Buying a Used Tesla

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Buying a Used Tesla

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Tesla Motors Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) oldest cars are not very old. The first Model S was sold in fall of 2014. And the Tesla is such a great car. Who would want to part with one? But people do, and used Tesla’s are for sale in several places, although the company would like to be the sales conduit for its own used cars.

The Tesla site has a section for the sale of pre-owned models. These have the typical aspects of “certified” cars sold by their manufacturer: a new warranty for four years or 50,000 miles. And the list of used cars Tesla holds in inventory are sorted by, among other things, the price. The least expensive is a Model S60 for $46,000. It has been driven 41,034 miles.

What Tesla does not want is to lose its ability to sell its own used inventory. But Tesla vehicles are available at sites across the web. Truecar lists dozens. So does Car.com. AutoTrader has over 500 for sale through private owners or dealerships for other car brands. CarGurus has over 300. People can even by used Tesla cars on eBay.

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When a dealer or individual outside of Tesla sells a used model, the company loses one of its most prized possessions, which is quality control over cars that have quality control as one of their primary selling points.

As of the time of this writing, you can buy a Tesla on eBay now:

2013 TESLA MODEL S P85 PERFORMANCE TECH PANO NAV 27K MI #P25581 Texas Direct, 2013 Tesla Model S 27K MI

The current bid is a pathetic $15,100, with only four hours and eight minutes to go in the auction. With a price of $64,980, the bid level has a long way to go before time runs out.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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