would've certainly argued for it to be totaled. But we were naive then, esp I didn't think 2-year old cars would readily be totaled, and in any case planned to keep the car a long time, which we did - it worked and looked great after we got it back. Resale value only matters when a car is like young, as by 16 years old, losing 20% of nothing is still, well nothing.
Or if a car has any sort of value at that point, it is probably increasing in value, as with our case an early model Porsche Boxster (not a collectible by any stretch, but apparently has some enthusiast value). The Tesla trade-in seemed like the typical lowball, a few thousand less than blue book - but we still came out ahead. Why? Well, the car had been throwing occasional emission error codes for a few years, so while it kept passing smog beautifully, there would soon come a year when we'd be facing a $5000 catalytic converter replacement to keep it on the road, on top of an impending need for a new convertible softtop ($1-2K). Tesla didn't care, didn't even look at it when we came in and took delivery of our new Model S.
Anyways, wrt to the thread topic, used car values have crashed a year later, and just a month ago my now 6-year old Model S was totaled by a drunk driver running a red light. Our damage was mainly to the front bumper and hood, definitely looked repairable and no battery damage - but since the airbags went off, it was an automatic total loss (this was before our insurer even had the car in their possession to inspect). I've also realized since that some big HV battery fuses blow anytime the airbags go off - which explains why the car lost not just HV power, but eventually 12V power about 2 hrs later as well. So add airbag/dash and HV fuse to repair costs, I get it now...