You may well have seen this story by now – three unused Tesla Roadsters discovered in a shipping container in China, as first reported by Electrek – but now the bids are coming in I thought it was worth a closer look.
The three cars – two in orange and one in red – are aesthetically in brand-new condition, having sat in a shipping container in a Chinese dock for their entire life. Ordered new, they arrived in the country in 2010 and were ignored by the owner ever since. They have picked up a whole chunk of storage fees, which the seller says they will pay, and are now up for sale.
More specifically, they are being auctioned via Gruber Motors, a US firm that specializes in the first-generation Roadster, which was Tesla’s first car and produced between 2008 and 2021. Based on a Lotus Elise and with a 53 kWh battery pack, the two-seat convertible has a range of up to 244 miles and produces almost 300 horsepower for a 0-60 mph time of 3.7 seconds.
At least it did when new, with a fully-functioning battery. It isn’t known what state the electronics of these three abandoned cars is in, and whether they will charge up again. Leaving an electric motor and battery for over a decade can cause all sorts of problems, and potentially lead to the car being bricked, or permanently disabled.
Gruber says as much on its website, describing the cars as “No miles on odometer, brand new, bricked from day one.”
A listing for the cars states: “So, what if you could go back in time, Tesla time that is, and buy a brand new Roadster from Tesla? Would you do it? Here is your chance, since a time capsule has just been opened,”
Each of the cars has unopened boxes in the truck, thought to be charging cables, and a larger unopened box separately, thought to be the hard-top roof and its carrying case.
Gruber adds: “What we do not yet know is if the ESS [energy storage system] pack Service Plugs were pulled before shipment, and even more intriguing, if they were, is there any life left in the packs after 13 years of storage. We will not know until they are retrieved and fired up. We also do not know how many, if any miles were on odometers from testing/delivery of new Roadsters.”
The first bid came in on May 2, standing at $150,000 for all three cars. Fast-forward a week and the highest bid is now $600,000 for all three – a significant premium over their retail price of around $110,000 each. But the bidding could go even higher. Speaking to Electrek, Pete Gruber, owner of the Tesla Roadster specialist, said: “These should and will be a Picasso on the wall in some rich person’s collection, stationary, and no need to be operational. In my opinion, I project $1 million for all three.”
It’s a great headline, but that is an awful lot of money. Especially when you consider how a fully-functional, 840-mile Tesla Roadster sold in February 2022 for a record $250,000. Gruber currently has several examples for sale, with an 8,000-mile car priced at $125,000.
How much is a zero-mileage Roadster worth, even if it doesn’t work? We won’t have to wait much longer to find out.