For the last several months, Ken Harvey has been cultivating a budding side business for his Honda and Mazda dealerships in Northern California: selling used Teslas.
A few times a month, Mr. Harvey picks up a few pre-owned Teslas at a local automobile auction and offers them for sale, often at surprisingly affordable prices, thanks to a $4,000 federal tax credit that customers get for purchasing used electric vehicles priced under $25,000. Some consumers who qualify for state incentives, he said, end up with used Model 3 sedans for well under $20,000 — less than half the cost of a new one.
“We sold three in the last week, maybe 20 since the beginning of the year,” said Mr. Harvey, whose family owns four Honda dealerships and two Mazda franchises in Alameda County, a suburb of San Francisco where Tesla has a car plant.
“We have three in stock now, and two are on the way,” he added. “They won’t stay around more than a few days.”
Welcome to the flip side of the backlash against Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and one of President Trump’s closest confidants — a thriving trade in used Teslas.
The used Tesla business had been growing for years before Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump became close, but their bonhomie has turbocharged it.
