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I bought a used Model 3 for a little under 40k with a payment of about $500 / month. I was previously spending $500 / month in gas. The vehicle is literally pa

I bought a used Model 3 for a little under 40k with a payment of about $500 / month. I was previously spending $500 / month in gas. The vehicle is literally paying for itself based on my usage. Now, if you’re driving less the math may not work out but the cost of fuel alone has to factor into those annual maintenance costs.

robotresearcher 3y ago
How are you charging it for free? At the office? My car insurance is very much higher for a Model 3 than a similarly priced car because repairs are more expensive. This should be added to the TCO. I like the Model 3 still, because it’s a fun car to drive. It’s not cheap though.
- brightball 3y ago
  Charge at the house. I haven’t done the math recently but when I had a Chevy Volt the electricity cost was equivalent to about $0.64 / gallon of gas. It is fun to drive though.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Let's hear the electric bill before/after new car.
    - bdcravens 3y ago
      Both my wife and I charge at home. We're probably spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-80 or so a month in charging versus the $200 or so we'd spend on gas (Texas has relatively cheap electricity rates, but our gas is also fairly cheap)
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      I'd rather just see the kwh usage. Rates vary wildly in the US, even within the same state. Some states with average prices have utilities with cheap power. And others with overall low rates have dumb utilities that charge high rates if you use more than 1000kwh, which most EV owners certainly do.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Yes rates vary, the point is to have ballpark figures to compare against the cost of gasoline. Without that the conversation is not particularly useful.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        If we know the kwh, we can extrapolate both that and situation specific numbers. Average $/kwh in the US is ~$.15. This is just like a gas car, where the conversation would start with mpg, not "What's your gas cost per month before and after getting gas car?" It is precisely because of the variation in both gas price and usage that it is important to start from consumption per mile and not a total price.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Asking a random person for their kwh usage is not realistic. Dollars per month change (where they haven't changed driving drastically) is more practical.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        But you aren't asking random people. You are asking EV owners on Hacker News. In general, EV owners are pretty savvy. More than most actually know what they pay per kwh and have a pretty good idea of their consumption. The biggest common mistake that I see is net vs gross.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        I was asking brightball.
        brightball 3y ago
        Best answer I can give: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366
    - brightball 3y ago
      It's tough to isolate because we've been charging for a while. Rates where I am are currently $0.12 / KWh. Last time I did the math they were closer to $0.08 / KWh. I've got a Tesla Model 3. My wife had a Pacifica Plugin Hybrid. Any given point of the day, one of them is probably plugged in if we're at home. It took 2-3 hours to recharge the Pacifica for it's 35 mile range. Full recharge on the Tesla is about 5 hours if it's totally drained but the Tesla has much better battery management so you typically set the maximum charge to 80% of the battery for daily driving. Typically, I'll plug the Tesla in when it's still got 50-60% of the battery left. Looking at a graph of the usage at my house from the utility company is pretty hilly and coincides with weather. Goes up a lot during the hotter months as my AC kicks on. I don't notice anything significant from it though. I'm also enrolled in a bill normalization program with my utility company where they give me the same bill every month throughout the year so that we don't get surprise spikes as the weather changes.
graton 3y ago
How many miles per month are you driving? How much does it cost to charge the Tesla each month?
SoftTalker 3y ago
If you were spending $500/month on gas at typical prices that's anywhere from 125 to 170 gallons, if you're only getting 20mpg that's close to 3,000 miles a month, maybe 35,000 miles a year. That's a lot of driving compared to the average person.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  Some places are pricier than the gas prices you're assuming.
  - jdjjsiana 3y ago
    Even assuming $6/gal and just 20mpg, it's still about 83 miles/day(for 20 work/commuting days a month) or 55 miles/day (with 30 commuting days a month). Assuming a generous 60mph as the avg speed for the commute, that's about 1day/month sitting in a car. More likely avg speed of 30mph and that's 2days a month in the car. That is excessive driving for an average person/commute. I presume op was likely exaggerating to make a point. Anyway, for any EV owners, a more likely scenario is a person spending about $100-$150 for fuel per month. Doesn't buying a brand new $50000 EV's as opposed to a $30000 IC car (potentially used), and the insurance/registration costs offset the gains made by fuel savings?
    - dmoy 3y ago
      > Anyway, for any EV owners, a more likely scenario is a person spending about $100-$150 for fuel per month. Doesn't buying a brand new $50000 EV's as opposed to a $30000 IC car (potentially used), and the insurance/registration costs offset the gains made by fuel savings? Yes, given current prices, even with a $7.5k subsidy > potentially used If you open the door to ~$10k used Japanese compacts with a good 100k+miles left, it's not even remotely close. EVs are still a rich person thing for now, which may be the primary reason? If we had access to BYD cars in the US maybe...
      - ericjmorey 3y ago
        Serms like you get it. I wish that Aptera was building at scale and also had a more normal looking alternative model for non-geeks. But in general, new cars are for well above median income people and used EVs have a cost time bomb attached to them in the form of a battery replacement.
oblio 3y ago
> I was previously spending $500 / month in gas. To me this seems extreme, what would you say the average gas price is for you and what cars do you drive and what's their fuel efficiency?
- yurishimo 3y ago
  This does indeed sound extreme. Even when my wife was commuting 120miles a day, we never spent that much in gas (2012 Honda CR-V). This was from 2018-2022, so lots of variability in prices. I suppose with a truck or large SUV, it's possible to spend that much, or a commute that is hundreds of miles. Ah, one more scenario, if you have a luxury car and fill it up with premium fuel, that can raise the price substantially.
- brightball 3y ago
  I drive to a neighboring town 2-3 times a day and I was driving a Dodge Durango that got 20/27mpg.
  - oblio 3y ago
    I checked gas prices in Germany, which I'm fairly sure are higher than in the US, around €1.8 per liter. That makes it about 270l of gasoline. With the average fuel efficiency in Europe, I'd say the average car here uses about 8-9l in a mixed driving regime (town/city + highway). So that would mean about 3000-3300km per month, 36000-40000km per year. That's a TON of driving :-O Edit I: Though I imagine in the US we're a lot more likely for the fuel efficiency to be closer to 15l/100km (F150 or something), so those distance numbers go down by 60% or so :-) Edit II: Oh, I forgot the cost of gas in the US, so nevermind. Gasoline is about 60% cheaper in the US so at the end of the day... the distance numbers do end up closer to 3000km per month.
    - datadrivenangel 3y ago
      only ~100km/60miles per day. Do a 30 mile commute every day plus a weekend outing and you're there. It's a lot of driving, but not totally insane by US standards.

robotresearcher 3y ago

How are you charging it for free? At the office? My car insurance is very much higher for a Model 3 than a similarly priced car because repairs are more expensive. This should be added to the TCO. I like the Model 3 still, because it’s a fun car to drive. It’s not cheap though.

brightball 3y ago
Charge at the house. I haven’t done the math recently but when I had a Chevy Volt the electricity cost was equivalent to about $0.64 / gallon of gas. It is fun to drive though.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Let's hear the electric bill before/after new car.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    Both my wife and I charge at home. We're probably spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-80 or so a month in charging versus the $200 or so we'd spend on gas (Texas has relatively cheap electricity rates, but our gas is also fairly cheap)
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I'd rather just see the kwh usage. Rates vary wildly in the US, even within the same state. Some states with average prices have utilities with cheap power. And others with overall low rates have dumb utilities that charge high rates if you use more than 1000kwh, which most EV owners certainly do.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Yes rates vary, the point is to have ballpark figures to compare against the cost of gasoline. Without that the conversation is not particularly useful.
      - _ea1k 3y ago
        If we know the kwh, we can extrapolate both that and situation specific numbers. Average $/kwh in the US is ~$.15. This is just like a gas car, where the conversation would start with mpg, not "What's your gas cost per month before and after getting gas car?" It is precisely because of the variation in both gas price and usage that it is important to start from consumption per mile and not a total price.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Asking a random person for their kwh usage is not realistic. Dollars per month change (where they haven't changed driving drastically) is more practical.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        But you aren't asking random people. You are asking EV owners on Hacker News. In general, EV owners are pretty savvy. More than most actually know what they pay per kwh and have a pretty good idea of their consumption. The biggest common mistake that I see is net vs gross.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        I was asking brightball.
        brightball 3y ago
        Best answer I can give: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366
  - brightball 3y ago
    It's tough to isolate because we've been charging for a while. Rates where I am are currently $0.12 / KWh. Last time I did the math they were closer to $0.08 / KWh. I've got a Tesla Model 3. My wife had a Pacifica Plugin Hybrid. Any given point of the day, one of them is probably plugged in if we're at home. It took 2-3 hours to recharge the Pacifica for it's 35 mile range. Full recharge on the Tesla is about 5 hours if it's totally drained but the Tesla has much better battery management so you typically set the maximum charge to 80% of the battery for daily driving. Typically, I'll plug the Tesla in when it's still got 50-60% of the battery left. Looking at a graph of the usage at my house from the utility company is pretty hilly and coincides with weather. Goes up a lot during the hotter months as my AC kicks on. I don't notice anything significant from it though. I'm also enrolled in a bill normalization program with my utility company where they give me the same bill every month throughout the year so that we don't get surprise spikes as the weather changes.

graton 3y ago

How many miles per month are you driving? How much does it cost to charge the Tesla each month?

SoftTalker 3y ago

If you were spending $500/month on gas at typical prices that's anywhere from 125 to 170 gallons, if you're only getting 20mpg that's close to 3,000 miles a month, maybe 35,000 miles a year. That's a lot of driving compared to the average person.

bdcravens 3y ago
Some places are pricier than the gas prices you're assuming.
- jdjjsiana 3y ago
  Even assuming $6/gal and just 20mpg, it's still about 83 miles/day(for 20 work/commuting days a month) or 55 miles/day (with 30 commuting days a month). Assuming a generous 60mph as the avg speed for the commute, that's about 1day/month sitting in a car. More likely avg speed of 30mph and that's 2days a month in the car. That is excessive driving for an average person/commute. I presume op was likely exaggerating to make a point. Anyway, for any EV owners, a more likely scenario is a person spending about $100-$150 for fuel per month. Doesn't buying a brand new $50000 EV's as opposed to a $30000 IC car (potentially used), and the insurance/registration costs offset the gains made by fuel savings?
  - dmoy 3y ago
    > Anyway, for any EV owners, a more likely scenario is a person spending about $100-$150 for fuel per month. Doesn't buying a brand new $50000 EV's as opposed to a $30000 IC car (potentially used), and the insurance/registration costs offset the gains made by fuel savings? Yes, given current prices, even with a $7.5k subsidy > potentially used If you open the door to ~$10k used Japanese compacts with a good 100k+miles left, it's not even remotely close. EVs are still a rich person thing for now, which may be the primary reason? If we had access to BYD cars in the US maybe...
    - ericjmorey 3y ago
      Serms like you get it. I wish that Aptera was building at scale and also had a more normal looking alternative model for non-geeks. But in general, new cars are for well above median income people and used EVs have a cost time bomb attached to them in the form of a battery replacement.

oblio 3y ago

> I was previously spending $500 / month in gas. To me this seems extreme, what would you say the average gas price is for you and what cars do you drive and what's their fuel efficiency?

yurishimo 3y ago
This does indeed sound extreme. Even when my wife was commuting 120miles a day, we never spent that much in gas (2012 Honda CR-V). This was from 2018-2022, so lots of variability in prices. I suppose with a truck or large SUV, it's possible to spend that much, or a commute that is hundreds of miles. Ah, one more scenario, if you have a luxury car and fill it up with premium fuel, that can raise the price substantially.
brightball 3y ago
I drive to a neighboring town 2-3 times a day and I was driving a Dodge Durango that got 20/27mpg.
- oblio 3y ago
  I checked gas prices in Germany, which I'm fairly sure are higher than in the US, around €1.8 per liter. That makes it about 270l of gasoline. With the average fuel efficiency in Europe, I'd say the average car here uses about 8-9l in a mixed driving regime (town/city + highway). So that would mean about 3000-3300km per month, 36000-40000km per year. That's a TON of driving :-O Edit I: Though I imagine in the US we're a lot more likely for the fuel efficiency to be closer to 15l/100km (F150 or something), so those distance numbers go down by 60% or so :-) Edit II: Oh, I forgot the cost of gas in the US, so nevermind. Gasoline is about 60% cheaper in the US so at the end of the day... the distance numbers do end up closer to 3000km per month.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    only ~100km/60miles per day. Do a 30 mile commute every day plus a weekend outing and you're there. It's a lot of driving, but not totally insane by US standards.