Another Subaru (Forester) owner here who trade-in for Y.
I have to say the cargo space on Y is huge! I rarely off-road other than driving to camp side. But Y is sufficient.
I will take Y any other day.
Cool. The benefit here is that my wife's car is a Honda Pilot, so we have our big family cargo car if the situation needs it. But something tells me over time I would make the Model Y work with a roof rack and tralier hitch for cargo situations.
I guess the big question is whether you can get out of the lease with a relatively small (or no) penalty. It sounds like the answer is yes for the Outback, based on the offer you received from Subaru. I've never had a lease, so I have no idea what the fine print looks like, but I'd suspect (other than getting you into an Outback), they'd rather have the $360/mo through January 2022 that you've already committed vs. taking the car back with a one-time $1,000 penalty.
Right, the lease can be ended with no penalty at 30 months if you're leasing another Subaru - it's their thing to get you to stay leasing the Subaru brand. They also make your first new lease payment as well as a couple other perks, like removing the disposition fee and an increased wear-and-tear deduction amount for scratches and dings.
I have a 130 miles daily commute and I use my Gen 2 Mobile connector and a NEMA 14-30 adapter.
Do you have a dryer in your garage? If so, you could put a manual switch, or a dryer buddy, this would be a simple solution.
Anyway, you seem to have plenty of time for finding a solution. Charging at home is a must and really worthwhile.
Unfortunately, I don't. My dryer is a gas dryer, not electric, so it's just a regular 5-15 wall outlet. If the wall outlet isn't enough for me, I don't have a problem with the ~1200-1500 job to install a new panel and run a 6-20 or 14-30 line to the garage, but I don't want to spend the money just because. I'll fix a potential problem if it becomes an actual problem.
They extended the warranty on older model CVTs when they recognized a problem with some units. The vast majority of people do not have an issue. That said, I'd also be a little apprehensive about the inability to fix the internals on a CVT (usually requires a complete replacement as you mentioned) and would probably go with a extended drivetrain warranty from Subaru on a new one - might be about $1k-ish if you shop around. Tesla's are not immune to issues either. There have been motor failures on the 3 requiring replacement - doesn't seem very common but you see posts about it say once every couple of months here (for the 3) and it even happened to major car magazine who was long-term testing one (Car and Driver). If you are planning on keeping the Y "forever", keep in mind that EV batteries do not last forever - you might get quite a number of miles out of them but eventually they will get to the point where they need to be replaced. That shouldn't sway someone from buying one, but they should at least be aware of it.
Yes, however the space in the Outback is much more usable, especially if you have back seat passengers. Forester is noticeably taller so while it does have 0.4 sq. ft more cargo volume with seats folded, most of it unusable 99.9% of the time (unless you go around stacking stuff to the ceiling a lot). The Y has about 8 sq. ft less cargo space than the Forester/Outback which is not insignificant.
While heating can impact range in the winter for sure, it is not remotely the biggest factor - it is how the cold impacts battery chemistry. You can run no heat at all and your range can still be severely reduced. The colder it gets, the worse it gets. On top of that, your regen will be extremely limited in the cold (or not active at all) - pretty much the entire winter my 3 always had regen limited.
It sounds like the Tesla batteries are intended to last around 250,000 to 300,000 miles if taken care of. That's fine. That's 3 times longer than I've owned any of my previous cars before. Come to think of it, I've never owned any car for more than 100,000 miles. That would be a nice and special milestone to hit with an EV.
Regarding the CVT, as someone that used to read the Subaru TechTIPS newsletter and be involved with the programs, it sounded like they wanted all failed CVT's shipped back to Japan to get inspected by engineers. This way they could tell what happened and try to figure out why. Basically, when they were new - and they started with the TR690 back in the 2010 Outback redesign - they didn't fix anything. Then, they learned that they could replace the torque converter, or the valve body, or the solenoids. As of today, they can't nor won't fix anything that's related to the chain or the pulley system itself. Personally, I would be more comfortable with an actual value for a CVT fluid change interval. Per the manual and dealers, you only change it if you're towing. Interestingly enough, Subaru Canada requires a 60k mile interval (which is about 100k kilometers). I don't like the idea that anything is a "lifetime" fluid and it's hard to get them to change it even if you're willing to pay out the nose for them to do it. They quoted me $450 to change it in my 2011 Outback but only after I told them I had been towing (I hadn't.)
Unfortunately, the extended warranty is no help because they generally go to 8 years or 120k miles. The amount that I drive I would easily hit the 8 years before the mileage mark, so it would be no use to me.
As far as I know, Subaru expanded this CVT warranty enhancement to the future 2017 & older TR690's from the Outback and the TR580's in everything else. They seem to add another year every year to the warranty as the current models start to age or mileage out of the manufacturer one. I have family members with a 2016, 2017, and 2018 Outback. They all have their notice except the 2018. One of my neighbors has a 2016 Forester and asked me about it, and two of my co-workers have Crosstreks and have also received it.
It's great that you're taking care of your customers, but 100k miles goes quick, and that repair bill gets above $8000 for the new CVT replacement if it fails. Doubtful the car is worth that much at that point, especially with all the oil seepage and head gasket issues - though it seems the gaskets are better now that they are using the FB and FA series engines.
Buy the Mini SE and sell one of your existing gas cars. Get used to EV driving for a few years. Once you are ready to drive an EV for all trips, sell the other gas car and buy a long range EV (Tesla).
This is what we did in 2013 (!!) You are only 7 years behind us.
Bought a small short range EV for my commute, then my wife started driving the EV for all her local trips, and the gas car sat in the driveway. Two years later bought a Tesla and went full EV.
I saw the Mini! It's cool in theory as a commuter car, but with the ~110 to 120 mile range, it's not enough for the summer commute I mentioned. My wife and I will drive separately to the shore areas so she can have a car while I'm at work and I can go to work from the shore. It would be a better candidate if it was closer to the 200 mile range mark. The price point of this is in the high teens after all the incentives - we're looking at a great price but not a functional car. Kind of like the original Nissan Leaf - they only went like 80 miles but you could get them for the low teens thanks to rebates and such.
Bluntly, anyone who buys an AWD or 4WD vehicle for "safety" and omits using winter tires and finds all season tires OK does NOT need to worry about the supposed handling, road holding or other winter driving elements.
Any Tesla RWD or AWD with pure winter tires will run rings around anything (any car) on all seasons.
All seasons are laughably bad in winter conditions in comparison to pure winter tires, and anyone here posting detailed driving considerations of Subaru vs Tesla is missing the fundamental point, the OP has no need for anything like the superior road handling, he just needs to put winter tires on whatever he ends up buying, and be far safer than his current situation.
I don't disagree with you that winter tires are better. You're totally correct. I'm saying from my experience I've never had an issue running all seasons, and while it may not be the safest option, I can only speak to what I know from my own experience. The all-weather tires are a step up from all seasons, and the dedicated winter tire is a step up from that. The benefit to the all winters is that you can run them year round and not worry about the tire melting in the warmer months.
You're also correct that I don't need a car that can bring me super high performance or driving. I'm never going to track it or offroad it. I drive in snow during the winter months but because I'm suburban and close to a major city, they plow everything quickly. There are certainly a lot of FWD cars around and they manage as well.
more seriously, your analysis seemed fairly complete from a practicality and financial perspective but what about leaving your kids a healthier planet?
environmental considerations aside I bet if you got the Y you’d only wonder Y you didn’t go electric sooner.
Yeah, this is definitely part of it. Basically if I didn't save any money long term with an EV it still wouldn't be a waste to me. I like the technology and how the car gets smarter as time goes on with the neural net, as well as the updates that change everything.
A great example is my wife's 2016 Honda Pilot. It has no CarPlay. CarPlay was introduced in 2017 which is the same "generation" of Honda Pilot but I can't add it.... unless I buy a 2017 or newer Honda Pilot. Nope.
