Tesla Begins to Sell Used Models at Its Website

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 22, 9:15AM EDT

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Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has an entire website section showing an inventory of used models.
Is the leading electric vehicle maker competing with itself by offering used cars?

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Tesla Begins to Sell Used Models at Its Website — © Tesla Model S Interior (CC BY-SA 4.0) by Peteratkins

One of Tesla Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) most significant challenges is the huge market for used models of its cars. The prices of these have dropped sharply in the past several months, which has probably hurt demand for new Tesla vehicles. The electric vehicle (EV) maker has tried to flank this by offering used Teslas on its website.

According to iSeeCars, the price of used Teslas fell 10.1% year over year in March, bringing the total down by $3,541 to $31,421. No other major brand saw the price of its used vehicles decline as much. Used car prices across the United States rose 1% in March, including gasoline-powered cars and EVs.

The number of used Teslas in the U.S. is large because some people have sold theirs due to the controversies surrounding CEO Elon Musk and his efforts to reduce federal government spending.

However, Business Insider points out that, “Used Tesla prices have been in a freefall for the past few years, with the average price of a used Tesla now $10,000 less than that of a non-Tesla electric car, according to data from the dealership website CarGurus.”

Tesla has an entire website section showing an inventory of used models. It shows the name of each vehicle for sale, its mileage, and its model year. It offers these for lease or sale, and it also shows where each car is located.

Tesla’s sale of used cars online is up against stiff competition. Legacy car companies often have used Teslas on their lots. Online car companies Autotrader, CarMax, Carvana, and Vroom also have extensive inventories of used Teslas. These can be delivered directly to people’s homes.

It is hard to say whether Tesla is competing with itself by offering used cars at Tesla.com. It may want to capture part of a market that will exist with or without that inventory.

Prediction: 1 Electric Vehicle Stock Poised to Overtake Tesla by 2030

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.