This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, what's up friends? What's up listeners? Welcome to Side Hustle School. We're gonna talk today about reselling electric vehicles. I often talk about reselling in the context of, I don't know, reselling books or clothes or refrigerators sometimes.
I guess refrigerators are harder than books or clothes, but those are more common markets. But in a few short years, electric vehicles, EVs, they have gone from something novel to something that you see everywhere. And of course you know this, like most manufacturers either have at least one EV out already, or it's in the pipeline for the next few years at the latest. So in the world of side hustling or entrepreneurship, when there is high demand and relatively low supply, that creates price pressure. Interesting, right?
Well, our caller in Toronto wants to know if they can take advantage of this. So let's hear his question. Well, first I'm gonna say a quick message. On behalf of our sponsors, I really do appreciate the sponsors. Mostly I appreciate you, the listeners.
So his question's coming up and then my detailed answer. [Music]
What's up Chris? I'm enjoying the show from my home in Toronto. Don't skip us on the next tour. All right, here's my question.
We all know that electric vehicles are in fashion right now. And some of them are hard to get. A waiting list for popular models can be a year or more. So it made me wonder, what's the reselling market like? Are people joining the wait list and then flipping the car or truck as soon as they get it?
If not, why don't they? It seems like an eager market. But I also imagine it comes with some complications. So I'm curious to know if you've noticed anything. [Music]
Awesome, thanks so much for being out there.
Would definitely not skip Toronto on the next tour. Planning to do that in August. Toronto, Vancouver for sure in Canada. Hopefully a couple other stops up there as well. I'll say more about that when I know more.
So let's talk about buying and reselling electric vehicles. It is definitely possible. There are some people doing it. So yes, like I said, whenever there's a mismatch between demand and supply, especially with these long wait lists that our caller mentioned. There are people doing it, but there's also a few things to consider before considering it as a business opportunity.
So first off, demand and supply. The demand has been increasing in recent years, but it's still a relatively small portion of the overall car market. And in fact, there are some signs that it might decline a bit this year. Not like super big decline, but just a bit compared to what it was like last year. And then also the supply is increasing.
One of the reasons why there was such a long wait list last year, and there still is for some models and some markets, et cetera, is just because manufacturers were struggling to deliver so many vehicles. So naturally they have improved that through the process of many months of planning. So it's not gonna be as much of a difference, most likely over the next six to 12 months. Second, the cost of an electric vehicle or any new car is really high compared to any of those other items, like I think I mentioned books or clothes or refrigerators. Could even be some higher end items, but still buying and reselling new cars is there's some risk in there.
There's some risk there and there's also required capital, even if you don't have to pay for the whole vehicle, you have to pay for this deposit that's often non-refundable. There's often an initial deposit that may be refundable, but then at a certain point it goes to production and you have to commit much more money. So you just have a lot of uncertainty. I guess that's kind of what I'm coming to. There's a lot of uncertainty.
There's always room to profit in that world, that time of uncertainty, but there's also things that can go wrong in terms of waiting a long time, not finding the right buyer, the market changes and such. Also, I should mention some manufacturers have tried to crack down on a reselling practice because just like concert tickets or anything else, like they know that there's this after market, but they want to control it so that they can profit as much as possible. So is it possible? Yes, I would love to hear from somebody who's doing it really well so that we can do a detailed case study for our audience. But I would just think, unless you know a lot about this already, I don't know that it's the world that I would jump into because of that uncertainty, because the variables are changing and such.
So would love for somebody to prove me wrong. 'Cause like I said, I think there's a way to crack it, but I don't know exactly what it is. And so when that's the situation, I always think, well, what else can I do? There's something else out there. So keep looking for something else when you're not sure it's a sure thing, or at least you have a high level of confidence.
All right, episode 2201 is now wrapping up. That's 2,201. Thanks so much to our caller. Thanks to our sponsors. Thanks to everybody out there for being such a big part of this community.
You are awesome. We've got a new episode every single day, seven days a week. If you've got a question, come give feedback on the website, sidehustleschool.com. I am looking forward to sharing so many more things with you over the next few weeks, few months, and the rest of the year. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You are listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
