Last updated 15-Jul-2025
Buying a cheap Tesla might seem a great way to get the car of your dreams for minimal outlay, but finding a goof one is not necessarily easy.
Cheap is also a relative term, and one persons idea of cheap may not be anothers. We look at a few options and explain the pro's and con's. The categories we'll look at are:
We have extensive inventory listings covering bith Tesla driect sales, and 3rd party sales, which gives is great insight into the market. You can browse our inventory listings to see the relative price points and ages of cars.
Tesla have been making the Model S for over 10 years and the Model 3 for 6 years, these are your cheapest entry points to the brand.
Early Model S cars have a fairly old specification compared to todays cars, the range is fairly limited especially after degradation, and will be out of all forms of warranty. The good news is there are still some cars that have free, unlimited supercharging, although this is becoming harder to find.
Early Model 3 cars were built relatively poorly, Tesla even assembled cars in a tent, and so the quality of the cars is down compared to later cars. The early Autopilot hardware was also HW2.5 which will require upgrading to support FSD. The cheapest cars are likely to be out of all forms of warranty, even cars under 8 years of age are likely to exceed the mileage limit on the battery and motor warranty.
Prices are cheap, but its highly likely that maintenance issues will be a regular thing on both models, some of which can be addressed by a competent mechanic, others such as the battery, would require quite specialist work.
We'll assume you know the model you want, and the following logic applies to all. There are 2 forms of warranty on the cars, the bumper to bumper warranty that covers 50k (some countries 60k) miles, over a maximum of 4 years, and the battery and motor warranty that lasts for 8 years, but with a maximum mileage of between 100k and 150k miles, depending on battery, the bigger battery having a greater range limit due to the way the charging cycles work.
Some will consider the bumper to bumpoer warranty less important than the battery and motor warranty, and for new buyers we would always advise trying to buy the car with some battery and motor warranty. This means stick to cars under 8 years old and we'd say 100k miles is a good guide.
If you want bumper to bumper warranty then you're looking at under 4 years and 50k miles which will be significantly more expensice.
Buying used from Tesla, a CPO model, does get you an extra 10k miles and 1 year of bumper to bumper warranty, and will extend any left over warranty on the car. Our caution over this is the additional cost of a CPO model, based on our detailed analysis on the data, is you could buy a 1 year younger car with less miles on the clock for the same price, in effect spend the same money, get the same cover, you just get a newer car from a 3rd party seller.
Tesla have been known to make constant changes to the car specification but in general this has slowed down quite considerably. Changes that you need to look out for now tend to happen every few years. The notable changes in the last few years would be:
If you're buying a Tesla on a budget it's worth being aware of a few things. Our tops tips are:
We talk about the different buying options in our general buyers guide, but at the cheapest end of the market we would look everywhere and buy the car purely based on condition and warranty.
Some will argue against buying from dealers who do not specialise in EVs. While there is some validity in that argument, to buy cheaply you need to know what you are buying, you will need to do your own research, and the less the dealer knows aboutt he car the more likely they will have priced it cheaply, sometimes just to get rid of it. In such a case, do not expect gold standard dealer facilities and insight and pay bottom dollar for the car.
For each model we have produced a buyers guide that covers the main issues with the model. We'd suggest starting there. Other things to look out for are:
In a word, no. Over the years Tesla have made significant changes to the cars and an 7 year old car will be very different to one coming out of the factory today. Even the more recent cars like the Model 3 have had significant changes over the years including bigger batteries, the addition of the heat pump and an upgrade to the MCU.
An old Tesla does not have the technology a newer car does, and can also feel like an old car.
There are other ways to save money buying a Tesla. Our guide to saving money when buying a Tesla talks through some of the other options, buying inventory cars and when the best time to buy might be.
Buying an older car does not necessarily reduce the depreciation as it might with an ICE car. Buying a 1 year old Model Y for the same money as a 5 year old Model X may give rise to the same depreciation over a few years. We've seen some significant depreciation on older cars in the last 12 months, although depreciation on all Tesla is currently pretty high. A 2018 Model S 100D retailed on average for $63k in Oct 2022, a year later that car is retailing at $43k, a fall of approx 30%, and a cost per month of $1,600, just on depreciation. The car is also out of general warranty and any issues would need to be paid for. A 2020 Model Y LR has fallen by a little more but would have been cov ered by warranty.
At the moment, the depreciation on Teslas is sadly far too high, not helped with frequent price cuts on new inventory to stimulate sales.
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