Tesla Cybertruck Owners Will Face Absurd Resell Penalties | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Cybertruck Owners Will Face Absurd Resell Penalties

gizmodo.com

25 pointsrntn48 comments

"Absurd" is quite an editorialized part of this headline. Maybe Gizmodo should report on the facts and let us decide if we think it's "absurd?"

I personally think it's reasonable enough. For one, buyers signed on the dotted line. It's a luxury product that nobody needs. They don't have to buy one

For two, nobody likes scalpers.

I don't think any court would award the damages that Tesla would be seeking here but they're well within their rights to try and enforce their contract, and they're well within their rights to ban customers (Ferrari is also known to do this to owners who "tarnish their brand")

> Maybe Gizmodo should report on the facts and let us decide if we think it's "absurd?"

This never has been (and probably never will be) Gizmodo’s M.O. ;)

I know, I know, pretty unrealistic wishful thinking.

> The electric truck weighs 7,000 pounds according to Musk, making it about as heavy as a Ford F-150, but can accelerate from 0-60 in under 3 seconds.

Finally, the most missed feature in a pick-up truck is here!

> The futuristic-looking truck has a bulletproof, stainless steel body and is “waterproof enough” to cross rivers like a boat, among a long list of claims that only seem beneficial during an apocalypse.

This, however might actually be useful, given the current geopolitical climate...

  Man: "I'm a marketing manager who lives in the suburbs
    and commutes to work on the highway. I live alone, so
    of course I needed a car that can seat 12 and is
    equipped to drive across arctic tundra...it just
    makes me feel better!" 

  Woman: "The new Maibatsu Monstrosity...mine's bigger!"

- GTA 3

Canyonerooooo

I was going to chime in to make fun of the paltry towing capacity I assumed it had, but it's rated to 14,000 lbs. That is significantly higher than the F-150 electric's 7700-10,000 lbs.

That 14k towing capacity can probably only be sustained for like 28 minutes.

Edit: expect a ~73mile range at 14k. For comparison an f250 towing 15k lbs gets about 9mpg. With a 55 gallon tank, the f250 is still a better option for practical reasons. Let’s revisit this 5 years after the cyber truck release

Maybe pull-through superchargers will become a thing. There will have to be something for the semi too.

I guess another question would be - how often do pickups get used for towing, and how far do they normally go? I've heard that only rarely do people use the bed of their pickup, let alone tow.

Yes but commercial pickup trucks far outnumber residential-rarely-ever-tow pickups. The people who need 11k towing capacity are likely towing for commercial reasons. Or they are Uber rich and have a yacht they need to pull. Rarely very rarely do you see someone driving an eg F250 because they like the dualie setup in the rear.

Source: I live in texas

Finally shaving off that precious 0.6 seconds from the 0-60 time..

* Ford F-150 0-60 Times ; 2023 Ford F-150. Raptor R SuperCrew (5'7.1" Bed) · 3.6 sec

Talking about irrelevant stats, the Raptor can do 3.6 sec pulls all day long. Curious to see the Cybertrucks repeatability here...

> This, however might actually be useful, given the current geopolitical climate...

You must have missed Elon's marketing pivot a some years ago from libertarian tech-utopianism to libertarian tech-dystopianism.

As an SF resident who never goes outside but reads Elon's X feed, you would be crazy to live here and not buy a bulletproof Cybertruck. I will wait until it arrives to go out.

> As an SF resident who never goes outside but reads Elon's X feed

Indeed, you sound like the target market for the cybertruck, but if that's what you are feeling in SF, I seriously doubt that vehicle will solve your issue with never going outside.

It's quite difficult to enjoy all that the city has to offer from inside a vehicle, and there are certainly other places that can provide you in particular much more psychological safety than SF.

Sure, you could drive it from your own guarded parking in SF to a destination with guarded parking in SF, but that is a pretty limited set of places.

I'm pretty sure the person is being sarcastic..

Ha. Good call. I see it now, although TBH in recent times I've heard similar sentiments expressed quite unsarcastically, so an "/s" would be charitable.

Just hope that it's more bulletproof than the windows are rockproof.

It's impossible to know which of these are parodies anymore.

Ford made me sign a contract similar to this when I bought a Bronco sport. I was annoyed the dealer sprung it on me at the very end when I was getting the keys, but didn’t plan to resell in the first year anyways.

Is that even legal, to ask you to sign that after you paid for it? Or was it before?

As long as no consideration has exchanged hands or signatures signed, then yes. Contracts can be modified up to the second they are signed as long as both parties agree to it. Obviously, no one could negotiating away contract like this, but you always have the option to walk away.

During the closing in the finance office.

You can be asked all kinds of things. It's a little trick law enforcement tends to use: ask for things that the person being asked doesn't have any obligation to do.

As previously discussed in other HN threads from last week, these penalties are DOA. Some of them, such as the liquidated "damages" clause which is clearly just a penalties clause, are straight up illegal. Courts will punish parties attempting to enforce a penalties clause, usually by requiring them to pay the opposing parties' legal fees.

I would love to see a detailed legal breakdown and examination of how many of the clauses in this contract are complete, utter, unenforceable horseshit.

There are many precedence, Porsche being one. I’m sure their lawyers aren’t naive.

We want to ensure that cars are available to reach true enthusiasts, to be driven and enjoyed for years to come. For this reason, those allocated a 911 S/T in the US will be required to adhere to an agreed minimum retention period, set at one year

https://www.drive.com.au/news/porsche-stops-supercar-scalper...

I'm not sure you read the article? The article states that Porsche solved this by treating the first year of ownership as a "lease" with ownership transferring to the buyer after 1 year.

Or in other words...no lawsuit...And no restrictions on resale, since leased property can't be sold by the lessee.

> their lawyers aren’t naive.

Lawyers, being very much not naive, knowingly write contracts that are unenforceable in court. They're ok with that because they know the majority of those who sign the contract assume it's legally enforceable and never challenge it.

No, they write it because they are confident they will prevail in court. They wouldn’t leave it to chance. That’d be naive. Why do you think nobody has successfully challenged Ferrari and Porsche? Scalping is very lucrative after all

Huh? There is a ton of precedent for this - as a matter of fact Ford was chasing down famous people and auction houses for being in breach of the GT sales contract.

And when the pieces don’t fit together, no one faces a penalty.

https://insideevs.com/news/694929/tesla-cybertruck-matte-bla...

> I do think it’s pretty cool that the all-terrain tire option is a custom Goodyear with notches in the sidewall to accommodate the plastic aero covers

The second mortgage that you’ll need to take out when it comes time to replace them will be notably less cool.

Just admit they can be remote controlled and call them home when the "owners" displease you.

That might be a little rank even for Musk. Make it part of the EULA. "By opening the door you agree to ..." Add an NDA clause.

If these are "bulletproof"; could someone be kidnapped by their car? I was gonna make a crack about keeping a window breaker handy in case the door locks got overridden but even that might not work.

> call them home when the "owners" displease you

You're not being inventive enough. Drivers are not liable when autopilot fails. Neither is Tesla.

If it gets into an "accident" involving a body of water, electromechanical locks and bulletproof glass will seal your fate...and nobody will be held accountable.

The New Model Y[andere]: You'll love it, or else.

>>If these are "bulletproof";

pressed sheet of 304 stainless :: "bulletproof"

polyurethane over more plastic :: "vegan leather"

Just keep a brick in the glove compartment.

Don't you mean a giant ball bearing? :)

[dupe]

More discussion over here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237287

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38236701

This is pretty obviously intended to prevent essentially scalpers from selling the early units for massive profit. Not sure why people are mad about this? South Africa man bad?

Because after paying in full for it, it's your decision what to do with it. Compress it into a steel cube, sell it, drive it.

Right. Have you considered perhaps that there's entire industries out there plagued by organizations that use automated tools to muscle out consumers from access of general goods with with no intent of using those products themselves and only act as an artificial intermediary to resale said goods and inflate the price for their own benefit? This plagues concert tickets, shoes, clothing, computer parts, sometimes evening necessary goods like cleaning wipes and toilet paper.

Are those people just good hard working honest capitalists that create a market opportunity and deserve to use their products as they damn well please too?

Scalping is a big problem, sure. But in this case, I don't see the problem. Tesla could (and perhaps does?) limit selling 1 or 2 Cybertrucks to each person. Of course you could ask your friends to reserve one for you, but this is a lot of hassle and more involved than buying a lot of toilet paper/oil.

Yeah, that’s a problem the FTC should solve and not the companies selling goods. An individual should not be restricted on reselling their own goods.

Okay but the FTC isn’t solving it so you expect a company who thinks this is a problem to do nothing? Anyway how would the FTC solve it? Instead of having a contractual agreement between individual parties, you would prefer the government to ban something? This would for sure end up restricting free exchange more than one-off agreements like this.

How would you feel if all your popular goods had this kind of strings attached to them ?

Buy a PS5, and you better like it because reselling it after the return window will be an arm and a leg. Same for your Roomba, you regret not buying a competitor after a few weeks ? tough luck it's in your closet for the rest of the year and you'll fork the money in full for any other purchase. etc.

If you jail everyone, you'd have jailed all criminals, too. Therefore you could say "pretty obviously intended to stop criminals". But punishing everyone because of a malicious minority defeats the point of your entire action.

They could've just as easily prevented scalping by saying "you can sell your CyberTruck, but for not even a dollar more than the purchase price."

Curious how that's NOT what they said, isn't it?

Talk about a big ole bag of, "yeah, you can keep this horse shit".

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