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You'd have to survey their customers. Speaking personally, my wife and I are new customers. This is the first time that we've spent over $30k on a car. Betwe

by btilly 8y ago

You'd have to survey their customers. Speaking personally, my wife and I are new customers. This is the first time that we've spent over $30k on a car. Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car. It is still a luxury, but between features like the driving assist, crash safety ratings, acceleration and so on, we are happy to spend it. Based on data for other models from other drivers, we have reason to believe that, barring accidents, the battery could realistically last us 500k miles. But we have set it to never charge over 80% of capacity to maximize that limit.

haberman 8y ago
> But we have set it to never charge over 80% of capacity to maximize that limit. New Tesla owner here, hadn't heard that! Will you not charge above 80% even on trips?
- btilly 8y ago
  The factory default is that you only charge to 90%, and they advise you to only go to 100% for trips. We do 80%, but are willing to raise it for trips. The reason why it matters is that charging lithium ion batteries to 100% lowers their lifespan. Since we don't need the range normally, we leave it at 80%.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  You might consider reading the manual! It does discuss the issue.
mrfusion 8y ago
I’m not convinced on the lower maintenance costs. Can you speak to that a bit? It seems like there’s still a lot that can go wrong and you’re stuck paying whatever tesla wants to charge you to fix it.
- webkike 8y ago
  Sure, but electric cars have far fewer moving parts. Components are simply less likely to break.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    > Components are simply less likely to break I wouldn't say that they're less likely to break, but rather there's just fewer parts to potentially break. Your point is still completely valid of course.
  - pretendscholar 8y ago
    Fewer moving parts does not mean that the components are less likely to break. A car with only one gear would have fewer parts but would break down more often.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      Most electric cars have only one gear. Why does it break down more often?
      - pretendscholar 8y ago
        Just saying as a thought experiment that having fewer parts does not mean it will break down less often.
        greglindahl 8y ago
        That's not what a "thought experiment" is -- you confidently said something that has no basis in reality and no argument behind it. You didn't say "maybe" or "might". A "thought experiment" is when you set the stage to explain something using fundamental physics. There are hundreds of thousands of one-gear cars on the road. There is data.
        8y ago
mikekchar 8y ago
> Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car. My wife wanted a new car (I'm stubborn and don't drive ;-) ) because the old one was getting pretty expensive to maintain. I crunched the numbers and we ended up buying a recent used Leaf. I live in Japan and Nissan has this deal where you pay about $30 a month and get unlimited recharges at public charging stations (essentially all Nissan and Mitsubishi dealerships, highway rest stops, major hotels, etc). I pay about 30 cents per KWh, so this is a pretty good deal. We should save enough money on various thing that the cost of the new car is negligible. We don't actually pick up the new car until November (lots of weird paper work in Japan and we're out of town for a few weeks as well), so possible I'll be singing a different tune in a few months, but I was really surprised at how the numbers worked out on paper.
rootusrootus 8y ago
You really expect it to work out cheaper than an ICE car? Interesting. The Model S, as a data point, is one of the most expensive cars you can own, by total cost of ownership over five years. The 3 is cheaper but still pretty expensive for the class it's in. I guess if you plan on keeping it 10-20 years it might eventually recoup the high capital cost in fuel savings, but that's a pretty daring bet. Good luck!
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  EVs, mile per mile, are less expensive by half to operate than an internal combustion vehicle [1]. Length of ownership, cost of petrol, and cost of electricity all play into the calculation of course. My Illinois home obtains power at 1-2 cents/kwh between midnight and 5am (Time of day metering, nuclear power); it's almost free for me to charge my Model S there, while my gasoline costs would be ~$3/gallon. I expect my cost of power to decrease as renewables continue to come online, displacing natural gas and coal (Illinois provides a zero carbon subsidy to Exelon's commercial nuclear fleet to keep them in operation). [1] https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    The national average is 12 cents per kWh and $2.90 per gallon. Cherry picking places with abnormally cheap electricity is great for Internet debates but doesn't inform much. Right now an EV costs 20-30 grand more than a like-for-like ICE car, before the rebate (that is about to run out for Tesla). It's also too early to be planning on running the EV for half a million miles just to make it pay for itself in reduced fuel costs.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      > The national average is 12 cents per kWh and $2.90 per gallon. Cherry picking places with abnormally cheap electricity is great for Internet debates but doesn't inform much. Half the country has power costs below 12 cents per KWH. Even without cherrypicking, the math is solidly in favor of EVs. If you can't afford a Tesla, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are affordable alternatives, before considering state and utility incentives (which can be substantial).

by btilly 8y ago

haberman 8y ago

> But we have set it to never charge over 80% of capacity to maximize that limit. New Tesla owner here, hadn't heard that! Will you not charge above 80% even on trips?

btilly 8y ago
The factory default is that you only charge to 90%, and they advise you to only go to 100% for trips. We do 80%, but are willing to raise it for trips. The reason why it matters is that charging lithium ion batteries to 100% lowers their lifespan. Since we don't need the range normally, we leave it at 80%.
greglindahl 8y ago
You might consider reading the manual! It does discuss the issue.

mrfusion 8y ago

I’m not convinced on the lower maintenance costs. Can you speak to that a bit? It seems like there’s still a lot that can go wrong and you’re stuck paying whatever tesla wants to charge you to fix it.

webkike 8y ago
Sure, but electric cars have far fewer moving parts. Components are simply less likely to break.
- King-Aaron 8y ago
  > Components are simply less likely to break I wouldn't say that they're less likely to break, but rather there's just fewer parts to potentially break. Your point is still completely valid of course.
- pretendscholar 8y ago
  Fewer moving parts does not mean that the components are less likely to break. A car with only one gear would have fewer parts but would break down more often.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    Most electric cars have only one gear. Why does it break down more often?
    - pretendscholar 8y ago
      Just saying as a thought experiment that having fewer parts does not mean it will break down less often.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        That's not what a "thought experiment" is -- you confidently said something that has no basis in reality and no argument behind it. You didn't say "maybe" or "might". A "thought experiment" is when you set the stage to explain something using fundamental physics. There are hundreds of thousands of one-gear cars on the road. There is data.
        8y ago

mikekchar 8y ago

> Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car. My wife wanted a new car (I'm stubborn and don't drive ;-) ) because the old one was getting pretty expensive to maintain. I crunched the numbers and we ended up buying a recent used Leaf. I live in Japan and Nissan has this deal where you pay about $30 a month and get unlimited recharges at public charging stations (essentially all Nissan and Mitsubishi dealerships, highway rest stops, major hotels, etc). I pay about 30 cents per KWh, so this is a pretty good deal. We should save enough money on various thing that the cost of the new car is negligible. We don't actually pick up the new car until November (lots of weird paper work in Japan and we're out of town for a few weeks as well), so possible I'll be singing a different tune in a few months, but I was really surprised at how the numbers worked out on paper.

rootusrootus 8y ago

You really expect it to work out cheaper than an ICE car? Interesting. The Model S, as a data point, is one of the most expensive cars you can own, by total cost of ownership over five years. The 3 is cheaper but still pretty expensive for the class it's in. I guess if you plan on keeping it 10-20 years it might eventually recoup the high capital cost in fuel savings, but that's a pretty daring bet. Good luck!

toomuchtodo 8y ago
EVs, mile per mile, are less expensive by half to operate than an internal combustion vehicle [1]. Length of ownership, cost of petrol, and cost of electricity all play into the calculation of course. My Illinois home obtains power at 1-2 cents/kwh between midnight and 5am (Time of day metering, nuclear power); it's almost free for me to charge my Model S there, while my gasoline costs would be ~$3/gallon. I expect my cost of power to decrease as renewables continue to come online, displacing natural gas and coal (Illinois provides a zero carbon subsidy to Exelon's commercial nuclear fleet to keep them in operation). [1] https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  The national average is 12 cents per kWh and $2.90 per gallon. Cherry picking places with abnormally cheap electricity is great for Internet debates but doesn't inform much. Right now an EV costs 20-30 grand more than a like-for-like ICE car, before the rebate (that is about to run out for Tesla). It's also too early to be planning on running the EV for half a million miles just to make it pay for itself in reduced fuel costs.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    > The national average is 12 cents per kWh and $2.90 per gallon. Cherry picking places with abnormally cheap electricity is great for Internet debates but doesn't inform much. Half the country has power costs below 12 cents per KWH. Even without cherrypicking, the math is solidly in favor of EVs. If you can't afford a Tesla, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are affordable alternatives, before considering state and utility incentives (which can be substantial).