People are confused about the Tesla Cybertruck again. Imagine that.
Earlier this week, Tesla added a clause to its standard sales contract blocking Cybertruck buyers from reselling their trucks within the first year of ownership. Now, the automaker appears to have dropped the idea.
Tesla is famously tight-lipped with news. It operates no public relations department and doesn’t answer reporters’ questions. So, there’s no one we can ask for clarification. But the company does publish the text of its standard sales contract online, and the language has changed twice this week.
No One Owns a Cybertruck To Resell Yet
The contract is public, but it doesn’t apply to anyone yet. Tesla plans to deliver the first Cybertrucks at the end of the month. So, to date, no one outside the company owns a Cybertruck to resell.
The Cybertruck, in case this is your first time on the Internet, is an all-electric pickup that looks like something out of the future and has stirred up controversy long before ever appearing on American roads.
It may be among the most capable trucks on the market soon – Tesla claims supercar-like acceleration, up to 14,000 pounds of towing capacity, and a stainless steel body that may be bulletproof in parts. It may not live up to its promises – Tesla skeptics delight in posting videos of Cybertruck test mules with misaligned body panels struggling in off-road testing.
But, whatever it does, it will win attention. Its remarkable body, supposedly inspired by the movie “Blade Runner,” looks like nothing else in automotive history.
The Disappearing Clause
Tesla has said the Cybertruck will appear in limited numbers at first. CEO Elon Musk told investors last month the truck is “just incredibly difficult to bring to market to reach volume” and said he wanted to “temper expectations” about how many the company could build.
That’s the kind of language that attracts car flippers – people who buy a rare car and immediately resell it at a much higher price.
So Tesla inserted a clause in its sales contract earlier this week preventing customers from reselling the vehicle for the first year of ownership. If a customer needed to sell the truck, the language said, they could sell it back to Tesla. If they sold it private party anyway and Tesla found out about it, the company would charge them $50,000 or the profit they made from the sale, “whichever is greater.”
The contract clause was the talk of the internet for about three days. Now, it’s gone.
Tesla Has Two More Weeks To Think About This
Its disappearance has much of the media saying the clause is gone forever. But we’d note that Tesla doesn’t plan to deliver any trucks until Nov. 30 at the earliest.
The company could have pulled the clause down to reword it. We’d ask, but…see above.
We’ll keep an eye on the contract text in the meantime and let you know if it reappears.
