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Does a Tesla Y make financial sense for me

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Would really be keen to get a Tesla y main reason is I drive a lot of motorway miles and think with the autopilot would take a lot of stress away. will it ?

Currently drive an A class and drive around 25k a year the lease payment is around £380 a month. Petrol is around £100 a week.

Looking at quotes for a Tesla I would be around £700 - £800 a month I know I can claim 50% of the vat back but how much would it cost me to charge at home every night. I am already with Ocotupus can you add the home charging part without taking out a new contract as I am fixed and don’t want the bills to sky rocket.

Forgot to mention I am a small Ltd company don’t have the funds to buy outright but could lease thank you
 
Regarding autopilot:

Currently all manufacturers provide the same functionality (and some way better) as Tesla AP. It os just a driver assistant feature: traffic assisted cruise control with lane assistant. Nothing spectacular here. And I would argue that Tesla implementation of this is worse than Others, because you have to re-enable it manually after each lane change while other manufacturer implementations just re-enable automatically. And so on. But yes, that is very nice on motorway in general.

Charging is subjective, but if you charge at home, then take into account this:
To charge from 40 to 90% (that is about 160 miles on Long Range model) will cost you, if you are with Octopus go at 7.5p per kwh off peak, around 3 gbp... THREE pounds (40 kwh x 7.5p)
 
Some questions

1. Average annual mileage so we can advise on the cost of home charging.
2. As a company purchase, will you get a saving from reduced BiK ?

In terms of Autopilot, my personal experience is absolutely yes, and it's also the reason I bought the car. Driving isn't as tiring, and you feel safer as you can be more of an overwatch role and far more aware than grimly keeping in lane. It has it's moments, you will no doubt soon get a bunch of replies telling you people don't trust it, but for me it makes getting home at the end of a day working away possible.
 
Hi,
A couple of answers for you to consider although still several variables about your situation I don't know.
Firstly I'm a one-man Ltd also but have always owned a personal vehicle and claimed 45ppm. Don't pay VAT as under threshold. Accountant said it was easier especially when using ICE for past 10 years.
Anyhow, I swapped a 15 month old A250e for my M3LR last month but have had Octopus GO since January 2021. They also renewed my tariff for another year so still enjoying 5p between 12:30-04:30.
With a wall charger at c. 7kW I can get about 28-30kW in that window which gives me about 120 miles of charge (subjectively depending on how hard I thrash it). For me that costs me max £1.50. For 40 mpg equivalent at £1.65/l that's almost £22.50
I have a spreadsheet which I use for different tariffs and vehicles (wife's getting an i4) so I can keep a tally.
Hope this helps?
 
And I would argue that Tesla implementation of this is worse than Others, because you have to re-enable it manually after each lane change while other manufacturer implementations just re-enable automatically.
This is untrue if you buy the Advanced AutoPilot feature, which will perform handle lane changing and does not need to be reenabled.
 
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Don’t lease! Loan or PCP makes much more sense, people are currently trading in 2 year old Teslas for almost what they paid for them 2 years ago!

Your total monthly outlay will be roughly the same as the A Class, but almost all of that will be paying off the car, not going to a lease company and petrol stations!
 
Would really be keen to get a Tesla y main reason is I drive a lot of motorway miles and think with the autopilot would take a lot of stress away. will it ?

Yes, absolutely. I found the biggest difference was made when I got my previous car with ACC (keeping speed with the car in front). It takes away a lot of the tiring faster/slower concentration of motorway driving. AP does reduce that a little more, but as you still have to properly pay attention to your surroundings I found it has less of an overall impact if you're already used to ACC. As @yessuz says above, Tesla AP isn't perfect but if you're coming from a car with no cruise control or just a "dumb" version the difference is huge.

but how much would it cost me to charge at home every night. I am already with Ocotupus can you add the home charging part without taking out a new contract as I am fixed and don’t want the bills to sky rocket.

This depends on a lot of factors. What rate are you paying at the moment? My gross electricity consumption currently gives 3.2 miles per kWh from the house, so you can work it out from there based on your daily mileage. I don't try to drive efficiently, I just get in & go with the occasional heavy right foot... You can get better efficiency if you want to. At the present Octopus Go rate of 7.5p, you're talking about less than £2.50 per 100 miles.

You'd need to figure out your current consumption on your present rate & how much car charging you'll need to do, then calculate if switching to Go or Intelligent Octopus would work for you.
 
Financial sense is an odd one to base a model Y on, as even if you consider high residual values, I don't think financially it's a better option than an MG5 that would cost less than half the cost, still have a base level of lane assist and still do a steady 200+ miles on a charge. Also Financially a 3 is cheaper than a Y....
Regarding Octopus - No you can't keep your fixed electricity contract you would lose it, your gas (if you have it) is a separate contract so that shouldn't be effected.
Octopus has one requirement that you have a working smart meter than can send results every 15 minutes, so if you don't have a smart meter you need one to be fitted, and if you don't have geed enough mobile signal for your smart meter then you can't have it.
Having said that, I doubt your fixed rate would be better than octopus go if you're charging a car as cars use a huge amount of power.
Don't forget to price in a charger, which can be several hundred pounds to install.
 
I’m pretty sure you can’t just ask Octopus to give you the cheap overnight charging rate without the offsetting expensive rate the rest of the time (and higher standing charge). Basically like want your cake and eat it :)
You say that ... but the current Octopus flat rate is now 40p 😦 or 39p with their "loyalty" bonus ....... so octopus go at 30p peak and 7.5p off peak. But yea if you have a 16p fixed rate or something you'd have to run the math.
One other thing to consider if you were going to go solar/battery is you can't have the go tariff and the feed in tariff ..... but you can change out of the go one in summer and make money and switch back in winter (you can switch once a month or something)
 
You say that ... but the current Octopus flat rate is now 40p 😦 or 39p with their "loyalty" bonus ....... so octopus go at 30p peak and 7.5p off peak. But yea if you have a 16p fixed rate or something you'd have to run the math.
One other thing to consider if you were going to go solar/battery is you can't have the go tariff and the feed in tariff ..... but you can change out of the go one in summer and make money and switch back in winter (you can switch once a month or something)
Pretty sure I can't have Go as our Smart meter struggles to report once a week let alone every 15 mins! But how does that work if your FIT is with a different supplier? I was with Shell when we fitted the PV system. I have since moved to Octopus. But I still get my FIT from Shell
 
You say that ... but the current Octopus flat rate is now 40p 😦 or 39p with their "loyalty" bonus ....... so octopus go at 30p peak and 7.5p off peak. But yea if you have a 16p fixed rate or something you'd have to run the math.
One other thing to consider if you were going to go solar/battery is you can't have the go tariff and the feed in tariff ..... but you can change out of the go one in summer and make money and switch back in winter (you can switch once a month or something)

their FIT or FIT in general? Surely FIT isn't related to your consumption of electric. I've been on Go for a year now and nobody ever asked me about FIT - that shoudl be managed by the company that installed my solar as they get the income from that and I've not done anything in the 10 years since its been installed
 
This is untrue if you buy the Advanced AutoPilot feature, which will perform handle lane changing and does not need to be reenabled.
Yeah, that is not entirely true.

Firstly, enhanced AP cost shitload of money.
Secondly, you still have to "confirm" the lane change. In the end of a day ot is more or less same as to change lane by yourself.

Moreover, you need to apply torque/weight on steering wheel vs touch sensitivity implemented by others.
 
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I drive a lot of motorway miles and think with the autopilot would take a lot of stress away. will it ?

In a word Yes. Although as others have said anything with a good stay-in-lane and adaptive-cruise-control will get you that driver-benefit. I have only driver Tesla that have that, I read of some "drunken driving" of other brands, but I'm sure there are good ones. Tesla AP will jump on the brakes, unexpectedly, at times ("Phantom braking") so it too has annoyances.

Pre pandemic I did 35K miles a year, so I have some knowledge and data for that.

I've had Tesla since 2015. First one I had did 95K miles in 3+ years. Most of it motorway. Back then my max range was 240 miles. The replacement I have has a range of 300 miles. (This is actual real-world range at motorway speed, not what the glossy brochure says ... (because the Blurb is required to use government-test figures and they are not suitable for "Max range" only for "Mixed journey range", and you will never have a journey which is both max-range and also mixed-mode (unless you are driving 7 hours a day, but then I can't see how you would have time for any work!!)

I had a regular journey (for years before EV, and years afterwards) leaving at about 21:30 to come home. Arrive home at 23:00. All motorway except about 10-15 minutes at each end. No traffic at that time of night. Very boring, and I was often fighting tiredness for the last 20-30 minutes of motorway - windows down, radio full blast, driving on cats eye!. Car had adaptive-cruise-control but not stay-in-lane. Once I had Autopilot I never, not once, had that tiredness issue. I also have a journey from Suffolk down to an office in Bristol. Usually overnight, but sometimes there and back in the day. Nothing like as tiring as it used to be, I arrive "fresh" now. Same when we go skiing - 12 hours door-to-door, but now an extra hour for charging (3 x 20 minutes) and we arrive much fresher, I'm sure because of that enforced 20 minutes to stretch our legs, whilst charging, every 2-ish hours.

Model-Y has less range than Model-3. If you can manage with the Model-3 (can do without hatchback? You aren't 6' 6"+?! ) I recommend that. (If you can afford Model-S that has a bit more range still, but a lot more money, and not available "new" at present (which would be a problem for the tax benefits of company purchase)

Here's why range is important (choosing a model with more range, or paying more money for bigger battery).

When I had 240 mile range I was out-of-range and charging about 2 days a month. Bear in mind that you only need to top-up enough to get home, you don't need to fill the tank, so if you just need 50 miles more its a quick stop (maybe as little as 5 minutes). Provided the stalls are free :) And you don't have to detour too far off-route to get to a charger.

Since I got the 300 mile range car I am now only out of range a couple of times a year. For me that was the difference, on many journeys, between "not quite enough" and "just enough". Your journeys may be different of course.

Hypothetic journeys:

Distance 300 miles. I can do that on the new car, needed 60 miles on the old one, 10 minute stop - plus 5 minutes get into/out of the services.
Distance 350 miles. I need a 50 mile top up, about 5 minutes. Old car needed 110 miles, 15 minutes at least.

And a bit more than that and the new car needs one stop, the old one needed two. Plus I can choose where to stop (a charger on my route), whereas before I had less choice. So I might have had to stop when I already had, say, 50% charge - which is a lot less efficient to charge than stopping at 10%

Have a go with ABetterRoutePlanner. Choose the model of car, start the journey at 100%, and put in your Start / Finish for some of your longer journeys, and see what it says (it will tell you where you will have to charge, and for how long). Try it at, e.g., 110% for speed - if you have a bit of a heavy foot!

Try it in winter too - 5C, 5MPH wind. See how much more charging you would need to do.

Try for Model-3 and Model-Y. Maybe try and ID3 / ID4 as well? Whatever you fancy :)

Can you charge at Clients? Even 13AMP will help (about 7 MPH added ... if you are there 4 hours that might avoid the need for a pit-stop on the way home ... might also be free, our chargers at work are free to visitors)

If you are a travelling salesman - you stop for an hour at each client and then go to the next one - THAT situation is terrible in winter. If you pre-warm the car and battery (off the mains) and then just drive for a couple of hours at 70 MPH ... that uses about 10% more energy in Winter cold. But each time you stop, the battery gets cold, and you have "energy penalty" when you set off again. So lots of 1+ hour stops, in winter, is definitely worst-case for EV. But if you can plug in, whilst you are visiting, then that won't be much of a problem.

25k a year the lease payment is around £380 a month. Petrol is around £100 a week

In simple terms you will save £100 for each 10K miles you drive a year. If you have one of the "best" off peak rates AND you can complete your overnight charge in that time (4 hours = about 100 miles added) then you can increase that to £150 per month

So my simple question would be: Given you do 25K miles a year if you added £250 a month to your finance would that buy you a Tesla? (and if that is tight would £150 x 2.5 = £375 a month cover the finance? If the latter you are going to have to do some proper maths to make sure that you will actually get enough savings. For example, if you will have to pay for public charging (to top up whilst you are out) then that we be same price as Petrol (but for just those top-up miles).

Best off peak electricity rate is about 7.5p / kWh "Unit". Assuming you are mostly "pressing on" on the motorway then 3 miles / kWh is doable. If you want to drive at 65 MPH then you should get 4 miles / kWh. Of course some of the time you will be in traffic, or road works, and you will get 4 miles per kWh for that part of your jouney.

So ... 7.5p / kWh for electricity. 3 miles per kWh hour. 25k miles a year. That comes to £625 for electricity. BUT: using the cheapest overnight rate. And using ZERO 3rd party juice.

Your current £100 a week for fuel is 52 x £100 = £5,200 (assuming you don't go on holiday! or you drive the same distance on holiday as you do at work :) )

So you would "save" £5,200 - £625 = £4,575 on fuel.

You will also need less servicing. I don't know what your current service interval is - and whether you stick to manufacturer guidelines? I think at 25K per year I'd service a Tesla once a year (personally I use an independent who will be cheaper than Tesla, and he travels to my home / work and services it on my drive - very convenient :) ). There is no cost for Oil, Spark Plugs, Cam Belt!!, and for a motorway driver (and provided you use regen for slowing down) your brakes will last 150,000 miles.

I know I can claim 50% of the vat back

That doesn't sound right - can you clarify that please?

I am a small Ltd company

You can buy the car with 100% first year writeoff. Basically you get a tax rebate for that portion. When you sell the car you "make a profit", so you have to then PAY tax on that profit. But as a one-person-band you have the use of the money for that time and if you then buy another EV then you pay the tax on PROFIT and get the tax BACK on the new car (which will be more expensive than your trade-ion). That is until the government ditch that tax refund.

As a company car you will pay peanuts in Benefit-in-Kind tax (compared to a Petrol car). So big saving there (for company car route)

Company can pay the insurance too. Tesla are all blinking fast, so they are in the highest insurance group :(

No congestion charge (if your business takes you into London etc.?)

still do a steady 200+ miles on a charge

I am doubtful that is enough for a 25K a year driver. Time spent charging would need to be factored in.

However, if O/P has to do emails "when you get home" ? then you can do those, sat in the car whilst charging, so that is then time-neutral, you will arive home later but not have to do those emails :)

But how does that work if your FIT is with a different supplier?

I believe you can have your FIT with one company and get your Juice from a different one. As such it may be best to move your FIT to a "Green company" so that they get the benefit (and if you are moving it AWAY from a non-green company that creates trouble for them as they have to get green credits from somewhere ... "Every Little Helps")
 
Firstly, enhanced AP cost shitload of money.

£3,600 I think?

Let's say you get 50% back on resale, and keep the car 3 years - that's £50 a month. Plus any financing costs.

It certainly ain't "free" though

you still have to "confirm" the lane change. In the end of a day ot is more or less same as to change lane by yourself.

I didn't think that regulations allowed cars (yet) to change lanes in UK without confirmation? I'd be interested to know if there are cars that are doing that already (i.e. out of curiosity)

I don't think its that big a deal (price aside ...) signal, and car pulls over, and once in the other lane the car cancels the signal

On Navigate-on-Autopilot it will prompt to move over (to nearside lane) in good time before an exit. Yes, you have to signal to confirm that. And then it will take the exit and (in that instance) it will signal and take the exit by itself. Its saved me sailing past an exit on many an occasion when I obviously was not listening to the SatNav screaming at me "TAKE THE EXIT" !!!

That also brings up the "Blind spot camera" which I find useful. When there is a prompt to change lanes the blindspot camera comes on (but the car does not signal). So I can check that initially, then the mirrors and signal.

Far from perfect, but I think it is reduced workload for the driver compared to not having it - yank the wheel to change lanes (i.e. if AP is confident of the road, which it will be on a straight motorway, it will not yield easily to a turn of the steering wheel; on a bend where it is less confident you can take over with your little finger), or indicate (AP disengages) and change lanes manually, then re-engage AP.

I've not driven, and only read about, other cars where you can do stuff manually, control is relinquished to you, and then car takes back control automatically. I should try one before commenting, but I do wonder if I would be confused as to when car had control and when I did. (I'm dyslexic, I may well be more prone to confusion over such things than normal people as I am well aware that there are situations like that where mates seem to manage just find, but I get "confused")
 
£3,600 I think?

Let's say you get 50% back on resale, and keep the car 3 years - that's £50 a month. Plus any financing costs.

It certainly ain't "free" though
Well exactly. Some cars have lane assistant as standard as Tesla's AP.
I didn't think that regulations allowed cars (yet) to change lanes in UK without confirmation? I'd be interested to know if there are cars that are doing that already (i.e. out of curiosity)
I think this is entirely correct. So you have to confirm lane change with steering wheel. Same thing as you would do without eAP or any other lane assistant for that matter.
I don't think its that big a deal (price aside ...) signal, and car pulls over, and once in the other lane the car cancels the signal
Yes, more or less almost same as driving assistant which re-enables lane tracking auto
On Navigate-on-Autopilot it will prompt to move over (to nearside lane) in good time before an exit. Yes, you have to signal to confirm that. And then it will take the exit and (in that instance) it will signal and take the exit by itself. Its saved me sailing past an exit on many an occasion when I obviously was not listening to the SatNav screaming at me "TAKE THE EXIT" !!!

That also brings up the "Blind spot camera" which I find useful. When there is a prompt to change lanes the blindspot camera comes on (but the car does not signal). So I can check that initially, then the mirrors and signal.
Blind spot camera is on few more cars (and tesla standard AP) But Tesla's implementation is horrible. Location of the camera window is blocked by the left arm. More over it is completely counter intuitive to turn signal right and look bottom left for the screen. Simple indicator with light on the mirror is a muuuch better way to do it. At least I wish Tesla would allow to set where to place the camera window.

Far from perfect, but I think it is reduced workload for the driver compared to not having it - yank the wheel to change lanes (i.e. if AP is confident of the road, which it will be on a straight motorway, it will not yield easily to a turn of the steering wheel; on a bend where it is less confident you can take over with your little finger), or indicate (AP disengages) and change lanes manually, then re-engage AP.
Please correct me if I am wrong but your confirmation of lane change is done via yanking wheel?
I've not driven, and only read about, other cars where you can do stuff manually, control is relinquished to you, and then car takes back control automatically. I should try one before commenting, but I do wonder if I would be confused as to when car had control and when I did. (I'm dyslexic, I may well be more prone to confusion over such things than normal people as I am well aware that there are situations like that where mates seem to manage just find, but I get "confused")
There is nothing confusing. i can confirm that my g20 3 series had a very good implementation of the system.
 
Yeah, that is not entirely true.

Firstly, enhanced AP cost shitload of money.
Secondly, you still have to "confirm" the lane change. In the end of a day ot is more or less same as to change lane by yourself.

Moreover, you need to apply torque/weight on steering wheel vs touch sensitivity implemented by others.
No, it's not 'almost the same', as you said in your first post disabling and reenabling autopilot is a hassle. A good degree of that hassle is putting yourself back in driving control and needing to take action to get back out of it.

Personal experience is that I mutch prefer the Tesla AP experience to the Mobileye solution used by others. Clearly not tried them all but it's far less 'assertive' and to me less in control. A different experience as an aid and less of a self-drive.

It's not really that much money, pretty similar to options on a BMW.
 
No, it's not 'almost the same', as you said in your first post disabling and reenabling autopilot is a hassle. A good degree of that hassle is putting yourself back in driving control and needing to take action to get back out of it.

Personal experience is that I mutch prefer the Tesla AP experience to the Mobileye solution used by others. Clearly not tried them all but it's far less 'assertive' and to me less in control. A different experience as an aid and less of a self-drive.

It's not really that much money, pretty similar to options on a BMW.
I think you miss the point here.
Tesla AP works like this: AP enabled -> Use Turn Indicator -> Is it safe? If yes - you, as a driver change lane -> Driver has enable AP again.
Tesla eAP works like this: AP enabled -> If you use turn indicator -> car checks if it's safe - proposes change - You have to approve it by yanking steering wheel a bit. -> car changes lanes -> auto enables AP again.
Driver assist in BMW works like this: DA enabled -> use turn indicator -> Is it safe? If yes - you, as a driver change lane -> car automatically re-enables DA.

Other solutions is more or less a mix between Ap and eAP. only thing, eAP comes as additional pricy option and other's put it as standard.