Lifestyle
The Cost of Selling Your Tesla and Buying a Newer Model
With Tesla constantly releasing new updates, it’s inevitable that your newly purchased Tesla will one day feel outdated. A prime example would be the flood of RWD Model S’ that hit the second hand market after Tesla announced that it would release the dual motor “D” variant. And now with the Model X available, Model S owners are thinking about trading in their beloved electric sedan for the newest shiny Tesla with falcon wing doors. I would be one that falls into this category. Here’s my analysis on what it would cost to upgrade to a newer Tesla.
A short while ago I configured a Model X and a Model S to specifications that I would buy in present day. This came out to $103,200 and $88,450 respectively after available tax credits. For reference my current Model S cost me $92,443 after tax credits.
Understandably, Tesla does not offer a retrofit for the autopilot hardware though we calculated a hypothetical $67,000 cost to upgrade if it were available. Maybe one day Tesla will offer upgradeable hardware but for now having recurring firmware updates that refreshes functionality on the car isn’t so bad.
Trade Ins
If I were to use Tesla’s math to compute trade in value for my 21 month old Model S with 55,000 miles, it would theoretically have a value somewhere along these lines:
This math is clearly not accurate, and since I was seriously considering the Model X or a newer Model S, I asked Tesla for a true trade in value.
Tesla came back with a trade in value of $49,200. Their resale price as a CPO vehicle would be $55,100:
This is a heck of a lot better than the original formula, but I’ve still used 48% of the original value in less than 2 years. At this trade in value, the effective cost of trading up to new X or S would be $54,000 and $39,250, respectively.
CPO Comparisons
My trade in value made me curious on what other CPOs sold for so I hit up the excellent EV-CPO Consolidator which provides a great deal of information about Tesla CPO cars.
Browsing that site you’ll be hard pressed to find a 2014 Model S with anything close to my mileage. The closest I found was a 2014 Model S in Los Angeles with 48K miles listed for sale at $55,600, just a bit above the quote I got. I don’t know if that car is in as good a shape as mine (I’ve seen some really beat up CPO cars), but the pricing, age and configuration are at least consistent with my quote.
As you’d expect mileage and available features make the most difference in the CPO price. 2014 S85 model CPO prices can range from a low of $55,600 to $79,200 for a low mileage, late 2014 loaded Model S. Within New England the range is only from $56,200 to $67,400.
Kelly Blue Book
Next stop was Kelly Blue Book. Their trade in value came in between $49,305 and $57,740 with an average of $53,549. My Model S, before taxes, was $93,970. So the trade in price per Kelly Blue Book is 57% of the original price.
If you believe the KBB quote, Tesla is on the low end of the trade in values. This seems to be consistent with some posts I’ve seen on TMC and the Tesla forum. If you find your own dealer and trade directly with them you can potentially increase your trade in value by up to $5,000. If you sell privately you may be able to get up to $10,000 more over Tesla’s offer.
Selling privately however can bring its own set of problems, especially in states like Massachusetts where there are strong Lemon Aid Laws that allow individuals to buy a car, drive it for 7 days and then bring it back for a 100% refund if for some reason there’s an issue with state inspection. Selling privately also comes with a huge commitment to arrange for test drives and educate your driver on how to operate an EV. Here in New England EVs aren’t everywhere yet and the Tesla is still a rare car to see.
Competitive Comparisons
To see how other cars “in the same class” compare to the Model S in terms of trade in value, I picked the Porsche Panamera S. E-hybrid to benchmark against. The average trade in value for that car is $53,746 which is very comparable to my Model S. Configuring a Panamera will drive you crazy but it seems that a new one similarly configured would go for $95,270 before taxes. So the trade in price per Kelly Blue Book is 56.4% of the original price, which is about the same as the Model S.
According to EVObsession, the Mercedes S-Class was #1 in the Large Car Luxury Market in 2014, but the Model S blew past that in 2015. I came up with a new price of $91,328 and an average trade in value (same mileage/year as mine) of $57,782 or 63.2% of the original price — the Mercedes seems to retain a bit more value although they’re still in the same range.
Summary
That very first mile you put on your new car has a huge effective cost whether it’s on a Tesla or any other car from a different manufacturer. Trade in values for Model S’ are in line with other cars in its class, although Tesla’s trade in value tends to be on the lower end of the spectrum.
If you’re looking to get top dollar for your used Model S, consider trading it in to a company other than Tesla or selling your Model S privately. Both bring additional levels of hassle but that extra lift can be worth the additional value.
Even if I were to receive $5,000 over Tesla’s trade in value, I’d still be looking at an upgrade cost of over $30,000 to trade up from my Model S (which is less than 2 years old) to a new dual motor Model S with autopilot, upgraded seats, and all of the other improvements and tweaks Tesla made over the last couple years. Is it worth it?
If the gap was closer perhaps the decision would be a lot easier, but in this range for me, and with the recent news that Tesla will be adding more autopilot hardware in the future, I think keeping my Model S and enjoying it is the right way to go.
Besides, with more Model Xs hitting the streets every day, the all wheel drive “D” Model S will inevitably start appearing as CPO inventory. This will open up a whole new world of options. Wait and see is probably still the best choice for those looking to trade up from an earlier Model S.
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
Lifestyle
Tesla saves its passengers again – This time after a 300-foot cliff fall in Malibu
A Tesla Model 3 fell 300 feet off a Malibu cliff and both passengers survived.
A Tesla Model 3 plunged roughly 300 feet off a cliff on Mulholland Highway in Malibu on Friday morning, May 29, 2026, and both occupants survived. The crash was reported at approximately 7:30 a.m. near the 2500 block of Mulholland Highway, triggering a multi-agency rescue operation involving Malibu Search and Rescue, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, the California Highway Patrol, and McCormick Ambulance.
When first responders arrived, the male driver was outside the vehicle shouting for help while the female passenger remained pinned inside the Tesla. Rescue crews rappelled down the cliffside on ropes to reach the wreckage. A flight medic was lowered by helicopter to begin treating both victims, and the driver was hoisted up to the roadway before crews used the Jaws of Life to free the trapped passenger. Both were airlifted to a local trauma center with moderate injuries despite a remarkable result for a fall that steep.
The outcome is not surprising, considering Model 3 earned an overall 5-star rating from NHTSA in every category and sub-category, and recorded the lowest probability of injury of any car ever evaluated by the U.S. New Car Assessment Program. The absence of a traditional engine in the front of the vehicle creates a longer crumple zone that absorbs impact energy before it reaches occupants, and the battery pack running along the floor gives the car an unusually low center of gravity that reinforces structural rigidity.
This is not the first time a Tesla has kept passengers alive after going off a cliff. A Tesla Model Y carrying a family of four survived a plunge off a cliff at Devil’s Slide near San Francisco in January 2023, with two adults and two children walking away from a 250-foot fall. That incident drew widespread attention to how the structural integrity of Tesla’s electric platform performs in extreme crash scenarios that most vehicles would not survive.
Tesla Model Y driver who drove off cliff with family attempts to avoid criminal conviction
Elon Musk
NASA’s first human outpost on the Moon starts now – SpaceX on deck
NASA named the rovers, landers, and vendors that will build America’s first Moon Base.
NASA has laid out its most detailed Moon Base plan to date, describing a permanent outpost near the Moon’s south pole that the agency intends to build over the coming decade as a direct stepping stone to Mars. “The Moon Base will be America’s and humanity’s first outpost on another celestial world,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, adding that every mission crewed and uncrewed “will be a learning opportunity as we return to the lunar surface, build the infrastructure to stay, and master the skills required to live and operate in one of the most demanding and dangerous environments imaginable.”
The plan is structured in three phases involving both uncrewed and crewed missions to deliver equipment, vehicles, and infrastructure to the surface, with the first three moon base missions targeted to launch before the end of 2026.
Moon Base I, targeting fall 2026, will use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to deliver scientific instruments to the Shackleton Connecting Ridge, the same region where Artemis astronauts will land. Moon Base II will send Astrobotic’s Griffin lander carrying more than 1,100 pounds of cargo including Astrolab’s FLIP rover to begin developing mobility systems on the surface. Moon Base III will carry the Lunar Vertex science mission on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lander to study lunar swirls near the south pole, with ESA and Korean science payloads aboard.
On the rover side, NASA awarded Astrolab $219 million and Lunar Outpost $220 million to build the first phase of Lunar Terrain Vehicles, with both rovers targeted for deployment to the lunar surface by 2028. Astrolab’s crewed rover weighs roughly 2,000 pounds and can reach over 6 mph. Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover can operate autonomously or via remote control at over 9 mph. Blue Origin separately received $188 million with an option worth $280.4 million to deliver cargo landers for rover transport.
NASA also confirmed that MoonFall, a mission deploying four survey drones to scout Artemis landing sites, has selected Firefly Aerospace to build the transport spacecraft, with a 2028 launch target.
SpaceX sits at the center of that commercial layer. SpaceX holds the NASA Human Landing System contract for the Starship-derived lander that will put astronauts on the surface under Artemis IV, currently targeting 2028. Before that can happen, SpaceX must demonstrate in-orbit propellant transfer at scale, a process requiring multiple Starship tanker launches to fuel a single mission. Water ice at the lunar south pole is central to the base’s long-term viability, as it can be converted into drinking water, breathable oxygen, and rocket fuel, directly reducing dependence on Earth resupply. That resource loop becomes far more practical if Starship can land and be refueled on or near the Moon itself.
Elon Musk has publicly stated that Starship V3, which recently completed its first flight, should be capable enough for initial Mars missions. The Moon Base plan announced Tuesday is the infrastructure layer that connects everything between those two ambitions, and SpaceX is the only American company currently contracted to build the rocket that gets humans to either destination.

