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Yes, EVs have "low" maintenance but they are not without maintenance and other usual car issues like A/C, accident related fixes etc. Owning Tesla outside of W
by sremani 8y ago
Yes, EVs have "low" maintenance but they are not without maintenance and other usual car issues like A/C, accident related fixes etc.
Owning Tesla outside of Warranty is worse than owning Benz outside warranty. Unless Tesla expands its support and does a better job with "ownership" and "repairability" of their Cars, I would Trust an 8 year Benz to an 8 year old Tesla .
- dalbasal 8y agoThe experience of owning an 8 (or 18) year old car has a big impact on how I view quality and there are as many people in my shoes as there are in new car buyers'. But.... us old car drivers opinion isn't that commercially important. Resale-ability impacts new car sales to an extent, but a lot of manufacturers (looking at you peugot & renault!) are willing to make cars that have no value by year 8-10. Mercedes & Tesla trade at the higher end, where just the impact on perceived quality (in addition to the quantifiable financial benefits of buying a car that will maintain value) is important. OTOH, EV are already knowingly buying a car that ranks poorly on that front. Who wants to buy a 2015 model EV in 2018? Range improvements alone would kill the price. So... not sure it matters too much yet. Going forward.. who knows. I think tesla may already be "in for a penny, in for a pound."
- close04 8y ago> (looking at you peugot & renault!) are willing to make cars that have no value by year 8-10 But if we're being honest the money you lose after a decade is a lot less then the money you saved when you purchased it.
- gsnedders 8y agoIs that true, though? Here (UK) Kia and Hyundai offer seven year warranties, and most of their products are competitive against Peugeot/Renault.
- jacquesm 8y agoThey mostly offer those long warranties because they severely damaged their brands with the quality of the products they rolled out initially. So now they have to give huge warranties to offset the meme that Hyundai and Kia will not survive even a few years out of warranty without major work.
- kbenson 8y agoIt apparently is a viable path for a company to enter the auto market though, as I think they've transitioned well over the last couple decades into respectable auto-makers with standard quality. That probably makes them a good purchase since you can still get those warranties for the time being. Honestly, I thought they would be phasing them out a decade ago.
- jacquesm 8y agoI think the brands that did this best are Audi and Skoda, they went from pariah status to nearly best in their class. Both were classic examples of turnaround management by VW.
- rthomas6 8y agoI just bought a 2015 Leaf, and it was because it was so absurdly cheap. Yes, the range isn't great (only about 90 miles), but everything else is fantastic. I paid $11k for something that feels worth $20k.
- cobookman 8y agoBrand New Chevy volt is ~20k new with dealer and tax rebates. Chevy offers 0 down 0% financing. There's a fair argument that the volt is a better economical buy than the used leaf.
- rthomas6 8y agoTrue, but 20k is not 11k. And that's the out-the-door price with lower than average mileage bought by someone who didn't want to haggle. You can get a 2015 Leaf with 30k miles for 9k.
- jfrankamp 8y agoCan confirm! I got a 2015 for $9600, with 24k miles. It is fantastic and has more than _twice_ the trunk space of the volt which was a deal killer for the volt. We are a two car family and the other car is gas only for long range & occasional dual usage. We're jamming the miles on to the ~free-to-operate leaf as much as we can though.
- icc97 8y agoIt is an issue with resale value. But I drive about 12k miles per year, and the battery should last 500k miles. My last ICE car survived maybe 120k miles before being a write off. There's a good possibility that I'll only need to buy one Tesla for the rest of my driving days.
- rootusrootus 8y agoOr you could buy a Lexus. They seem to be good for a million plus miles.
- icc97 8y agoYes true, but a half million miles will do and I'd rather spend the time in a Tesla.
- ProfessorLayton 8y agoAuto makers very much care about resale value since it is pretty much the entire basis upon which a lease is priced, which is a huge deal considering ~30% of new cars are leased. Furthermore, almost 80% of electric cars are leased [1]. When electric cars aren't being made for compliance reasons, or to lower the overall emissions of an auto maker's fleet (and thus subsidized in some way), then resale value will be of critical importance. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/why-most-electric-cars-are-leased-not-owned https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/why-most-...
- gpetukhov 8y agothat's only in the US
- Godel_unicode 8y agoIt's also exclusive of Tesla, who doesn't release lease vs buy numbers
- close04 8y agoThat dealer avoidance also means that fixing a Tesla (regardless of warranty) might commonly become horror story [0]. And this drives insurance costs through the roof [1]. Having a network that can provide proper support might be more important than being able to make a sale when the product is shiny and new. [0] http://fortune.com/2018/07/24/tesla-repair-damage/ http://fortune.com/2018/07/24/tesla-repair-damage/ [1] http://www.thedrive.com/news/23278/report-tesla-model-3-insurance-approaches-porsche-911-costs http://www.thedrive.com/news/23278/report-tesla-model-3-insu...
- redindian 8y ago> And this drives insurance costs through the roof [1]. This is literally fake news. I too assumed it will exorbitant from my 2018 Tesla M3 Long Range, then I got a quote from my agent (Safeco), it is same price as my 10yr old BMW. In fact, it is cheap for a new car. $650 for 6 months (Tesla & X3) is not astronomical.
- bsagdiyev 8y agoThen you got reamed on your insurance for a 10 year old BMW -- full coverage on a similarly aged BMW for me is less than $50/mo. So no, that isn't "literally fake news" just because not everyone has the same insurance as you. My point being, just because you don't experience something doesn't make it fake news when other people do.
- user3359 8y agoComparing absolute insurance numbers without context of age, professional discounts, geography, etc. is pointless. I paid $500/month as a 20 year old on a $5000 used Intrepid because I was in a high risk category in a major city. My uncle who lived on a farm in another state paid $500/year for both him + his wife on newer cars. Point is, if he thinks it's fairly or underpriced for his particular situation, it probably is.
- icantdrive55 8y ago
- chrisco255 8y agoYeah but would you trust an 8 year old electric Benz? Nobody has more experience at this than Tesla.
- icc97 8y agoMy hope is that the competition will force the force Tesla to make it easier for 3rd party mechanics to make repairs. Mercedes is more experienced in building cars that last for a long time. The C-Class is known for being able to drive up to 1,000,000km. Further it is still fundamentally an engineering issue to have cars last longer, the Germans have a very long history at being the best engineers. So they too will benefit from having less parts.
- briandear 8y agoI would. Because Benz has far more experience with customer success, repairs and supply chain than Tesla. Getting even simple body parts for a Tesla can be an exercise in extreme patience. Benz also knows scale. Tesla -- we don't even know if the company will still exist in 10 years, but a reasonable person would have little doubt that Mercedes will be. Mercedes has been around almost 100 years. A new powertrain isn't a big deal if the processes are in place.
- AtlasBarfed 8y agoYou don't know if any current auto manufacturer will be in business in 10 years given the shift that is coming. Tesla is probably crunched on repairs since they have so much unfulfilled demand. And Mercedes (and VW) has dumped poor reliability cars on the US market for two decades now. The only experience they have is marketing to stupid US buyers.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI think it's pie in the sky thinking to assume the kind of infrastructure change needed to convert enough ICE vehicles to electric vehicles to kill Toyota/Honda/VW/Ford/etc within 10 years worldwide. Need charging stations built, parking lots ripped up and wires ran, local grids probably need upgrades, not to mention all the kinks to still work out that make owning a corolla/camry type vehicle far cheaper for 90% of people. EV is great for people who can afford to experiment and have a spare car, but people on a budget who need something that works, which is the majority, can't go for that yet.
- NDizzle 8y ago"Owning Tesla outside of Warranty is worse than owning Benz outside warranty." What a terrifying statement! I owned an AMG Benz for about 3 years and it was nerve racking towards the end. Glad I kept it in good shape and nothing blew up on my watch.
- jacquesm 8y agoThat was a conscious choice on your part though, an AMG is a pretty expensive car and buying those out of warranty means you know you are taking a substantial risk of high costs if something breaks. Engine or ABC work on those cars can cost a fortune, for one because you'll need a shop that really knows what they are doing, for another because the parts are expensive. Maintenance as you've correctly identified is key, as is a good inspection prior to purchase and a good warranty by the company you buy it from. On the plus side, you can buy these for a very small fraction of the new value even with very low mileage. If you want to pity someone it would have to be the first owner, it's fairly regular to see write-offs in excess of $4/mile driven.
- wlll 8y agoI wonder if there's a cultural difference here? In the UK there's a strong second hand market and it's incredibly common to see cars driving around old enough to have no warranty. I have one, it's 12 years old. When it goes wrong (which is rarely) I just take it to the local (non-affiliated) garage to fix. Mostly the yearly service is all it needs.
- rootusrootus 8y agoThe average age of cars on the road in the US is just under 12 years. The issue is that German cars in particular have a reputation for being quite expensive to maintain outside of warranty. In general for most cars it's not a big deal.
- nambit 8y agoAre you talking about 50k+ cars or cheap cars?
- 8y ago
- Rebelgecko 8y agoI was at a body shop a few months ago because I got rear-ended. They listed their prices on the wall, and I thought it was interesting that they had separate rates for working on Tesla and non-Teslas. Depending on the work, the prices were anywhere from 20% more to triple.
- et2o 8y agoWhere do you live that there are enough Teslas to warrant special signs for them? Bay area?
- Rebelgecko 8y agoNope, LA. The shop is in El Segundo, CA. So near the fairly well-off beach cities (e.g. Manhattan Beach) as well as some Tesla facilities (a few miles from a dealership and also their Hawthorne hanger)
- et2o 8y agoHmm, that is a very interesting finding.
- greglindahl 8y agoMost places charge extra for aluminum body-work.
- notyourwork 8y agoI think that makes sense though, Tesla is a new brand with no history. Mercedes have been around for a long time. Buying a Tesla right now I would have to assume this as a known risk, right?
- shafyy 8y agoIn the future, car ownership will start to decline quickly, so that's a moot point.
- chaoticmass 8y agoOne problem EVs have compared to IC vehicles for home repairability is the high-current from the batteries can easily electrocute someone. Anything battery, charging, and motor related really needs to be done by a trained technician.