How expensive is it to repair a Tesla Cybertruck? It’s a complicated question, but we now have at least one answer. That’s all thanks to automotive outlet Edmunds, which has shared the woeful tale of the crash that took out their very own Cybertruck.
Much controversy has raged over whether modern vehicles like these are feasible to repair or not. A lot was made a couple of years ago about the $42,000 needed to repair a minor fender-bender with a Rivian. Much of this comes down to the heavy use of aluminum casting and innovative construction techniques. The Cybertruck is an even more unique case, thanks to its reliance on panels made out of a bespoke stainless steel alloy that is quite unlike anything else on the market.
Anecdotes aren’t data, per se, but the Edmunds story is an enlightening one. The outlet has explained in full detail just what happened when their long-term Cybertruck tester was hit last year. It’s sobering reading—whether you own a Cybertruck, or were thinking about buying one.
Edmunds is a big player in the automotive media space. Rather than simply taking on review cars from automakers, the outlet sometimes elects to purchase vehicles outright to perform extended long-term reviews. Last July, Edmunds published a story outlining its new Tesla Cybertruck, which came in at a total price of $101,985. It had secured a Foundation Series model with the twin-motor drivetrain, good for 600 horsepower. It was intended that the pointy truck would go through a full one-year road test program. Sadly, that would not come to pass.
Problems with the Cybertruck came thick and fast. It suffered through an initial bout of steering issues, which were not uncommon for launch models, and then continued to fail as the months rolled by. Before the outlet could even take the truck off-road or perform any real testing, it ended up the victim of somebody else’s crash. In December last year, the parked Cybertruck was hit by a small sedan on the driver’s side, impacting the rear wheel and bumper. The crash left the Cybertruck pushed up on to the curb, with serious damage. Beyond the exterior panels and the rear wheel, the chassis structures underneath had taken a hard hit, and the rear axle was broken, too.
Had the Cybertruck been a regular vehicle, Edmunds may have been able to drop it off at any old body shop. Instead, the stainless steel truck had to go to a Tesla shop that was specially prepared to handle the vehicle. At the time, only two existed within 50 miles of Los Angeles. It took two months to get an appointment, but eventually, the beleaguered truck was seen to by the professionals.
It cost a total of $1,128 just to inspect the vehicle, and the repair quote that followed was even less pretty. The shop wanted $57,879.89 to put the Cybertruck right. This compared poorly to the value of the vehicle, which stood at $86,160 in its pre-crash condition. That was enough to mark it a total loss. The Cybertruck would be written off.
The simple fact is that the Cybertruck took extensive damage in the accident. As per the eight-page repair estimate, it needed a lot of work. Highlights include line items for new rear suspension ($9,149), a new rear motor and supporting components ($4,191), and a new rear bed ($8,762, including $4,280 for the rear aluminum section). There’s a full breakdown in the Edmunds article, which includes $16,584 in labor costs and $3,320 in tax to boot. Fixing the Cybertruck, was—in this case—simply too expensive to consider.
Thus, the eventual fate of the Edmunds Cybertruck was confirmed. The battered remains were sent off to Copart for $8,000. An inauspicious end to what was a six-figure truck just a few months before. It sets a new record for Edmunds in terms of losses on a long-term car—a credit which formerly belonged to the Fisker Ocean, which plummeted in value from $70,000 to $13,000 in just one year.
It bears noting that a single anecdote is not data. There are Cybertrucks which have been involved in smaller crashes, and they’ve undoubtedly ended up back on the road with less than five figures spent on repairs. At the same time, you could be forgiven for looking at the Edmunds truck and assuming it was recoverable. Most of the panels were still straight, and it overall didn’t look that bad. And yet, all it took was one misplaced compact sedan to render this totem of steel into a 6,000-pound paperweight.
Image credits: Edmunds (supplied)
While this story is specific to Tesla, I think that there is a parallel with other brands and damage. My daughter owned a Lincoln branded Explorer, (An MKWTF?). She had a relatively minor incident and struck a pole. No injuries and early morning sun in her eyes was the legitimate reason. However since it was a frontal impact all the airbags went off. While the bodywork may have been a multi thousand dollar damage the airbags pushed the repair costs over the top and a relatively useable vehicle became scrap.
I think it’s not uncommon for airbag deployment to drive the repair cost of even a not-too-big impact over the line into ‘salvage value’ as far as the insurance company is concerned. Years ago, I bought a salvage title Miata (NB with only 3,000 miles on it) and I saw photos from before it was repaired, and JEEZ, it barely looked too bad. Both front airbags deployed, but the car didn’t even need a hood… the damage was mostly limited to the nose cap, one fender and front suspension bits on one side. But with two airbags gone off, it was enough to total the car even though it was only a year old when the accident happened.
I understand the need for factory-fresh airbags after an incident, but what is it about replacing airbags that make it cost prohibitive do you know? It’s just parts. Add in a new sensor, dash skin but are they really so expensive to warrant trashing the car? Insurance pays for it most of the time, especially on a newer vehicle.
Well, a NB Miata was a car with an MSRP in the $20Ks when new, and I seem to recall that the two airbags by themselves, plus the dash and ignition sensors, etc… added a few thousand to the body/suspension repair costs. Considering the car lost a chunk of value the moment it left the dealership as all new cars do once they’re sold, all the repairs plus the airbags made the insurance co. (I dunno which one it was) decide to total the car even though it only had 3K miles on it when it got hit/hit something.
I think I paid about $9K for the car once it was fixed (including new airbags, the mechanic gave me the option to not have them reinstalled and pay less but I had him put them in) with a salvage title. I drove that car a little for about five years, then sold it for pretty close to what I paid. After selling it, I missed it so much (even though I only used it on weekends mostly) that I went out and bought another Miata (also black, this time an NA with 85Kmiles, with no title and a hardtop, for $2,250.). I still have/drive that one.
I still feel that Copart has a lot to with all of this. repairing cars seems to be the rarity over the norm these days. the end user gets a repaired car, but with a wreck on the record, the value is down. insurance companies and end users seem to get a chance to request some of that lost value back. So on top of the high cost of repairs on just about everything, the Copart system seems to be good for insurance companies now that so many shady repair places are trolling the Copart lots for things they can tart up and then charge top dollar for. all the while the insurer pays you what they consider market value regardless if they or you can even find the same year and mileage replacement car anywhere in the country.
I agree this should not totally be a Tesla story. I read this story as half related to Tesla/Cybertruck reparability and half a general indictment on the reparability of all modern vehicles. Two years ago I got rear ended while driving Honda CRV. It was a solid impact but no airbag deployment or injuries. After a few days of the shop and insurance companies comparing options the thing was totaled. I don’t think we’re going to start claiming that Honda designs unreasonable vehicles. Yes, there are additional factors with a Cybertruck, but anything build in the last 15 years is vulnerable.
Same story. My wife’s Audi A3 had a rear ending. A kid in dad’s new Q7 came around a corner too quickly right into my wife’s car which was waiting to turn into a lot. Since he hit with the corner of his bumper to the center of hers, it pushed the trunk lid in slightly, but everything else looked normal and it drove normally. The body shop took it apart and said nope its totaled as there was a slight bend in the structure under the parcel shelf.
Yah a 25+ mph hit is not “mild”.
Like is barely slower than my EVO which in a front hit made the trunk not close. The big dent in the roof was a clue if the tree replacing my A pillar wasn’t.
That’s what the airbags going off tell me
Seems like time for a company like PlaneTags to buy a wrecked cybertruck and cut it into little keychains. Seems like there’s well more that 8k worth of Tesla jewelry to be had from that skin.
Somebody needs to start making Tesla themed Truck Ballz. I think there’s a strong overlap between people who would buy them and those that would buy a CT.
Maybe dead CT carcasses would be a great source for the raw materials.
Then again, given the CT sales, it’s probably not worth the investment.
I understand the whole gigacasting thing and how it reduces the number of parts, simplifies assembly, and (theoretically) makes the car cost less (at least for the manufacturer if not necessarily the buyer). But I’ve yet to hear/read a believable defense (even from a couple of Teslastans I know) explaining how these things will be anything other than very expensive and complicated to repair after significant impacts.
Pretty much this. I can understand designers’ and engineers’ reasons to want to minimize seams on panels, which isn’t great for repairability but does fit in line with luxury cars’ whole schtick, but at least make the bits underneath out of multiple, easier-to-repair parts.
It is possible to make castings and servicability possible, but for reasons that cannot be explained unless Tesla decides to give away tons of IP, Tesla will simply refuse to do that.
It’s nice for Tesla because it saves them money during production but just makes it more expensive for the owner and other insured drivers. What’s it to them? Every totaled Tesla is a future Tesla sale.
Prolly not in the now…
The Autopian even ran a story a while back about the repairability of gigacastings. IIRC, it boiled down to: “It has to be very minor damage, in the right place, and you have to find someone willing to attempt it.”
For all practical purposes, gigacastings should be considered unrepairable.
That, and the inherent liability woes re: the battery pack itself after an accident. We’ve all seen those photos of big lots filled with unfixed Teslas… with the constant MSRP drops plus regular/inevitable depreciation, the math doesn’t work out when it comes to fixing much more than minor/cosmetic damage after a collision.
To be fair “significant impacts” total most uni-body vehicles. Its my understanding that mild battery pack damage are the biggest drivers in totaling of electric vehicles as their are few people that want to repair those damages and fewer that want to own an electric vehicle with battery pack damage.
I’d assume more Teslas were totalled by insurance companies due to the cost of replacing the battery pack rather than that of cutting/rewelding chunks of gigacasting. I’d assume not every mom and pop body shop can even deal with that stuff yet.
I’m astonished at the parts bill. An entire rear suspension, rear motor, and bed is $22,102, plus a Mitsubishi Mirage worth of labor to install them. Apparently cast assemblies have to be replaced plus a bunch of sensors and minor bits. This makes the magnesium radiator support in the F150 look like child’s play. Then again Ford parts can be bought from Rock Auto and Tesla parts cannot.
Various YouTube videos have shown the wank panzer has a glass jaw but this is ridiculous. I think an F150 Lightning in a similar collision would be both faster and cheaper to fix.
That’s the buried lead here; this is a monumental amount of damage to a truck from a “compact sedan“. The cost of the parts is outrageous, but the list of damaged parts more so.
Major parts cost on a $100K+ vehicle are major. After an over 5mph hit you have gone into the safety cell of the vehicle which is far too costly to repair to provide the original level of security.
So the “safety” cell of a massive stainless steel truck, with supposedly bulletproof glass and marketed to “alphas” can be breached by a child on a scooter.. Got it
How is it that you find that a surprise?
May be if they had called 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS they could have had a bigger write-off… jk/
I’d set a car on fire before donating to them. (Not only is the ad obnoxious, but the money goes to some BS religious camp for kids.)
I’m sure this has been noted in the comments … but Copart is a big financial supporter of this website … and stories like this have got to be at least 50% calculated to drive web traffic to Copart … right? Like, “woah, I could find and buy that Cybertruck on Copart, fix it, and have a bargain of a deal!” Right? Am I way off base here?
There was 0% calculation involved in any of that, nor is that the way the web works (I don’t see a link to Copart in this article). There are two major companies in the United States that do this so the odds were pretty good it would end up with one of them, it’s just a coincidence that it’s Copart.
Cool! Thanks for the response!
LOL at “that’s not the way the web works” – uhhh ok Mr. Explainer Man – as “Copart” shows up 22 times on this page that also comes back with 56 instances of “Cybertruck.”
For a lot of anti-Tesla remarks in various other posts, the same people throwing tantrums at a “misleading headline” in defense of a CyberTruck is absurd.
What was the old headline? If it was “Edmunds Resets CyberTruck Values With $8,000 Sale to Copart”, then I can believe the hysteria over this.
If it’s not, someone’s going to have a really hard time explaining to this dude on how any other title somehow;
Sure sounds like Edmunds CyberTruck is worth $8,000 to me.
The headline didn’t mention Copart of the wreck, it was basically “Edmunds sells their Cybertruck for $8000.” You had to click through to learn it was in a wreck. the Autopian got called out on it and to their credit corrected the headline and added more context to the article that wasn’t there originally.
So, in no way, shape, or form did they state that Edmunds reset CyberTruck values?
By god, my brain actually hurts from this. No one commenting makes any sense.
In order for the headline to insinuate anything else, it needed to say that the sale reset market values.
Otherwise, Edmunds Cybertruck IS worth $8,000. End of story.
It also equates loss of value from an accident (and not including the insurance payment they likely received) to depreciation (exemplified by the Fisker comparison), which is misleading at best.
To be fair, this seems to have come from Edmunds itself, but is still not something I would have included in the article.
This is the internet/news. Few people read the details, even fewer do their own research, and many don’t go beyond a headline. If it says something, many if not most people will simply equate it to the simplest basis they can (or want to) relate to, i.e. “wow, those things sure do depreciate fast.” Not everyone has your intellect. Spelling out context matters.
That might be the most offensive thing anyone has said about multiple people at once, because I can assure you: I don’t have much intellect at all!
The price you pay for greater clicks from Cybertruck articles are comments sections filled with weird nerds who have a rage boner over some perceived minor inaccuracy with the reporting of a vehicle they can’t afford.
This could be repaired with used parts. Find one with front end damage and swaparoo. Sledgehammer the body panel into shape and keep on going. Some shade tree mechanic could probably do it. Yank the pyro fuses first to isolate the HV battery.
Whether it should be repaired is another issue.
Insurance most likely wouldn’t allow used parts, nor Tesla’s facility. For DIY, the specialized labor involved would make it a difficult undertaking if one were to collect a few of these white elephants to make one operational (it can’t be simple to replace even “just” the entire rear aluminum casting).
A few insurance companies have allowed the use of inspected used parts. My last car had used sheetmetal on it from a rear wrecked car. I couldn’t tell a difference once I got the car back. Those repairs held up the remaining decade I had the car.
Tesla has standards for what can be cut and reattached. As long as it’s within the limits and done by someone competent, it “should” be fine.
I get why insurance companies don’t want to take the risk. That should is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
I think they only do that on older vehicles with low values, though? At least, that’s my experience, and that was with much simpler cars and a simpler time. Even when my comparatively dead simple Mazda3 was hit and was pretty new, they would only allow new parts. It was their money, but they totally could have thrown a used hatch on there and I wouldn’t have cared. If I was repairing it out of pocket, I definitely would have done that.
My car was about two years old at the time. This was about 2013-2014. Maybe since then things have changed.
This would have been probably about ’07. Maybe companies vary in what they allow, too, IDK.
My insurance company was spec’ing used parts to replace a mirror cap and front fender trim on my Q3. My body shop wasn’t having it and made them come out and reassess the cost with all new parts. The vehicle is 9 years old, under 80k miles.
Now I’m curious as to what the deal is for when they allow or spec used parts. At some point, some cars are probably forced to use aftermarket or used (or they’re totaled), but I wonder if there’s some formula they use and if it varies by company.
This is partly why insurance kept escalating on my 15 y.o. Focus. If people want to buy expensive cars, they should be in a different risk pool than us plebes that need a car to get to work.
And us plebes need to be insured to cover the loss of a monstrosity like this, even if we choose to drive something modest.
And good luck getting anything reasonable for your Focus even if it’s totaled by someone else.
I doubled my money on a 7-week old 02 Taurus back in 2008, but I would not recommend totalling a car as an investment strategy.
So where does the $610 in paint from the repair estimate go?
The mechanic’s deck and fence
I’ve come out of comment retirement to say that the biased angle of this article is dumb, and I’m disappointed in this website. OoooOOo WOW, A CAR WAS F’ING TOTALED BY A HARD COLLISION! HEADLINE NEWS.
Musk is intolerable and has been for far longer than the mainstream media and public have been aware of. Tesla, by proxy, has also become relatively intolerable. Articles shaming a car for being totaled? Also intolerable. Cut the bias BS
Discussing the real-world impacts of vehicle design/manufacturing methods is entirely valid. As for bias, I’ll point you to this (pre-Cybertruck) article:
https://www.theautopian.com/heres-why-that-rivian-r1t-repair-cost-42000-after-just-a-minor-fender-bender/
I missed your comment retirement party, so good to have you back. This wasn’t my best headline and it’s my fault, not Lewin’s. I’ve updated the headline.
A vehicle being totaled when any other vehicle on the road would have been able to be economically repaired in the same situation is indeed newsworthy.
An impact to the wheel area large enough to push my car onto the curb would 100% total it, and it would total yours too
I’m no physics expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s easier to push something up on a curb that you think. Perhaps even the car was smaller than the truck and thus acted like a wedge making it even easier to get under the truck and lift it.
Without pictures of the two vehicles impacted it’s all just guessing on both of our parts.
I think that is an extreme stretch.
People in the comments implying this a minor collision are missing the fact that a “small sedan” pushed what is really an HD truck up onto a curb.
A large percentage of vehicles on the road would be totaled under those circumstances.
This. I’m no Tesla fan, but this would have economically totalled any vehicle, not just a CyberTruck.
The only interesting thing about this is seeing just how much the parts cost is.
Well my car costs less than the rear suspension of a Cybertruck, so yea, it would be.
I’d like to see a picture of the car that did the damage to see how it fared comparatively.
“Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”
I agree for the most part but I wouldn’t say “any”. Too many vehicles have become too costly to repair- RIvian et. al.
My daughter’s ’09 Vibe was just hit in a similar type collision, I “could” swap out the bent rear axle with one from a junkyard, pull in the window frame with a come-along, resign to never using that door again and call it good. It wouldn’t be right or even really safe, but “could” be made minimally operational for a pittance. Near as I can tell the actual subframe is not bent, the fuel system is intact and working. The car starts and runs without issue. It’s just got a caved in door and bent rear axle. Her car looks worse but actually has less structural damage.
Another clickbait headline. They didn’t sell it for $8000. It was in an accident, they got paid out by an insurance company who took title to the truck and unloaded the remains at copart for $8000. They didn’t take a bigger hit than they did with the Fisker. The Fisker depreciated due to the company going out of business which affected the value. The Cybertruck was in an accident caused by someone else and the article itself says its value at the time was $86,000, 15% less than its new price, that is the amount they rightly could claim from the insurance company. Yes I know this is less compelling of a story.
This is no better than something like “How to buy a McLaren for the price of a ten year old Mirage” – Step 1: Find a totaled McLaren that burned to the ground…
You guys can do better (and usually do). Come on.
So “sold” doesn’t mean “exchanged a thing for money” anymore, or is there specific terminology that applies when it involves [TESLA CYBERTRUCK]
(inappropriate comment edited by DT)
I’m not sure I’m following your reasoning here but the headline makes it sound like the truck was worth $8000 but neglected to mention that it was written off to cause that. I don’t really care about Tesla or Edmunds but how would YOU react if the story was about a Porsche?
“How Edmunds ended up selling their $100k Porsche for $8000”, then you click and find out they crashed it. Yeah, no shit it’s worth less than the day before.
I mean, if you can show me a Porsche that gets into a similarly minor crash that transforms it from $100k to a total loss and just sold essentially for $8k in scrap, I’d agree with you; but that doesn’t really happen. Even Porsche’s aren’t as expensive, difficult, or time consuming to repair. The news here is that the Cybertruck is so shitty that pretty typical fender benders easily translate into a total loss.
I picked the Porsche name at random but it isn’t a stretch to assume that a right rear hit that pushes it up a curb couldn’t easily damage a rear-engined one. 20 years ago a remanufactured Porsche 996 engine was $20,000, I can’t image the list price of a replacement engine for a new model today, I’m guessing easily $50k. What you will see is an additional claim for diminished value as a Porsche with a rear hit is worth significantly less than on untouched one. A $100k F350 perhaps not. A $100k Rivian or Hummer EV? Perhaps yes.
Sorry David.
If true as written, that means:
Had the other driver been insured (even at state minimums) or uninsured and Edmunds been carrying uninsured/underinsured coverage, this would have considerably reduced their losses. Also, seeing what some other totalled CTs have gone for, I’d wager this sold to someone at Copart for somewhere in the mid 20’s if not more.
In fairness, Lewin didn’t say anything that Edmunds itself didn’t already claim. From Edmunds:
Edmunds probably should have added something about insurance for clarity. But as written, Edmunds is currently claiming to have taken a bath after the crash.
So Edmunds sold it directly to Copart rather than have them sell it on their behalf. They took the lowball “WE BUY JUNK CARS” offer. How is this Tesla’s fault?
If you read the source story, Edmunds’ biggest problem isn’t with losing money (though they make a big point of that, too), it’s with the fact that repairing the truck would have cost $58,000 and would have required the truck to be out of service for potentially several months.
That’s not what The Autopian’s article is about though. A story should be encapsulated by the headline.
Going by the headline the story is that a $100k Cybertruck is only worth $8000 six months later. That’s what is frustrating about it. That type of “reporting” is what’s wrong with this country in multiple other ways. You’ll see Fox News or someone lead their broadcast tonight with “Reputable auto website shows that $100k EVs lose 92% of their value in six months”, show a screenshot of your headline, and then immediately pivot to something about a Venezuelan. 🙂
As mentioned below, I think the headline is the issue, not the story. My headline, my bad, it’s fixed.
You may already be doing it, but I suggest letting writers propose at least one headline of their own with their submissions. Most likely it will encapsulate exactly what they think they wrote about. Editorial privilege dictates that you can change it completely (and sometimes likely should for various reasons including readability, clickability, and others) but it would A) teach the writers something and B) perhaps reduce the editorial workload.
We do, sometimes I’ll just stick something when I’m uploading a piece so that the grown-ups know what it is I’m putting into the CMS. Not being a trained writer or journalist my own headlines usually get changed to something more appropriate and helpful, but sometimes they don’t – my recent ‘cars are not art’ piece could have used a better headline because that’s what a lot of readers couldn’t get past, and that was entirely on me.
Thanks for the reply. And I think it makes sense, and you perhaps do learn something from having your “suggestion” edited rather than not bothering in the first place.
BTW, I didn’t agree with the cars not being art thing, but didn’t say anything 🙂 I figured it was meant to be more of an opinion thing which is of course different than a “fact-based” article. Carry on!
As I often fin myself doing, I agreed with Adrian (it’s a commercial product where design is there to improve the item’s function and make it more salable aesthetically, it’s not personal expression), but also didn’t comment as it leads back to the impossible argument of: what is art?, which I had enough of in design school and it’s ultimately down to personal definition. I might agree or disagree with someone else’s idea of what art is, but we’d both be right (or wrong!) as it’s not a clearly definable, quantifiable thing, which is one of the things I like about it.
Hey, you know what? That’s fair. Looks like Matt already did some wrenching on the post!
Thank you, I appreciate that A) Autopian editors actually read and respond to commentary and B) Autopian editors don’t automatically believe or insist they are correct every single time and C) don’t just ignore dissent.
It makes it more of a community of (mostly) reasonable people that can talk TO each other.
In fairness, Lewin should then have quoted that in the article himself. A reader shouldn’t have to go down a rabbit hole to find the explanation for your story.
But I’m assuming had he done so (and you might be thinking as well), that of course it lost more than the Fisker since the Fisker wasn’t in an accident. It’s very easy to win that particular leaderboard challenge if accidents are now part of the accounting. Had they sold the Cybertruck on the open market the day before the crash, Lewin himself says it was worth $86k.
I still maintain the headline is VERY misleading. Nobody would be complaining about clickbait if it had said “Crashed Cybertruck was sold for $8000” But of course less people would click on that. Or maybe even more would to see crashporn, who knows.
It’s my headline, so I’m going to change it to something you suggested. In this case, the goal wasn’t to be click-baity so much as just short, because there’s a lot of nuance here. Again, I think your version is compact and gets it across more clearly. Thank you for the suggestion.
You are welcome and I thank you for applying common sense. I don’t think you guys necessarily *mean* to be clickbaity in general, but I also realize you need something that grabs attention (and clicks) without giving the game away. Sometimes you veer a little too far over the line, the readers here usually comment on that pretty quickly, as I wasn’t the only one. Thanks.
I also added in the bit about RIvian, which is important context.
I want to find out more about this small sedan, which heroically sacrificed itself to take an Incel Camino off the road.
I don’t use the word hero very often, but the driver of that sedan might make me use it.
Is the sedan ok????
That brave little sedan is in Valhalla now, parked amongst the greatest of our champions.
I dunno, we need to see if Elon was also lying about that “the other car will lose” claim about collisions with the Cyberschmuck.
(You know, like he did about the capabilities of this thing, its cost, the timeline of its roll-out, everything he’s said about autonomy, everything he’s said about the entire vaporware second-gen Roadster, DOGE “savings,” blah blah blah, you get the point. Man’s less reliable than a Nissan Altima flood car.)
What’s terrifying is that in the EV center of the US ( California) only 2 shops were within 50 mile to look at it, and it took 3 months just to get the ( not free ) estimate. Damn near impossible to get major service! Yet another reason to avoid the nazimobile.
I mean before I got my Leaf I was under contract for a brand new 24 Wrangler 2 Door Sport V6 6MT, that was built wrong from the factory. It needed one part for it to be fixed, said part was being put on new 25 Wranglers, yet Jeep corporate didn’t allocate one after a month, and after a month passed I checked in again with the dealer and they still had no ETA from Jeep Corporate for a new part. So I canceled the contract.
One would think if you screw up building a vehicle from the factory, are still making the parts to fix your screwup, one would prioritize fixing their mistakes over just pumping up the production numbers, many of which likely with the same issue that apparently will not be addressed.
So while I don’t think 3 months for a paid estimate is good, I’m not surprised in the slightest. There’s that one guy with a very expensive GM Luxury BEV SUV that he planned to use for his 1 man operation limo company, but after a minor accident he was not at fault for he has yet to get a replacement front facia for the car as covered by insurance, even though GM is making brand new SUVs with that same facia. He has been waiting several months.
My theory on all this shit is if buying a new car, buy the simplest new car you can get that does what you want it to, because the automakers are unlikely to allocate parts to it if shit goes wrong, and if they do it’s because they don’t want to have to buy it back due to lemon law.
Yeah, really, you’d think some manager would just drive to the plant, walk onto the production floor, grab a part from a bin and leave, but it doesn’t work that way anymore, they order exactly what they need for the planned production run, not one more, and if they come up short on even one vehicle, it throws the whole operation off
More importantly, it would reduce the year-end bonuses of the people paid to make sure a certain number of cars get made. Which is probably how incorrectly made vehicles get spit out of the factory in the first place.
You would think that, but also, its Stellantis. Same problem with everyone needing 4XE batteries replaced. They are prioritizing the good batteries for new production over replacement. I guess their theory is existing owners already hate them.
That’s not uncommon, you couldn’t take an aluminum F150 to many body shops when they were new either, nor could you with an Audi A8. I’d be pretty picky with who I’d want touching my $100k car, certainly not the guy on the corner buffing out the fender of a Versa with a sign claiming “we repare any kar” along with many run of the mill shops. Many body shops of their own volition won’t touch certain cars and many manufacturers highly recommend a certain level of “approved” bodyshop for their cars. Taking three months to look at it is not a good look obviously, and shows that there is room for good body shops in the market.
I had a speeding Civic spin out in front of me on the highway and I ended up running into him after he spun into the breakdown lane and must have had his foot on the throttle as he ended up shooting back across two lanes into the path of my GR86 where I impacted his left rear wheel at maybe 15 mph. Anyway, most shops were a month out, though I found one that was only about a week. Took 2 more months to see the car again (needed basically the whole front body panels, minus the driver’s fender and headlight) as there just aren’t many parts for them and nothing aftermarket. Good thing no airbags went off and I don’t have that active safety BS on it as I don’t doubt those things would have totaled it. And that’s with my car being completely drivable (though one headlight pointed down). Not that I want to be perceived as defending this monstrosity or Tesla at all, but the estimated length of time out of action is very reasonable, if not the cost or lack of options (though the latter is also understandable with such a . . . unique vehicle).
What surprised me was this was in CA. What if you were in Idaho or some non ev centric location. Wonder what service would be like for the cyber trash truck.
Adding shipping costs and time to the nearest site 1000 miles away?
I wouldn’t want one of these if I was being paid to drive it. Not only for the many practical reasons, how it’s “engineered”, or having to look at it, but even as someone with generally little concern for what people think of me, I wouldn’t want to be seen with it. Someone thinking I’m a psycho, (non-maga) a-hole, or most anything, I don’t care, but chester (not necessarily related to CT owners, just adding it to the intolerable list), maga fascist, “alpha” wannabe tough guy, pathetic billionaire worshipper, or misogynist incel/human livestock breeders are creatures I could not stand to be associated with.
At this point, I think someone ought to take a sledgehammer to straighten out the body a bit, cut out the rear axle/suspension/motors, and just drop in some leaf springs and some junkyard axle on the back, and have a wacky, cheap, FWD EV! I mean, probably the software wouldn’t be too happy, but it’d be interesting!
I was thinking drop the body on a full size pickup frame with solid axles to make people say WTF
That too, that too
I think the most important takeaway here is that Tesla’s in general, and especially Cybertrucks, are reparability disasters because of Tesla’s walled garden approach, which leads to substantially higher insurance premiums. This is true even relative to other EVs which already tend to have higher premiums because of the HV issues and the fact that insurance companies are more hesitant to repair EVs relative to ICE/Hybrid vehicles. Couple all that with the steep depreciation curve EVs come with, and the cratering of Tesla and especially CT values due to Elon’s extensive side-questing, and you’ve got a total cost of ownership nightmare on your hands.
There’s also cases where insurance companies just total them out of an abundance of caution, because even though the battery back didn’t appear damaged, the force of the impact “could” have caused hidden, internal damage that shows up later and they just don’t want to risk it, even when the car is clearly repairable
That attitude, to the extent it still exists, probably really needs to change and fast, not just for Teslas, but for EVs in general, because there’s not going to less of them out there than there are now
There are probably a few nerdy entrepreneurs who will figure out how to buy cheap wrecked CTs on the cheap, make one good one out of two bad ones, and then sell the salvaged truck at a nice profit.
The main problem with this idea is finding anyone willing to buy a Cybertruck.
A lot of totaled vehicles end up in Ukraine, though probably some other similar countries as well, where they’re repaired and put back on the road.
The DOJ has just announced the guy who hit the truck will be executed via firing squad and his body dumped at sea. His widow will be deported as punishment for aiding and abetting a terrorist.
You joke, but never know these days….I mean, they supposedly strip searched/jailed two college girl tourists in Hawaii because they didnt have 5 wks of accommodations booked instead of, say, just deny them entry at airport and tell them to book a flight to another country immediately.
That’s even worse than when I went to Egypt under dictatorship and couldn’t tell them where we were staying (I was meeting someone there, but it made for a nervous bit of time before spotting the contact who had the information—thank you, tour company for dropping the ball!).
Something in the Edmunds article. They indicate it was declared a total loss, which means at least one insurance company was involved (I’m guessing the other car was at fault). Then they skip all the way to the $ they got for the carcass, leaving out things like how much they were paid by insurance and how much they bought the carcass back for.
The way it’s written the article implies that insurance was both involved and NOT involved which only makes remote sense if they filed a claim initially but then pulled it before the payout.
Good catch! I’m sure it was not a $94k total loss. What did insurance payout?
There’s a word for this: Clickbait. Edmunds didn’t sell the vehicle unless they bought it back from the insurance company which is unlikely. Insurance likely paid out the full value of the vehicle which the story states was $86k. Why would Edmunds accept less?
You’ve never bought your totalled vehicle back from the insurer?
Sure, BUT the insurance company paid me for the value of the car PRE-crash and then I paid them a pittance back to get the damaged vehicle back as is. It’s highly misleading.
So they didn’t have insurance on a six figure vehicle?
This usually doesn’t happen until the thing has 200k miles and someone scoops it up from a buy here / pay here lot with mismatched bald tires and dangerous brakes.
It is not at all unusual for big corporations to self-insure for this sort of thing – it’s a drop in the bucket for them. That was the case with the motor pool cars back when I worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
That would make sense. I’m sure Edmunds has liability insurance up the wazoo, but they don’t really need coverage for the value of the truck itself.
I really, really hope they named this truck Fitzgerald.
Now that made me laugh!
take your damn star.
nicely done.
Gordon Lightfoot approves of this comment.
Superior comment.
The truck was the pride of the Dark MAGA side
Coming back from some rally in Wisconsin
As the big EVs go, it was bigger than most
With a ketamine-induced CEO well seasoned
Concluding all terms with a bunch of government firms
When he left fully loaded for Austin
And later that night when the truck’s sensors rang twice
Could it be the worn out Prius it’d been feelin’?
Top notch, sir or madam!
COTD, hahahahahahaha
(Can he please not go back to Austin and simply sod off to space, though? Like, go away.)
I’m sure the construction materials added to the repair estimate, but it sounds like it got hit HARD. A hit that shoved it up onto the curb was bound to cause massive damage and likely would have totalled just about any car.
I guess saying, “My street parked car was totalled when some a-hole ran into it.” doesn’t capitalize on the Tesla angle.
How many CTs are getting financed at 84 or 96 months? I’d be petrified of driving it for fear of being so upside down on depreciation…hope they require GAP coverage.
You’d be dumb to not have GAP on pretty much any high-dollar car that isn’t a Porsche, Lamborghini, or Ferrari that is financed for more than a few years.
Of course, my opinion is that if you have to finance something like this for a more than nominal period of time, you can’t afford it in the first place.
I thought that there had been an executive order eliminating GAP?
ROFL!
GAP is actually *wildly* profitable, like most add-ons. Very few people actually ever need it.
But if you happen to need it and not have it, sucks to be you.
If you buy GAP from the dealer, yes, it’s hugely profitable for the dealer. If you can buy it from your auto carrier, it’s surprisingly inexpensive, but you’ve got to stick with that carrier until you’re in positive equity territory.
Yes, I have pointed that out in other articles. But even at the cheap prices the insurers sometimes charge, it’s pretty much pure added profit. Totaled cars are actually VERY rare, when you consider the sheer number of cars out there running around. It’s stupidly profitable to a dealership though.
I need to figure out some kind of upcycling business for these situations. I feel like you could make some really nice kitchen sinks or even commercial ovens with the spare parts. Or just turn it into a playhouse for the kids to sit around and play Fortnite on the screen.
You see, Elon, Flight of the Navigator worked because they never had to find a bodyshop in rural Central Florida. It was a fantasy movie, I hate to share that. Self-healing skin and vehicles that can morph into different shapes are still pretty far away.
“Or just turn it into a playhouse for the kids to sit around and play Fortnite on the screen.”
All the sharp edges on a Cybertruck? You couldn’t sell that as a thing for kids to play with, it would never pass safety. This isn’t the 50’s when they were selling chemistry kits to kids with shit like mercury and magnesium in them.
“This isn’t the 50’s when they were selling chemistry kits to kids with shit like mercury and magnesium in them.”
Note to self: Peruse Ebay for old chemistry sets…
Also keep an eye out for the omes that contained radioactive materials they were lit!
Oh I’ve got a collection of antique clock faces and hands for that.
Atomic Boy Scout reference?
Nope. IIRC he used a gazillion smoke detectors.
You’re right.
But, didn’t do something like call the factory to see if he could just buy a bunch of the sensor assemblies instead of whole units?
And lawn darts, they were fun
Hey! I drank the mercury and still turned out A-OK…Right?
Uh huh, sure. Let’s go with that. 🙂
Flight of the Navigator! Jesus, no wonder you can only relate in ’90s references. Keep it up!
Far, far, far be it from me to defend the Cybertruck, but obviously this is not really a fair comparison. If Edmunds bought a Bugatti and it got totaled by a drunk driver while parked, would the resulting $3,000,000 loss reflect poorly on the Bugatti?
Presumably Edmunds was compensated by their insurance company for the loss as well, so the headline seems like an excuse to whip up commenters frothing hatred for Tesla and the CT.
By all means, have a sober conversation about EV repair costs, Tesla’s closed garden of repair shops, or whatever. We all know that isn’t what’s going to happen here.
Came here to say this. A loss by accident should not count as depreciation.
The SSybertrukkk was marketed as something that is competitive with regular trucks. A Bugatti is not marketed as a Corvette alternative.
I agree that the issue is better framed as a general failure of Tesla engineering around repairability, evidenced by their very high insurance premiums.
Short-term thinking at it’s worst.
I don’t think any Bugatti, outside of one being burned to the ground or hitting a wall at 250MPH, would be totaled due to it’s high value.
The problem here is that the truck lost over $20,000 in value at the time of the wreck. If it had near it’s $100,000 value, the $57k price tag might have been enough for insurance to pay it versus paying out for the total value of the truck. This whole story is a scenario that could really fuck up anyone who’s purchased a Cybertruck, as the whole cabal of waiting 2 months for a specific shop to be open enough only to get a quote for almost 3/4 of the vehicles worth is a scenario that the average buyer probably will struggle to afford dealing with.
If it becomes more common, the price of CT insurance only goes up and the vehicle becomes an even worse value proposition.
The scenario seems more typical of a luxury car experience (quick depreciation, expensive repairs) than a traditional truck experience.
You’d be shocked on what will total a Bugatti.
I’m sure I would be. I just look at stories of McLaren F1’s getting destroyed and rebuilt so I imagine a vehicle of equal value would get the same treatment.
At this point, the cheapest F1s are worth several multiples of what any modern Bugatti is worth. They are firmly in the realm of “you can’t total them”, just like things like vintage Ferraris.
I see they are in the 20 million dollar range now, which is fair enough. I’d imagine a Bugatti would still be in the conversation with Chiron’s going for over 6-7 million. I guess there really never is a ceiling, eh?
Not really. The thing is, the F1 is actually a *relatively* simple car. The Bugatti is insanely complex, and of course Bugatti prices parts like they are made of diamond-encrusted platinum. Even the ones shared with VW Golfs, if they come in a Bugatti box.
For the old cars like vintage Ferrari’s, the value is in the provenance, not the metal. You can make a perfect copy of a GTO for a small fraction of what a real one costs – not counting the lawyers and settlement when Ferrari sues you into oblivion. 🙂
Most of us would be shocked if we even had a Bugatti.
I wonder was that Bugatti totaled that was halfway under water at the side of a highway.
They should have gone through with the repairs. It would be a better story if they documented any delays due to parts availability or hidden damage that added to the repair cost.
I imagine investing another $50k+ in parts and labor to extend the test a few months and sell for a big loss is not something Edmunds is interested in doing lol. Now Hoovie of Hoovie’s Garage? This is right up his alley.
You’re not wrong, but a better comparison might be this vs the repair costs of an F-150 worth $80,000 at the time of the accident, which is not out of the question.
More interesting would probably be a Rivian or Hummer worth the same.
A gas truck wouldn’t have anything nearly as expensive as a drive motor to damage in a rear end collision.
Agreed
I remember Rivian got some flack for a $42,000 repair for a fender bender so maybe the Tesla is a bargain in comparison? I know a Hummer EV got an $80,000 repair bill after a small off-road incident. Not surprising when their tailights cost a whopping $6,000.
Yeah I definitely see the high costs as an EV issue, not a Tesla issue.
The “must repair at Tesla facility” thing is also bad, but separate.
Yeah, the stainless steel may be a PITA here, but like everyone said, the bigger story is just that it’s a big, complex EV with expensive components. Just ask my uncle what he pays for his Hummer EV insurance. He uses it “properly” for zero emission commuting and short, heavy towing loads, but he said it’s about as much to insure as his other 3 daily drivers combined. (FWIW, he’s in auto salvage so it made car collecting an easier hobby than average…including some clever bookkeeping)
Sounds like Edmunds may have only been carrying liability insurance and got stuck with whatever salvage was worth. That’s not the vehicles fault, regardless of the manufacturer.
The truck was hit by another vehicle and should have been covered by the other drivers insurance then Edmunds Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage. Again, nothing to do with the manufacturer.
I cannot stand Tesla or Elon, but this story is crap.
Full coverage is usually required to finance a car, but I suppose they could have purchased it outright.
Probably self-insured as Kevin B Rhodes mentioned. I think they probably also took the lowball offer Copart gave them for the CT – I think it sold for considerably more than $8K. If I had time, I’d go looking for the listing but I’d bet probably in the mid 20’s at least. Yeah, still not enough to make them whole again but
How Edmunds ended up selling its $100,000 Cybertruck for $2x,000 isnt as exciting.
Edmunds probably self-insures. Many if not most big corps do. When $100K is a drop in the buck to you, why pay a middleman’s profit for what is at the end of the day a rare event?
In many if not most states, individuals can self-insure as well, usually by posting a bond, sometimes by filing a statement of net worth. And the bond amount can be shockingly low – but then again, so are many states minimum liability coverage amounts. If the idiot who hit the parked truck had minimum coverage, it wouldn’t even begin to cover this.
Here are the FL requirements:
https://www.flhsmv.gov/insurance/self-insurance/natural-person/
In a nutshell, you only need a provable net worth of $40K, and don’t even need to post a bond anymore. Of course, if anything happens and you are liable, you had best be able to cough up the cash.
Sure, but they would get whatever the minimum is which would add to the $8K they sold it for and reduce the loss which would lessen the “impact” of the story.
Copart mostly sells vehicles for insurance companies, but will buy vehicles directly from individuals (no doubt at a further reduced value from what they figure they could sell it for).
That CT is pretty damaged, but having seen what some of these go for in salvage, I really doubt it sold for only 8K. I’m betting you’re correct that Edmunds self-insured and then took Copart’s lowball $8K offer to get it off their books.
Again, seems like not much fault of Tesla.
Entirely likely they had no insurance at all. It IS a rampant problem.
It’s Tesla’s fault in that their cars simply ARE massively more expensive to repair than the average car, and they severely limit access to parts and repair facilities. And the thing is pretty fragile for what was supposed to be some sort of urban commando vehicle.
As someone else said, hitting a comparable $100K fancied up luxo-truck would likely not have done anywhere near as much damage, and it would not have been as difficult to fix.
I’d love to know what the typical insurance policy for a CT costs.
Yeah, I get that most people who buy a 70-110k truck-esque thing have the money to burn but that premium has got to be eyewatering.
The other driver’s insurance isnt even mentioned. This should be a story about shitty luck and shitty insurance. That it happened to a shitty vehicle is completely irrelevant.
It’s somewhat, but not entirely irrelevant.
Obviously there’s some missing information here, but this accident (which to be fair, seems pretty significant) resulted in a monster repair bill. It may be irrelevant to the owner if it’s paid for by another’s policy or whatever, but it’s still relevant from a “if I get this thing into an accident I’m going to end up making an absolutely massive claim” perspective.
According to Google, about $3300/yr as a national average for the CyberTurd. Almost a grand more than the national average.
Ouch. I can’t even imagine. I barely pay two grand a year to insure *five* cars with full coverage and high limits, and one of them (the most expensive one, my Mercedes) is insured in $$$$ Florida. That car is a grand by itself.
Wow, we pay less than half that for TWO vehicles/drivers. And we didn’t cheap out on coverage. Goddamn.
A grand more than other cars or a grand more than other $100,000 cars?
You pay two grand for five cars because you only drive one at a time and none of them is worth a significant fraction of $100k Try getting quotes for full coverage on each car ONE AT A TIME. I’m sure none will be $3300 but neither will they be $400. Does the total value of all five equal $100k?
$3300 doesn’t actually seem all that bad considering how many uninsured drivers are out there. That equates to a 3.3% chance of someone running into your car in a year of being out and about doesn’t actually seem that farfetched, never mind that average also encapsulating the risk of the average driver themselves causing a wreck, I know I don’t believe my fellow drivers are particularly skilled.
For a more direct comparison, the marginal cost of adding a ~$100,000 Blackwing to my insurance policy was $2000 a year with generous coverages.
The Mercedes is insured by itself in an expensive state, because that is where it lives. The others are on a different, agreed value policy in a much less expensive state, and two of them are classic cars, so those are relatively cheap – but the two that aren’t are $50K+ of BMWs. The total value of all five is well over $100K. The multicar discount is only about 20% otherwise.
In general, the value of a car doesn’t make much of any difference in the insurance cost – unless it is exceptionally expensive to repair (the case here), or is exceptionally prone to claims (Mustangs and Chargers, for example). The cost of insurance is primarily based on who YOU are and where you live, not the car being insured. The value of the car only affects the cost of comprehensive and collision insurance. When I had a brand-new $55K BMW M235i and an old $10K Range Rover on the same policy, the cost to insure each of them was basically the same, collision and comp on the new BMW were only ~$100/yr more than the old mangy Rover. And both were cheap, because middle-aged dude with a clean driving record and a high credit score living in his own house with a garage in safe suburban Maine. Moving to FL and chopping in the BMW for a new GTI that cost half as much didn’t change the insurance cost much on a FL policy, but that policy was double what the same car cost in Maine because of the location. Which is still dirt cheap in FL – about a grand a year in a state that tends to be WELL over the national average for insurance cost. Saving $20K+ a year in taxes means I don’t care much though.
I’ve owned enough cars in these two wildly differing insurance environments to see this play out over and over.
I don’t disagree with that but you’ll likely agree that as you said you are a middle aged dude with a clean driving record and a high credit score. That’s about as good as it gets, i.e. FAR above the average of all people (that $3300 is an average I believe) even without stereotyping about the average CT owner. There are probably quite a few owners who would cost $6000 a year even if they just drove an F150. Or an Altima. I’d be interested in what YOU would be charged to insure a Cybertruck, both in Maine and in Florida. While still only one (or two) datapoints it might be illustrative.
Easily done for Florida, and literally every car I have ever had that was insured in both states was about half to insure in Maine with the same coverage. So to answer your question, the CyberTurd would be $2100/yr for me to insure in Florida on my GEICO policy in place of my Mercedes, or slightly more than double – my current police is actually $954/yr. Still well below the average cost of insurance in FL – but I am an insurance company’s wet dream. And as expected, most of the difference was in the massively more expensive comprehensive and collision premiums, liability was slightly higher, along with all the other bits and bobs they charge you for.
My insurer in Maine has no webpage to do quotes (AIG Private Client Group), I would have to call them, and that is rather more than you are getting from me. But I too was curious.
So there you go, an actual data point.
Thank you. That doesn’t seem out of line or absurdly high comparatively as I recall your Mercedes not being a new $100k model unless I’m seriously mistaken, I thought it was a 20teens E350 wagon or similar. If it is in fact a similarly valued model then I apologize in advance. In any case $2100 a year for a $100K car seems reasonable in a high cost state and is almost exactly what the other poster above said his $100k Cadillac insured for albeit without sharing where that is or how his rating is. And if it’s $1050 in Maine that seems downright reasonable for the protection you receive against some uninsured clown totalling it. Like you, I’m confident in my own abilities, I’m far more concerned with the rest of the public not taking care around my vehicles.
A brand-new Mercedes wagon was slightly *cheaper* than my 2014 though GEICO – presumably a higher discount for additional standard safety features. That’s close enough to the price of a CyberTruck as makes no difference.
As I keep saying, the *value* of a vehicle makes very little difference to the insurance cost, When I went from a 2016 M235i to a 2017 GTI my insurance cost stayed the same within a few dollars, despite the GTI costing literally half as much. Very, very few cars are actually totaled compared to the number that are repaired, so repair cost matters FAR more than total value does, and the rampant vandalization of Teslas is going to drive up the cost of insuring them considerably even aside from the very high cost to fix them.
There’s been a few cases (Geico was one, IIRC) of insurers dropping the CT because of the extra financial risk.
I just did a GEICO quote for a new one out of curiosity to answer another poster’s question as they are my insurer in FL. $2100 vs. $954 for my current Mercedes wagon. And the vast majority of the difference was in collision and comp. I bet for a less safe bet than me they certainly would simply not cover one at all. I am pretty much an insurance company’s wet dream.
A $60k dollar repair, wouldn’t total a Bugatti. Hell, that’s just two sets of tires for a Veyron.
Didn’t say it would, but an hit strong enough to push a 7000 lb vehicle up onto the curb has a chance to total any vehicle.
Bugattis aren’t cheap to fix either.
Yeah I agree…. the premise here is misleading at best, and just plain wrong at worst.