Hacker News Reader

Comment by HumblyTossed | Hacker News Reader

Are you allowed to sell a Tesla for parts?

Tesla parts are actually really valuable. A lot of people want their engines (and batteries) for hot rod projects, and there are very few around. They can't be bought new, and the used price is probably higher than new would be.

I heard some irrational sounding numbers a few years back. Maybe prices have come down, now that more Teslas have had the opportunity to be totalled and sold for parts.

Makes you wonder if buying a Tesla to scrap for parts would be worthwhile at all.

That's the point... worth is situational.

If you have a project car that really wants a tesla engine.. the car wants what the car wants. I wouldn't be surprised if some number of Teslas have been bought new to scrap.

JFC we really need to turn this societal acceptance of "you don't own the hardware" around.

It's always been legal to sell parts off your car. Do not buy anything that attempts to prevent you from owning what you bought through any sort of user agreement.

My understanding is you can't go to a junkyard and bring a Tesla back to life, cause they own the software. Course wonder if someone determined enough could make it work at minimal like a normal car (no self-driving). Reversing the firmware is probably a bit of effort though (I don't think reversing anything is ever truly impossible).

It's not easy, but you can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuAMczraBIM

Why not? However, anything related to the battery/charging swapped out on the recipient Tesla may disable Supercharging.

Scrapping totaled out Teslas is a common way to do aftermarket electric conversions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com