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Late last year Tesla announced that it’d become the first automaker to surpass the 200,000-vehicle mark the Federal Government imposed on automakers eligible to offer customers a $7,500 federal tax credit. As of Jan. 1, 2019, customers who buy any Tesla vehicle will only receive a $3,750 federal tax credit, which according to some, has made their KBB resale values go up.
Several owners of Model 3 sedans, arguably Tesla’s best-selling vehicle, have taken to social media and enthusiast forums to share their recent findings. In a nutshell, several folks claim that thanks to the recent reduction of the federal tax credit, their vehicles are now worth more. The premise is that because the “barrier” to acquire a Model 3 is now considerably higher, residual values of vehicles that initially received the $7,500 credit have been increased to match those of current Model 3s.
As this tweet by “Steve Jobs” (obviously a parody account) below claims, the “private party value” assigned by KBB to that specific Model 3 is now $49,293, when the fake Jobs claims it was $47,000 prior to the tax credit kerfuffle.
Of course, fake Jobs doesn’t disclose what year his Model 3 is, whether it’s the performance model, rear-wheel or all-wheel drive, and the most important variable when it comes to a used vehicle: mileage.
We took the time to hop on KBB to try to recreate the scenario, although we obviously hadn’t done this prior to the tax credit slashing, so we can’t see for our own eyes that a particular Model 3 is worth more today than it was a month ago.
According to our findings, a 2018 Tesla Performance AWD with Autopilot has a private party value of $65,129, while the same build in rear-wheel-drive without the Performance package comes in at $50,947. Take away the enhanced Autopilot option and the value drops to $47,310. All pricing scenarios are based on a 2018 Tesla Model 3 with 10,000 miles and in “very good condition.”
It’ll be interesting to see how this tax credit situation affects the used market for Tesla vehicles, especially as in just five months’ time the federal tax credit will drop from $3,750 to just $1,875 and then it will outright disappear six months after that.
