I feel horrible. Like I have been scammed or something. What can I do if anything? I still owe $130,000 on the car and can’t even sell it because I would then owe around $60,000 to pay off the loan compared to what I can sell it for.

I love the car, I really do but having a hard time getting over this horrible feeling of being taken advantage of.

and the punchline:

Hol up, you bought a $155k car a year ago, and you still owe $130k on it? How small was your down payment? You are what’s called “upside down” on your own loan: you owe more than the value of the thing you took out the loan on.

If you’re asking what financially you can do, the answer is nothing; you took out a very large loan with a very small down payment on a depreciating asset. Take this as a lesson about why you don’t do that, particularly when said asset can be crashed. All cars depreciate in value. Electric luxury sports cars from a relatively small company depreciate very, very quickly. Never trick yourself into thinking that your agreement to buy that car was ever anything but an agreement to light $155k on fire. In the future, if that’s not something you can afford to do, do not buy the car.

If you’re asking what you can do to make yourself feel better about your choice, my suggestion would be to try to focus on why you made the decision in the first place. You didn’t buy a $155k luxury car with a zillion horsepower because it was a sound financial decision; you bought it because it was fun. Nothing has changed about the car between now and a year ago; it’s still just as comfy, and it still rips your dick off when you hit the skinny pedal. The value of the car to you was never momentary, and that value hasn’t changed. What can you do? The same thing you were going to do before; out make your payments, and you keep enjoying your car. Don’t think about the financial value of the car; think about the value it has to you.

If you are in a situation where you can’t afford the loan payments anymore, you’re in a much tougher spot. I would talk to a financial planner, cuz you’re gonna need to do some clever maneuvering to dig yourself out of that hole. I’m guessing your best bet would be to sell the car for whatever you can get for it, pay off as much of the loan as you can with that lump sum, and try to refinance the remaining $60k or so at a better interest rate. You’d basically be making payments on a $60k loan rather than a $155k loan, which should at least be an easier hit to take each month. If you need a car, buy a reliable used one in cash, and pay off that $60k loan as fast as you can. Swallow your pride and buy an older Prius or something for $10k.

And for the love of god, don’t crash the Tesla; the max you’re going to get out of your insurance is the cost to replace the vehicle (unless you have gap insurance, which I really, really hope you do). If you total the car tomorrow, the max you’re going to get is $86k, and you’ll still owe $60k.

    • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      11 months ago

      The origin of the term “reality distortion field” is one of my faves. It was based on the Star Trek TOS season 2 episode “The Menagerie” and was coined by an apple employee named Bud Tribble, who shared his last name with the creatures from “The Trouble with Tribbles,” also in season 2 of TOS.

    • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      11 months ago

      At least the Jobs one seems to be dissipating, or maybe it’s just easier for people to see the warts when it’s generic CEO running the company and not The Visionary.

      • 0x0520 [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        28
        ·
        11 months ago

        The Steve Jobs Mystery Cult never established much of a priesthood, so there was no one around to deify him once he died.

        • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          28
          ·
          11 months ago

          It’s sort of analogous to the whole “The televised debates won JFK the election” thing. It helped JFK but him and his team didn’t fully understand it because it was too new. It would take later politicians to fully exploit it. Likewise, Jobs had the public persona for the mystery cult but he didn’t really develop it or get the potential in the Web 2.0 era, whereas Musk and Trump did and played it up for maximum effect.

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          The Jobs cult screwed up because 1) The brand was more known than the person and 2) Steve Jobs is also known for stubbornly rejecting the advice of doctors and then dying