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What happened to the cpo inventory?

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Well, if they don't come back, it's hitting me pretty hard right now. All my life I've wanted a sexy high performance car. I had one in 1999 and had to give it up after only 1 year due to unforeseen life events. Then in 2011, I finally was able to buy myself a dream car, a 2011 Mustang GT. But in 2012, the EV revolution kicked off. It was no longer about just a car I wanted, it was about trying to support a better future for all mankind. So I traded in the Mustang in 2012 for a Chevrolet Volt in an attempt to join the revolution, but it wasn't exactly sexy or high performance. To make matters worse, my fixed work situation over the years that I have owned the Volt have had me driving half way across the state on a regular basis to a town with no accessible EV charging stations, so the Volt which is supposed to be a 95% electric I'm driving almost entirely on gas.

I tolerated that for years as I planned my life around building a budget for a Tesla, but it's really starting to grate on my nerves now. Then come late January this year, I come across a CPO car that is almost a perfect match for what we want that fits my new budget, but my budget relies on obtaining trade in value on the Volt, which I haven't been able to get. I hit a snag because places like CarMax apparently don't want Volts, so now I have to wait to either sell it private party or save up even more money. As I'm in the process of doing this, the CPO inventory has disappeared to where there is now nothing that matches my preferences.

As big of a fan as I am for Tesla and the EV revolution, I've had a really hard time not losing my hope and just giving up on it entirely. I try so hard to make it work and it never does. I'm tempted to just go buy a Mustang GT as I could do that tomorrow and probably find one on the lot I could take home the same day. I already know I love Mustang GTs, but I fear in doing so some part of my soul may be lost.

Not sure what your budget is, but there's CPO P85 RWD for $67k with lots of options

85 kWh Performance Model S P27031 | Tesla Motors
 
Well, if they don't come back, it's hitting me pretty hard right now. All my life I've wanted a sexy high performance car. I had one in 1999 and had to give it up after only 1 year due to unforeseen life events. Then in 2011, I finally was able to buy myself a dream car, a 2011 Mustang GT. But in 2012, the EV revolution kicked off. It was no longer about just a car I wanted, it was about trying to support a better future for all mankind. So I traded in the Mustang in 2012 for a Chevrolet Volt in an attempt to join the revolution, but it wasn't exactly sexy or high performance. To make matters worse, my fixed work situation over the years that I have owned the Volt have had me driving half way across the state on a regular basis to a town with no accessible EV charging stations, so the Volt which is supposed to be a 95% electric I'm driving almost entirely on gas.

I tolerated that for years as I planned my life around building a budget for a Tesla, but it's really starting to grate on my nerves now. Then come late January this year, I come across a CPO car that is almost a perfect match for what we want that fits my new budget, but my budget relies on obtaining trade in value on the Volt, which I haven't been able to get. I hit a snag because places like CarMax apparently don't want Volts, so now I have to wait to either sell it private party or save up even more money. As I'm in the process of doing this, the CPO inventory has disappeared to where there is now nothing that matches my preferences.

As big of a fan as I am for Tesla and the EV revolution, I've had a really hard time not losing my hope and just giving up on it entirely. I try so hard to make it work and it never does. I'm tempted to just go buy a Mustang GT as I could do that tomorrow and probably find one on the lot I could take home the same day. I already know I love Mustang GTs, but I fear in doing so some part of my soul may be lost.

Such despair! I'm sure it's hard, but my understanding is you have to move pretty quick on CPO cars so no guarantee the one you saw was going to still be there by the time you'd saved up. Keep saving...you'll get there! There are new CPOs all the time...and I would expect more as people upgrade to AP and trade in for their Xs. It will happen!
 
If you can find one with an extended warranty, I find that there are a lot of compelling private sale deals out there that are way better than tesla cpo pricing. I'm not sure why everyone is so gung ho on cpo cars. It's the same car.

I keep hearing this with no proof...in regards to what I'm looking for...a sub 50K MS with RFS. There have been several CPOs fitting those requirements, but I haven't seen them AT ALL anywhere else. I had hoped and planned on buying one in 2016, and still hoping that's the case. I'm starting to regret not purchasing in December when there was a bunch of low-hanging fruit....but, I'll hold off worrying about it for now- it won't do any good.
 
that is what was told to me from an insider.

But what you said doesn't make any sense:

And the answer is...... Tesla decided they don't want to sell their loaner cars. Boom! That's the official answer.

If they stopped selling Inventory cars, this would make sense. But instead they pulled 75% of their Pre-owned cars (generally not loaners) and zero of their Inventory cars which are still listed.
 
But isn't this a matter of incurred depreciation and what the market will pay?

Assuming the wholesaler marks the price of the car up and manages to price it at a point where it will sell, didn't Tesla just loose that delta between the price Tesla sold the car to the wholesaler and the price a consumer paid to buy the car from a wholesaler?

Wouldn't tesla then be forgoing revenue for the sake of trying to artificially hold up the value of a car beyond what the market is willing to pay?

What it does give Tesla is the ability to write the cars off their books and add whatever revenue they got for them immediately (for example to help the quarter reporting). The wholesaler can take their time to sell off that inventory, plus they take a risk whether they make any money. Notice also that those cars go out without CPO warranty, so they can sell cheaper. If Tesla would suddenly start discounting CPO's in lieu of warranty, that could hurt their brand. So, maybe the CPO car path is this:
* CPO lists
* if CPO doesn't sell, price is lowered
* Once price is at cost + CPO Warrantly and it still doesn't sell, CPO warranty is removed and the car sold to wholesaler at cost

The above would seem reasonable for Tesla as a business.
 
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And the answer is...... Tesla decided they don't want to sell their loaner cars. Boom! That's the official answer.

That makes since to me for a couple reasons:

* It is a pain when someone has the car out and someone else buys it. Now you have to get the person that is currently driving it to come back and get a different one. (Someone just recently wrote about this happening to them.)
* You can rack up mileage on them really quickly. And didn't someone say that they discount the cars $1/mile?
* General wear and tear.

- - - Updated - - -

If they stopped selling Inventory cars, this would make sense. But instead they pulled 75% of their Pre-owned cars (generally not loaners) and zero of their Inventory cars which are still listed.

Maybe they decided to stop using Inventory cars as loaners. Mileage/wear/tear add up too quickly and de-value them.

I have seen a number of people say that they got CPOs for a loaner.
 
Such despair! I'm sure it's hard, but my understanding is you have to move pretty quick on CPO cars so no guarantee the one you saw was going to still be there by the time you'd saved up. Keep saving...you'll get there! There are new CPOs all the time...and I would expect more as people upgrade to AP and trade in for their Xs. It will happen!

Just to clarify, I thought I was saved up, but it was dependent on getting at least close to KBB trade-in value for average condition on my Volt, which I wasn't able to get. So I paid off the Volt, and now I'm waiting for the lien release paperwork so I can just private party sell it at trade-in value, and my wife and I will just get by on 1 car after the Volt sells.

(According to KBB, good condition trade-in value is $9357, Private party good condition is $11322, and Private party fair condition is $10500, so I figure I should be able to private party sell it for about $9500 without too much trouble?)

volt-pp-valuation.png
 
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The "D" event was just dual motors and AP

The D event was supposed to be about the "D" part - that much was announced ahead of time I think. But the autopilot announcement was completely out of left field if I recall (maybe I don't). I was there at the event and I remember Elon telling the crowd that every car built since October already had autopilot hardware - and then we got to take rides with a section that the car drove itself on, etc. etc.
 
The D event was supposed to be about the "D" part - that much was announced ahead of time I think.

Yes, the "D" part was announced ahead of time, but until the event, nobody really knew what it stood for, It was just a teaser from Elon "time to talk about the D".

Although there was a lot of speculation it was dual motors, but also a lot that it was something else entirely.
 
It isn't just the CPO warranty, although that is likely a larger concern with the higher mileage cars. It's everything that is expected of a CPO. New tires, dings fixed, I've seen people here request that front license plate brackets be removed and bumpers repainted as an extreme example. It all adds up and reduces the profit margin.

My CPO, delivered three weeks ago, did not come with new tires and the dings on the hood were not fixed.
 
I don't have any inside knowledge, but here is my speculation.

Tesla figured out that warranty coverage of the 2012 and 2013 Model S was too expensive in the later years. When they CPO a 2012 car, they new warranty is covering years 4-8 (or 3-7 for a 2013). This would explain the removal of all CPOs with VIN <20K, and the change in the warranty policy to make the extended warranty non-transferable. Both these changes would minimize Tesla's exposure to warranty repairs in the later years of the early VIN cars.
 
The D event was supposed to be about the "D" part - that much was announced ahead of time I think. But the autopilot announcement was completely out of left field if I recall (maybe I don't). I was there at the event and I remember Elon telling the crowd that every car built since October already had autopilot hardware - and then we got to take rides with a section that the car drove itself on, etc. etc.
It wasn't that far out of left field. There had been rumors of autonomous driving work at Tesla for awhile, reinforced by job postings. Then we noticed the sensor changes (the front radar in particular), and started to put it together.

I think the only part that was surprising was how aggressively they seemed to be pursuing it and how far along they already were.
 
Could they building a fleet of loaners out of the older, higher mileage CPO inventory? This way they don't need to loan out newer cars that could command a higher price as new "showroom" cars that could be purchased on the spot. Why open a good bottle of wine when the neighbor next door likes Coors...
 
Skotty what kind of Model S are you looking for? I have an S85 CPO that I recently bought I could sell for $54k. It's fully loaded and in great condition with 37k miles. If the warranty transfers and you would like a black S85 it might work out for both of us since I'm itching to have an autopilot 85D.
 
And the answer is...... Tesla decided they don't want to sell their loaner cars. Boom! That's the official answer.

I've been thinking about what this could possibly mean by interpreting it with different words.

If what you meant to say is:

  • Tesla has decided to stop using new cars for loaners, and only use new cars for Demos of current offerings
  • Only Demo cars would be available for sale as Inventory cars
  • Sell off the existing fleet of Inventory Loaner cars
  • Replace loaner fleet with aging, depreciating/non-saleable CPO cars

Then I can see how that makes sense, but that's not really what you said.