After just a few weeks, Tesla Cybertrucks have already stopped commanding $200,000+ auction prices as the resale market becomes lightly flooded with the stainless steel monstrosities. One wholesaler even told Automotive News that it was “a market crash.”
Tesla, rather famously, has a massive reservation backlog for the electric pickup truck that launched back in November. Since then, dealers have been paying more than double the sticker price for Foundation Series Cybertrucks. Earlier this week, we reported on a flipped Cybertruck that was being flipped again by a Florida Porsche dealership for nearly $300,000, and it’s no longer on the dealer’s website.
Oh, how times have changed. A Manheim auction in Dallas on March 5 brought final bids of $195,500 and $189,000 for two Cybertrucks auctioned by the wholesaler givemethevin.com, according to AutoNews. Those are fairly strong numbers, but when you consider that the wholesaler sold a Cybertruck for $244,000 last week, it doesn’t look too good.
Here’s some more information from AutoNews on the latest Cybertruck crash (though, admittedly the wheels stayed on this time), from Automotive News:
“This is what I was afraid would happen in the Cybertruck market from last week,” said John Clay Wolfe, president and founder of givemethevin.com, or GMTV. “Just absolutely crashed,” he said Wednesday on Instagram.
”Why? People raced to be the first,” Wolfe said. “Where’s it going to settle? Don’t know, but we deal in an open-market system and it is what it is.” He also said a different seller got $191,000 for a Cybertruck at the auction.
In a press release, GMTV said it’s adjusting its offers to Cybertruck owners who want to sell to the wholesaler, which said it has annual revenues of nearly $2 billion. “We’ve adjusted all of GMTV’s offers on Tesla Cybertrucks based on today’s market,” Wolfe said in the release.
A base Cybertruck Foundation Series has a sticker price of $102,235 (including destination), but it is only being sold through invitations by Tesla to reservation holders. If you want a Foundation Series Cyberbeast, you’re going to need to fork over $20,000 more.
Tesla is trying extremely hard to deter this type of flippage from happening, but it doesn’t really seem to be working. There’s even a clause in the sales agreement that forbids resale within 12 months of purchase, and if you disobey it, Tesla could hit you with a $50,000+ penalty.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.