Help! Where are the savings?

[bonaire]

Until we get our hands on a model III car, it's hard to find appreciable savings in the S or the upcoming X. Most early adopters of Tesla are buying it for the way it looks, the way it drives, the tech, and that it doesn't leave an carbon footprint compared to ICE vehicles. Savings would be icing on the cake, but tough to do with a car over 70k (average Model S purchases come out to close to 100k optioned out)


I'm going well out of my comfort zone to get the Model X. The savings will be there in other facets in a sense. Like yearly vehicle registration and HOV lane access and convenience of never going to a gas station. But by no means will they offset what you pay for the S or X. And when we get the model III, we will never have to get gas again. And that is what is important to me. And once my family has the X and the III, I would be hard-pressed to ever go back to a gas powered car in the future.


ps: glad I live in AZ where my off-peak electric rate is .03 per kW.... Didn't realize CA was so high, but I'm not surprised.

Good answer here. Fairly honest representation.

i look at savings this way. Say a guy is about to walk into a BMW dealership and buy a 740iL new or 540. If instead they turn around and leave, order an MS 85 or MS 60. Then they are saving on a per month basis on the compare. If they were about to buy a Volt and instead order an MS 60 then there is no savings.

 

[David_Cary]

That's not true. I'm with Southern California Edison and get .11 cents per kWh every day except for between Noon and 9PM. I had to buy a second meter but Edison did all the work.

What I meant is that it isn't the normal rate. But I see what I typed. For much of the US outside of NY/CA, 11 cents is the highest rate not the lowest. Another problem is that you put the money into a second meter and then the utility changes the deal a year later (SDG&E for example). Sort of like installing solar and a year later, the utility doesn't allow net metering or requires a $70 a month minimum charge etc.

 

[bonaire]

Yes, you cannot ever assume incentives will last forever. Whether it is special rates ("introductory rates if you sign up today!!") - or things like net metering. These incentives are meant to start up a service and help it along - not be a lifelong input of benefit. Some contracts are grandfathered but you can agree that the solar industry surely was benefitted by the incentives and helped lower the cost per-watt of installation from $7 or more to well down to $3-3.50 today. The incentive is still the same and this benefits those who know how to work a deal around the low input costs of the products (hint... SCTY).There will be a "droop" in my mind of the EV purchasing future when incentives lower or dry up in places like Norway (heavy incentives there). If the US were to take away the $7500 tax credit things would slow down dramatically for the small EVs like Leafs, Volts and so on and perhaps hurt Tesla in MS 60 sales where people are choosing that over say a BMW 3-series or Audi A4.

 

[Merrill]

I tend to keep my cars so if you do a 10 year cost of ownership you can add in the $22000 of gas savings the $10000 in rebates the savings on repairs of $5000 the lower cost of registration $5000 and you have lowered the cost of the Tesla by $42000. Although I really did not buy the car for that and would have bought without the above.

 

[green1]

I tend to keep my cars so if you do a 10 year cost of ownership you can add in the $22000 of gas savings the $10000 in rebates the savings on repairs of $5000 the lower cost of registration $5000 and you have lowered the cost of the Tesla by $42000. Although I really did not buy the car for that and would have bought without the above.

And if you live somewhere with ZERO rebates, and assume a more realistic ZERO lower cost of repairs (I've seen nothing to indicate that there is any savings at all in this department with the service plan, and indications are for expensive services if it expires) and somewhere where registration is the same regardless of vehicle.
Then you just removed $20000 in savings from your calculator and extended your payoff by a significant margin ($15,000 buys a LOT of gasoline)


I've said many times, the S is an amazing car, and there are many good reasons to get one, but unless you were already in the market for a $100,000 car, you won't be saving money by getting one.

 

[wk057]

When I was looking at the Model S for the first time my comparisons were to my 2012 Chevy Volt.... suffice it to say the fuel savings were not one of the tipping points, but it *does* cost less with the Model S.

Electricity here is ~$0.11 kWh off peak, premium gasoline (which the Volt requires) runs about $3.80 on a good day. Volt I was getting about 38 miles EV range, and about 37 MPG in extended range mode.

I drive about 15,000 miles/yr for normal purposes, and more for trips.

For the Volt: I use a full charge per day, and completely EV on the weekends, so lets break that down... ~260 weekdays, ~105 weekend days per year. 260*38 = 9880 EV miles weekday. I use at least 10 gasoline miles/weekday... 2600 gasoline miles @ 37 MPG = ~70.2 weekday gallons/yr. Balance would be weekend, all EV enough of the time to say 100%. About 2520 EV miles.

So... from my TED I know the volt uses about 13 kWh for a full charge at 240V 16A. Only about 82% efficient. (The Model S is much more so, it seems, btw). 13kWh / 38 miles = 342 Wh/mi. 342 * (9880+2520 miles)= 4240 kWh/yr = $466.40/yr.
Then gasoline miles, not counting any road trips, are 70.2*3.80 = $266.76/yr.

So, lets look at the numbers...

Model S: 15,000*330Wh*~1.1 (efficiency loss estimate) = 5445 kWh = $598.95 fuel cost/yr... lets round to $600

Volt: (see above) = $466.40 EV + $266.76 Gasoline = $733.16/yr.

So, I was looking at ~$130/yr fuel savings over the Volt. That's less than $11/mo. Definitely not a decision making factor for me anyway.

I like the Volt. It's a pretty good car and I put quite a few miles on it.

Still bought the Model S. Its just a better car in an entirely different class, and I like it more. It's also a plus to never have to use gas with it, not that I was filling up often in the Volt anyway.

I suspect you'll come up with similar numbers for the Fusion Hybrid... a negligible fuel savings.

None of this takes into account any road trips, which I do at least a few times per year, which are pretty much free/included with the purchase of a Model S with supercharging, but use nearly 100% gasoline in the Volt. My road trips total about 6000 miles/yr or about $620 in gasoline/yr. Still not a huge deciding factor (~$51/mo).

But if you're looking at the Model S, and you can afford it.... just do it man.

 

[CHGolferJim]

Wk057, +1. My basic sense of the numbers is an MS has a similar 7-10 year TCO as a Merc E-class or higher-end BMW 3 series / lower end 5 series, and is a better and way more fun car with more storage for trips.

I'm about to get serious with a cost analysis, but realize I cannot cost justify the purchase vs. my current vehicle. I also plan to seriously increase road tripping with my wife as our last child heads to college next month, and do not want to do that in any of our current vehicles, although I may have to.