The tri-motor, all-wheel-drive version of Tesla’s battery electric pickup truck—or Cybertruck—sold at a Sotheby’s Motorsport auction on Tuesday for more than twice its US$99,000 sticker price, the first test of resale value for the rare top-of-the line Cybertruck model that isn’t expected to be widely delivered to customers until at least 2025.
A Tesla CyberBeast sold at a Sotheby’s Motorsport auction for $250,000.
Sotheby’s Motorsport
Key Takeaways
- A bid of $262,500 was the highest for the week-long CyberBeast auction, which was sold with no minimum price in a weeklong auction ending Tuesday.
- Auction organizers at Sotheby’s expected the truck would sell for well above its suggested retail price of $99,000, but the bidding war was the first time the CyberBeast model of the Tesla truck—the most expensive model with a 320-mile range, 845 horsepower and 0 to 60 time of 2.6 seconds—has sold on the secondary market.
- The CyberBeast goes from 0 to 60 in 1.5 seconds faster than the mid-range model truck, has 245 more horsepower and a top speed of 130 mph, up from the 112 mph of the next step down.
- A total of 108 bids were placed for the brand new truck, which was sold at auction by a dealer.
Key Background
Tesla first announced it would make the Cybertruck pickup in 2019. Called the “finest in apocalypse technology” by Tesla founder Elon Musk, the concept for the truck was unveiled that year and interested customers could place reservations for the vehicle for a $100 deposit. By the end of the month, more than half a million people had made reservations, Musk said. The Cybertruck program faced a number of delays, some of which Musk has blamed on supply chain shortages.
It wasn’t until November of that year by which time there were roughly 2 million reservations for the vehicle, that the first Cybertrucks were delivered to a handful of customers and updates on pricing and specifications were finally revealed. Deliveries of the base version of the Cybertruck (which costs $60,990) are expected in 2025 and the two higher-end configurations (priced at $79,990 and $96,390) will roll out this year.
Because there are so few Cybertrucks on the road, they’ve been projected to be popular on the secondary market due to a combination of “low supply, high interest and the ‘eccentric’ image of Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk,” Bloomberg reported. The Cyberbeast sold Monday was the first of the high-end models to hit the auction block, according to Sotheby’s. An ongoing auction for a Cybertruck at SBX Cars has reached $96,000. Two weeks ago, the first Cybertruck of any model to hit an online auction failed to meet its minimum price.
Crucial Quote
“It’s a lot more expensive than I thought,” Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management told Bloomberg when prices were released. “They need to get production up to get the price down… The reality is that the Cybertruck isn’t really out yet.”
Tangent
The Cybertruck has been labeled a “novelty item” and experts aren’t sure there’s a market for such a futuristic looking truck. Musk told Tesla investors in October that it “dug our own grave with the Cybertruck” due to its difficulty to market and troubles reaching enough production volume to be “prosperous.” Ed Kim of AutoPacific told Forbes there is “no widespread consumer demand for a bullet-resistant exterior” and Jeffries analyst Philippe Houchois said in a note that the model is expected to “drag the company’s profit and cash.”
How Many Cybertrucks Have Sold?
Nobody knows. Tesla didn’t break out Cybertruck purchases in its most recent quarterly delivery results and has not revealed how many actual sales are expected compared to the number of reservations made.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
