This Broken Tesla Cybertruck Went Viral. Now It’s Heading to Auction.
You can save an awful lot of money on a Tesla Cybertruck if you’re OK with it not working.
A broken-down example of the electric pickup that went viral after it was abandoned on the streets of Seattle is heading to auction soon, according to Jalopnik. The EV is expected to sell for a fraction of its original cost despite the fame it achieved online earlier this year.
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Elon Musk loves a meme, so much so that he spent $44 billion on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter last year. Still, we imagine he wasn’t too fond of one starring the Cybertruck that started doing rounds in the less Tesla-friendly corners of the internet this summer.
At the beginning of September, pictures of a mangled Cybertruck parked on a residential street in Seattle started popping up on Reddit. It was never quite clear who owned the pickup—which was quickly dubbed the “Cyberstuck,” after the subreddit where pictures of it were most frequently posted—but it was abundantly clear that it wasn’t going anywhere. Photos showed a rear driver-side wheel bent at an unnatural angle, a busted suspension, and an exposed charging port.
The Cybertruck elicits strong reactions and the Cyberstuck was no different. So many people flocked to the vehicle’s parking spot to point and laugh at it, that it became its own tourist attraction with its own Google Map pin and everything. Eventually, the fun came to an end, after the truck was towed away one night under the cover of dark.
Now, two months later, we know what happened to the pickup. It’s now popped up on Copart, a popular online auction platform that sells “used, wholesale and repairable vehicles,” i.e. cars in serious need of work. It’s unclear when the vehicle will go up for bid—a note on the website says it has yet to be assigned an auction and is not eligible for bidding—but it lists its value at $31,156.00. That’s less than half the cost of the least expensive Cybertruck (which starts at $79,990) and a third of the price of the current range-topping Cyberbeast ($99,990). Hopefully, the original owner had a good insurance plan.
The Cyberstuck isn’t the only Cybertruck up for auction on Copart right now. A quick search of the site shows 13 listings as of press time. Bidding for an example located in Tampa, Florida, with an estimated value of $4,925 has already eclipsed $40,000 with less than 24 hours of bidding to go.
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