Tesla Will Support The Used Car Market

It’s not a secret for anyone anymore: Tesla is not selling their cars like everyone else. While the vast majority of manufacturers rely on other companies to get their products into customer’s hands (with varying degree of success), the Californian automaker prefers to sell its vehicles directly to the consumer, via a network of factory-owned stores.

If you are in the market for one of those efficient and beautiful electric cars, but don’t necessarily want to pay the more than $80,000 for a brand-new one, Tesla might have a solution: they will start selling CPO (Certified Pre-Owned) vehicles shortly.

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This decision makes a lot of sense, since the Model S has been on the market for two years, and customers will start returning leased models soon. Also, the gamble played by Elon Musk last year will come into fruition shortly: In 2013, in order to reassure people who were not comfortable buying an unproven car from a new company, he pledged to personally buy back every used Tesla for about 50% of the MSRP, which is about the depreciation rate of a German luxury sedan.

If customers do decide to take their cars back to the manufacturer, it will give Tesla a large inventory of used vehicles as soon as the spring of 2016.