Why are people selling their Model 3s?

[carlol]

I'm on the waitlist and my scheduled delivery is for this summer.

I am seeing quite a few more posts now on Autotrader of people selling their Model 3s. The prices look about the cost of them new, so it doesn't appear as if people are selling them to earn a (big) profit. I supposed if they got energy rebates, that helps.

Most of the reviews I've seen have all raved about the car. So I'm just wondering (and this may be very general), but any reason for people to start selling their cars after such a short amount of time, especially given the painful process of signing up/waiting to finally get them?

 

[sreams]

Probably many are people who never intended to keep the car, and instead flip it. The market isn't really supporting a big profit doing this, so they are just getting rid of a car they never wanted. Kind of a shame that people are doing this while so many are waiting in such a long line to actually own the car.

 

[WileyTheMan]

Not really sure, but as thousands of these cars get out there, the odds keep increasing that someone has a reason (they hate it, financially can't make it work, decided on an S/X while waiting but decided to get a 3 anyway, etc.). Hey, it just means the people who have a long wait in line for a 3 have a chance to get one earlier!

 

[jomo25]

Haven’t looked, but are they real? And I suppose they can be trying to make the money on the rebate?

 

[ℬête Noire]

Haven’t looked, but are they real? And I suppose they can be trying to make the money on the rebate?

My secondhand understanding on this;

They can take a run at that but if they get caught could end up having a Bad Time. The tax credit has specific rules to thwart this, it gets clawed back if you resell within two(?) years. I'm not sure how actively this is checked for enforcement, it's probably something that the IRS doesn't normally do an automated check on as it'd require State vehicle database data. However if you ever tripped an audit flag via something else, or just came up unlucky on an random draw, you'd probably lose the tax credit and potentially get penalties on top.

 

[eSpiritIV]

they are either
1) Fraudulent out of state ads trying to get you to wire them money for a car they dont have
2) Trying to take the federal tax credit and hope they dont get caught, then just buy their second reservation for the AWD or performance model later when its out