Responses to Tesla Trade-in Article

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A week ago, one of our writers who owns a Tesla Model 3 (like myself) wrote an article about potentially trading it in for a new Tesla. His article compared his 2019 Model 3 with a new Model Y and examined what would be better and what would be worse. I just got to looking at the comment thread yesterday and was a little surprised by what I saw. But only a little.

There were several Tesla owners saying they’d traded in or would trade in their Tesla for another EV, but not a Tesla. Here are some of those responses.

Well, we’ve got to start with this simple one from Goldrush: “Why would you ever buy another Tesla?” Dan D’s response: “I bought one ‘before Elon was Elon’ in 2021 and it has been the best car I’ve ever owned. I really enjoy driving it. And road tripping is seamless. But I’m not buying another 1) because of Elon and 2) they spent so much money on the CT that development of the 3/Y platform is lacking, beyond cosmetic upgrades with the Highland and Juniper. I have a Rivian R2 on reserve.”

Mike Sarcione responded: “Owned a 2020 M3P and traded for 2023 MYLR. In 2025 traded that for a BMW iX, no regrets, no comparison in quality, ride and comfort (Driver assist plus works great, better than my Autopilot intervention required, don’t need FSD intervention required). We make annual round trips between northeast and TX, thought that charging would be more challenging, nope. My brother has a Cadillac Lyriq, our son has a VW ID.4 and Volvo EX90. Nobody misses their Teslas 😊.”

“I traded my 2020 Model 3 for a Chevy Equinox EV 2025 — because of Elon’s political $$ activity,” someone else noted.

Another commenter wrote: “I have the same 2019 model 3 as the article, although with many fewer miles. My family still has 2 cars and our general rule has been to upgrade when the newer gets to be 10 years old. Not an exact rule, but we want one more reliable car that we can take on long trips, etc.

“The feature I really want in a new EV is vehicle to home or at least vehicle to load, so I can use the car as backup during power outages. I don’t have FSD but I do really like the autosteer for long trips, which Tesla is apparently dropping as a stand-alone option.

“If I were buying today I would probably look at something other than a Tesla with a NACS connector that could still use the supercharger network…”

This is just a small sample of the many people switching from a Tesla to a non-Tesla EV. Of course, we’ve seen the stats, but it is interesting to see different examples from real people. It’s also interesting how different the choices were here — Rivian R2, BMW iX, Cadillac Lyriq, Volkswagen ID.4, Volvo EX90, Chevy Equinox EV.

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