Depreciation is the number one consumer cost when it comes to buying a new car fresh from the factory. This has always been the case, as vehicles tend to lose a significant chunk of their value from the moment you take possession. That’s even more true in the world of luxury cars and doubly (trebly?) so when it comes to electric vehicles. So when Tesla launched the $140,000, 1020-horsepower Model S Plaid super sedan, it was a foregone conclusion that its value would drop like a stone, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted quite the level of fall off that Out Of Spec’s Kyle Conner has experienced.
Conner’s 2022 Model S Plaid cost a whopping $140,940 after options and fees to buy. Since the car was delivered he has driven it an impressive 37,191 miles. A recent tweet on Twitter from Kyle shows Tesla’s trade-in value for the car is a paltry $46,400. In just two short years the car’s value has tanked $94,540, or $2.54 per mile in depreciation.
Teslas are particularly hard hit by depreciation for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that Tesla continues to drop the prices of its cars to help drive sales in futile attempts to meet quarterly goals. The Model S Plaid’s price has fallen to just $89,990 in the time since Conner purchased his example. I get mad when I purchase a pair of jeans for $50 and they go on sale the next week for $45, I would be irrationally pissed if I bought a new car and then the price went down 26 percent the next year.
The used car values of Teslas are tanking in part because fewer people are interested in being seen as Tesla owners. Between Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s descent into 1930s Germany-style fascism, his continued lies, and his extremely weird divorced guy energy, he’s just not someone a lot of people want to associate with in 2024. And that’s on top of the terrible long-term quality of the cars the company builds. Conner himself admits that his Model S Plaid “feels like it’s falling apart.”
