Buying any used car can be a gamble, especially when you’re looking for an old, high-mileage Tesla Model S. If you also happen to be a YouTuber who specifically searched for and bought the cheapest Model S on the market as a potential source of content, you would think it was going to be a complete basket case.
Alex Kersten of the AutoAlex Cars YouTube channel bought what he says is the cheapest running and driving Model S in the UK (maybe even the world), a 2017 model year 90D with over 450,000 miles. It was initially advertised for £13,700 (about $17,225 at current exchange rates), but he says he negotiated his way down to £8,900 ($11,900) after pointing out some defects.
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The Model S is a high-mileage hero
Many Model S sedans were used in Europe as taxis, especially in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, where they racked up hundreds of thousands of miles, usually going through several battery packs and motors.
These include one nonfunctional headlight, the hood, which had a chunk nicked off by one of the wiper arms, and the rear camera and one of the taillights, which appear to have water ingress behind the lens. After putting the car up on a lift, they also discovered that one of the shock absorbers was leaking, but other than that, the car didn’t show its miles.
Alex got a running and driving Tesla for roughly the same amount that it costs to access the Full Self-Driving program, which has recently moved from its Beta stage into a new Supervised phase.
Granted, Alex’s Model S is almost seven years old, and it racked up so many miles because it was used as a taxi, so there may be some hidden faults, but it sounds like a very good deal for the price, especially considering how good its interior looks—there are hardly any signs of wear inside, which is surprising given the mileage.
We don’t know how many motors this Model S has gone through or whether it still has its original battery pack, though—Alex doesn’t say how many miles it can still do on a full charge. For reference, the highest-mileage Model S that we know of has covered over 1.2 million miles and gone through no fewer than 14 motors and four battery packs in the process. We hope Alex makes a video where he details his Model S’s history and the state of its battery.
