cars

Why can Cybertrucks be so expensive and difficult to insure?

Billy Walkowiak, CEO of Collision Safety Consultants, a motor-vehicle damage appraiser that people hire to investigate when their insurance payouts for accidents don’t match what they’re quoted from body shops, says Teslas in general are already expensive to fix and, therefore, to insure.

That’s due to the added costs of Tesla certification to work on the cars, the high cost of Tesla parts, and the fact that Tesla repair procedures often opt for replacing parts rather than repairing them.

“When you're replacing parts, you're replacing Tesla parts,” Walkowiak said, noting there aren’t really less expensive after-market parts for Teslas like there are with more common cars like Fords or Toyotas.

Cybertrucks, with their 3-millimeter-thick, bullet-stopping stainless-steel panels will likely be a whole nother ballpark, but Walkowiak has yet to appraise one that’s been in an accident yet.

Its rarity and expense, he says, makes it much more akin to fixing an exotic car like a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Rolls-Royce. That means it’s also, in many cases, going to cost as much to insure one.