Connect with us

Lifestyle

The Cost of Selling Your Tesla and Buying a Newer Model

Published

on

With Tesla constantly releasing new updates, it’s inevitable that your newly purchased Tesla will one day feel outdated.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:

Advertisement

Trade in calculation

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:

Trade In Value

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.

Advertisement

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

KBB Trade inNext 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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement

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.

 

Advertisement

"Rob's passion is technology and gadgets. An engineer by profession and an executive and founder at several high tech startups Rob has a unique view on technology and some strong opinions. When he's not writing about Tesla

Advertisement
Comments

Investor's Corner

Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”

Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.

Published

on

By

Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.

While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure

The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.

Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

Advertisement

Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.

Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.

As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.

Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

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.

Published

on

By

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.

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

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.

Published

on

By

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.

Advertisement

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

Continue Reading