Tesla Sold Off-Lease Vehicles To New Buyers After Promising To Use Them In Robotaxi Fleet, Says Report

Shares of EV giant Tesla Inc (TSLA) are trading 2% lower on Thursday morning after Reuters reported that the company sold off-lease cars to new buyers instead of adding them to its proposed robotaxi fleet as previously announced.

Tesla started a policy in 2019 preventing customers who leased their Model 3 sedans from buying them at the end of their lease. Instead, customers had to return them to the company for use in Tesla’s future robotaxi network, the company said.

Though the policy initially started with the Model 3, the company later added its best-selling Model Y SUV to the list of vehicles that cannot be bought at the end of the lease term as well. The company ended the policy in November 2024.

While the company has yet to start robotaxi services, Tesla instead flipped many of the off-lease cars to new buyers, Reuters reported, citing four people familiar with the matter.

Tesla added features to the off-lease cars through software upgrades and sold them to new customers who paid more than lease-end buyers would have, the report said. Added features include the company’s “full self-driving” driver assistance software and “acceleration boost,” an update that can make the car speed up faster.

As per Reuters, Tesla has leased 314,000 vehicles to customers worldwide since 2019, or 4.4% of its total deliveries. It is unclear if the policy preventing purchase at the end of the lease was also applicable in geographies outside the U.S., the report said.

Neither Tesla nor Musk responded to Reuters’ requests for comments on the report, the publication said.

Musk has been saying that Tesla would enable self-driving vehicles for many years, going as far back as 2016.

Most recently, in April, Tesla said it would deploy its Model Y vehicles as robotaxis in Austin starting in June as part of a pilot launch. The vehicles would be equipped with the company’s full self driving (FSD) driver assistance software, Musk said. However, FSD is yet to enable vehicles to drive autonomously and require active driver supervision.

TSLA stock has fallen 10% this year but gained 97% over the past 12 months.

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