Tesla Threatens Customer with $50K Fine If He Tries to Sell His Cybertruck | Hacker News Reader

Tesla Threatens Customer with $50K Fine If He Tries to Sell His Cybertruck

jalopnik.com

53 pointsthunderbong26 comments

I believe the rationale here originally was to dissuade people from flipping Cybertrucks for profit, since there's a lot of demand and they want to fill the genuine orders first, so it's been in the agreement for a long time to not resell it, but it's still mad to make him pay 50k for a product he owns.

If the original intent was to stop scalper (which I agree with), the agreement could have said “you’re not allowed to sell it for a profit. If you sell it at or below cost, you’re fine”.

then some would sell at the same price they bought plus their profit under the table.

Is that really the most pressing problem we should be tackling in the consumer law? Some people willing to pay more than retail for things they really want?

This creates artificial inflation for the cost of the product which does nobody any good.

Look back to the launch of the PS5 or the switch for a great example of what happens.

Sure, they raised the price, but I wouldn't call that artificial inflation. Isn't it more like, the launch price was artificially low, and the scalpers brought the price to the true market price?

By your logic, buying all food in a region, monopolizing it and then reselling it at a 1000% margin is fine, after all, that's the real market price now.

I get where you're coming from, but it's a morally bankrupt viewpoint, honestly. These kinds of actions are usually called profiteering, and while it works and is absolutely highly profitable, it's also easy to leave your humanity behind.

While this article (car) isn't quiet es problematic if scalped as it's essentially a luxury product, the argument you made to justify it would also apply to everything else, and that should tell you that the action itself is at the very least morally questionable.

> By your logic, buying all food in a region, monopolizing it and then reselling it at a 1000% margin is fine, after all, that's the real market price now.

The market price wouldn't go up like that if you did that. Other people would import food into the region for a much smaller margin than that, and you'd be left with nothing but empty pockets and a lot of spoiled food.

Oh boy do I have news for you: It does work, and has been done before. It's just illegal now.

It's also a lot harder to pull of in today's hyperconnected world with easy travel between towns etc in the context of food, but the strategy works.

> Oh boy do I have news for you: It does work, and has been done before. It's just illegal now.

It's also easier to impose limits on purchase now, in the digital era. Both online and physical stores tend to have limits on in-demand items (not sure if these are imposed manually or automatically, based on demand), so you're unlikely to be able to purchase anything but a few % of the total available inventory, at least not without significant time investment and involving other people.

Yes. Signed: anyone who wants to go see Taylor Swift live.

(Serious answer: yes, but only when supply can’t keep up with demand to avoid people with capital abuse their position to create artificial scarcity. Examples: Tickets from certain artists, some particular consumer goods, houses being bought out by insurance companies, etc)

How are they creating artificial scarcity? Wouldn't that only be if they lowered the total number of Cybertrucks, or the total number of seats available at the concert?

No need to tackle the law in this case, Tesla saw it coming and solved it themselves.

If you don't like how anti-scalping provisions affect you, make sure the car fits in your garage.

Masterful Gambit, Sir.

The secondary intent is to crush the real market at any price to keep Tesla customers from competing with Tesla.

I'd like to see the laws around this kind of thing changed in two ways:

1. Contracts banning resale outright should be prohibited. The strongest similar provision allowed should be a right of first refusal at the original purchase price.

2. Freedom of association should be limited to human persons. Companies as large as Tesla shouldn't have any more power to ban customers than the USPS does.

What size should a parking spot be? Who should pay for a larger one?

Over the last number of years, it feels like large vehicles have become more commonly used but most built infrastructure remains the same. I notice this at the city owned parking lot a couple blocks from my house - the whole thing becomes very difficult to navigate with the length and width of some modern pickup trucks/SUVs. It sounds like it's not a big enough issue in this parking lot (perhaps because it's only one large vehicle) but it would become an issue if everyone were driving a cybertruck there.

Should parking spots in parking lots be made bigger? This would probably mean fewer spots / more expensive. Should cars be split into "standard" and "XL" classes? XL spaces or lots that support XL cars could be priced accordingly. People purchasing vehicles would have a better sense of "oh this car won't be allowed in many parking spots.

Even "standard" cars have become bigger in past decades. In many countries the norms of width and length of parking spots have been updated. So it is not just pickups, but pretty much all cars outside very few models like maybe Smart.

No, parking spots should be made smaller and people should be prohibited from buying large vehicles unless commercially or otherwise necessary

I disagree with this approach. Forced compliance by the “stick” approach I think never wins against a compelling “carrot” approach. Some people are reflexively defiant to what they see as arbitrary punishments for personal choices. Incentivizing smaller and more efficient cars is better. This is an electric truck, it’s still big, but would the net positives of someone buying an electric truck be better than a gas one regardless of size?

Not really. It’s not just the massively inefficient ICE drive train that makes large trucks dangerous and a poor fit for sharing roads with smaller cars or bikes.

It’s also the ponderous size the lack of visibility and sheer weight.

Cybertruck has all the rest of the problems. It’s in fact bigger and heavier than most trucks.

On a related note, many economists argue public free parking should not exist. People should have to pay the real cost of providing it, which includes maintenance, but also the opportunity cost of not using that land for something else. Therefore larger spaces should cost more.

It would be nice if he did get a lawyer and we got some new case law that banned ridiculous contracts like this. But seems like he is already feeling defeated after the divorce.

Probably don't need new law. It looks like a textbook unenforceable penalty masquerading as liquidated damages clause.

OK, I think that agreement may not fly in a sane court, but ...

1 year ? Did he divorce and move happen a week after buying the truck ? 1 year is not that long to wait. So, make arrangements to park in the back or visitors lot and take 2 spaces with the complex stating "on this date I will sell and get a regular car."

Or maybe even temporally swap the truck with a friend for the limited time.

This will surely help sales numbers

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