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agreed. I would not spend anywhere near this on any other car. Not only do I think they are not worth it, but the math doesn't add up either. The more you drive, the more the Tesla makes sense. I think we will put about 20k on it a year, which is what we have been doing on our main car now, maybe a bit more. I will add additional mileage because I will make as many around town trips running my daughter to school and sports in the tesla rather than my Landcruiser at 9mpg.
That's certainly correct. I would never buy a Porsche, BMW, Audi, or Mercedes. The Tesla is different (obviously since I purchased one), but I don't know that it needs any more justification than one of the other choices. I guess the point is what is meant by justification. Many people equate justification with cost but that's just one kind of justification (and perhaps the only one if they see a particular choice as being sub-optimal).
Merrill
Merrill
I agree with most of what has been said, no way to justify the cost and not necessary. For me I have been tinkering with cars since the age of 10 and was in the car business for my career. I have spent truck loads of money on cars and not worried about the depreciation, that goes with the territory. I just love driving them and at one time fixing them, but the Tesla is in another category. Have solar and love not buying gas, plus the car is amazing in many ways. Never thought I would have an all electric car that looks good and goes so far, so for me it is a win win.
Exactly. And many people buy houses that contain huge amounts of square footage that they don't "need", but they "want". And then they have to heat and cool and clean and maintain all that space.
My wife and I live in a 1,600 sq. ft. house that we feel is plenty of space for us, but some look at it and wonder why we live in such a "small" house.
I have no problem feeling just fine about buying a $95K EV car that consumes far fewer resources to operate than an ICE.
I was under the impression tesla stopped doing the 1% per month and only did the $1 per mile now. If they still do 1% per month and you've found a 1 year old 5k mile loaner that gets the 1% and $1 discounts and still qualifies for all the federal and state rebates. I would think its a no brainer. Just buy it. If you do not like it you can sell it with relatively little loss
Owner
Active Member
I somehow missed the part that you already have solar. Without an electric car and with 8Kwh of solar, you'll be throwing away money twice as you probably have too many panels and also you'll be paying the gas man. Or I would as I rarely use A/C (maybe 3 days per year) as it isn't that hot here and I have a well constructed home.
One thing to consider, the maintenance on an electric car should be lower long run than an equivalent ICE because of less moving greasy parts.
One thing to consider, the maintenance on an electric car should be lower long run than an equivalent ICE because of less moving greasy parts.
RoverS
Banned
1 - Carnegie Mellon
2 - see sig...
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You should only buy a $95k car if you
- have your retirement paid for already
-or-
- are ON TRACK to retire when you want
-and-
- have no debt
if you can't satisfy those conditions, you are conducting financial malpractice on yourself and you will hate yourself when you are 74 and still bagging groceries because your 35 year old self loved to go around saying things like "YOLO".
I don't know how to do a multiple quote reply, so I'll try and answer here. Yes, they are still doing the 1% a month from production plus $1 per mile, that is why the Performance is a no brainer. If they had some more standard 85's with the same discount then it would definitely be a tough decision, but they don't.
I intentionally got the 8kw system with the plan to buy a tesla and drive for free. I have been fine with that plan right up until the moment it became real, then I got cold feet.
I would venture to guess that someone that is analyzing this as much as I am probably has a good hold on the rest of their financials and retirement, and I agree with the above statement. Way to many people live for today and forget about the future, the rest of us end up funding their golden years. Look at what happened in the financial crisis, people using gift money to buy toys and things they couldn't afford then when housing prices and the economy collapsed the tax payer was left holding the bag (summary of course).
I've looked at this a million ways, listened to all the opinions here and just spend a couple hours cycling thinking about it more. Crunching the numbers it breaks down to getting a 95k car for what should amount to about 12-15k out of my pocket vs driving our beat up old Junkers, most likely less. It gets more in favor of the Tesla if I throw in the purchase of a new (used) ice vehicle. All my analyzing is really based on the worst case scenario, and getting comfortable with that situation. This is a process I go through before any purchase big or small, but of course the big ones take longer to figure out.
Last thing I'm looking for is a little bump in the stock price this week, that will close the deal.
I intentionally got the 8kw system with the plan to buy a tesla and drive for free. I have been fine with that plan right up until the moment it became real, then I got cold feet.
I would venture to guess that someone that is analyzing this as much as I am probably has a good hold on the rest of their financials and retirement, and I agree with the above statement. Way to many people live for today and forget about the future, the rest of us end up funding their golden years. Look at what happened in the financial crisis, people using gift money to buy toys and things they couldn't afford then when housing prices and the economy collapsed the tax payer was left holding the bag (summary of course).
I've looked at this a million ways, listened to all the opinions here and just spend a couple hours cycling thinking about it more. Crunching the numbers it breaks down to getting a 95k car for what should amount to about 12-15k out of my pocket vs driving our beat up old Junkers, most likely less. It gets more in favor of the Tesla if I throw in the purchase of a new (used) ice vehicle. All my analyzing is really based on the worst case scenario, and getting comfortable with that situation. This is a process I go through before any purchase big or small, but of course the big ones take longer to figure out.
Last thing I'm looking for is a little bump in the stock price this week, that will close the deal.
Sub,
Your situation is almost a mirror of mine! Scary close!
I have an 8K system on the house I am in. I work from my home office (IT work). I have a pool and with cali summers I can tell you I am not making close to enough on my panels. It helps for sure, but I end up paying in the hotter months. What I produce never matches what SCE sends out. Does not account for the energy loss and such. Plus I am an energy whore with all my computers running my work stuff. Plus I have to cool the house and my systems so I do get billed. I even hit tier 5 in the summer on occasion with solar. I also already had a welder 6-50 socket right where we would need to hook up the S so it just like it was meant to be, why fight it!
My wife works about 55 miles from our home. So 110 mile round trip commute. She has been doing this in our ML350 for 6 years now. We average $7500 a year in fuel and have had 2 major repairs on seals and power steering to add another say $5-6000 in repair costs already. Car now has 115,000 miles on it and I just know its going to get some more repairs soon! Our S can't get here fast enough! She though has free charging at work in all of her parking structures. They are company only chargers and she will be getting on the schedule as soon as we pick up our car 12/23. I plan on never charging our car at home in fact. Why would I when her work will pay for it
. You add up our cost savings though and its pretty substantial as we plan on staying in the S at least 10 years. I would much rather pay 75,000-85,000 towards a model S then to gas companies and repair shops over the next 10 years. I also feel the whole sticking it to the man since we won't be contributing to the oil companies anymore. Not alone the time spent getting gas or servicing our ML. Buying the S for us is a no brainer.
I too needed that tax credit by years end, it was a must for us. We had been looking at Focus EV (leaf is to fugly for me) and were even in the dealership to buy it before I got rubbed the wrong way. She then mentioned the range anxiety she would have, I was like you could not have mentioned that earlier! She was worried we would have an emergency right when she got to work and she would not have the juice to get home. With the S that should not happen and I had previously had it on my list but it was just so much more than I ever paid I just said no and shelved that thought. Glad she finally spoke up as it was a test drive and order the following week! Going from the ML to a focus in regards to safety was another factor for us. I want her in the safest car possible. We also took into account if GM or any manufacture does make a 150+ mile car that focus would be worth nothing. It just could be out done so easily while the S is a car of the future here today. I understand the loss in the S's value but in the end we would be paying that either to oil or losses on a lesser car so why not live and just spend the money up front and recoup it over the years.
I did tell her when she is home their is no fighting over who gets to drive. The S is mine as soon as she gets home! I wanted the P+ being an ex super bike racer. I though could not justify that extra cost when she is commuting in it mostly. I did get offered a sweet deal on a loaner P85, but still more than I had as we are paying cash for ours. Another dig at the man as I hate banks as much as oil companies, why reward any of them! I stuck with our S85 in the trim we wanted. I figure down the road I could change inverters possibly, or upgrade to a loaner a couple years after its been refined even more. We are even looking at the X already. You only live once right?
Your situation is almost a mirror of mine! Scary close!
I have an 8K system on the house I am in. I work from my home office (IT work). I have a pool and with cali summers I can tell you I am not making close to enough on my panels. It helps for sure, but I end up paying in the hotter months. What I produce never matches what SCE sends out. Does not account for the energy loss and such. Plus I am an energy whore with all my computers running my work stuff. Plus I have to cool the house and my systems so I do get billed. I even hit tier 5 in the summer on occasion with solar. I also already had a welder 6-50 socket right where we would need to hook up the S so it just like it was meant to be, why fight it!
My wife works about 55 miles from our home. So 110 mile round trip commute. She has been doing this in our ML350 for 6 years now. We average $7500 a year in fuel and have had 2 major repairs on seals and power steering to add another say $5-6000 in repair costs already. Car now has 115,000 miles on it and I just know its going to get some more repairs soon! Our S can't get here fast enough! She though has free charging at work in all of her parking structures. They are company only chargers and she will be getting on the schedule as soon as we pick up our car 12/23. I plan on never charging our car at home in fact. Why would I when her work will pay for it
. You add up our cost savings though and its pretty substantial as we plan on staying in the S at least 10 years. I would much rather pay 75,000-85,000 towards a model S then to gas companies and repair shops over the next 10 years. I also feel the whole sticking it to the man since we won't be contributing to the oil companies anymore. Not alone the time spent getting gas or servicing our ML. Buying the S for us is a no brainer.I too needed that tax credit by years end, it was a must for us. We had been looking at Focus EV (leaf is to fugly for me) and were even in the dealership to buy it before I got rubbed the wrong way. She then mentioned the range anxiety she would have, I was like you could not have mentioned that earlier! She was worried we would have an emergency right when she got to work and she would not have the juice to get home. With the S that should not happen and I had previously had it on my list but it was just so much more than I ever paid I just said no and shelved that thought. Glad she finally spoke up as it was a test drive and order the following week! Going from the ML to a focus in regards to safety was another factor for us. I want her in the safest car possible. We also took into account if GM or any manufacture does make a 150+ mile car that focus would be worth nothing. It just could be out done so easily while the S is a car of the future here today. I understand the loss in the S's value but in the end we would be paying that either to oil or losses on a lesser car so why not live and just spend the money up front and recoup it over the years.
I did tell her when she is home their is no fighting over who gets to drive. The S is mine as soon as she gets home! I wanted the P+ being an ex super bike racer. I though could not justify that extra cost when she is commuting in it mostly. I did get offered a sweet deal on a loaner P85, but still more than I had as we are paying cash for ours. Another dig at the man as I hate banks as much as oil companies, why reward any of them! I stuck with our S85 in the trim we wanted. I figure down the road I could change inverters possibly, or upgrade to a loaner a couple years after its been refined even more. We are even looking at the X already. You only live once right?
One thought to add:
If it will be a requirement to make 220+mi trips without charging, while that may be easy to do while the Tesla is new, it will certainly get more difficult as time goes on and the battery slowly loses capacity. Also keep in mind that speed and weather can have a large effect on range. It may be useful to see what kind of range people regularly get - it seems that if you want to get 265 rated miles out of the Model S, you will have to keep speeds in the 65-70 mph max range in good weather. If you always obey the limit and are willing to do so for longer trips - this will be less of an issue.
Trips longer than 220+ miles will almost certainly warrant some amount of charging, so make sure you know where Tesla plans on installing Superchargers along your most frequented routes.
Think about the same thing if you had a Focus or a leaf. They also will lose range over the years, and it will hurt even more on them since they were already limited to begin with. Yet another reason to get an S!
towman26
Member
I had a MB S550 that was $130 that i leased and I was happy when we took it back. We were going to buy the car out but the book value was 20k less than the cost they wanted. We gave the car back then that night we saw the Model S in a news article and my wife told me to find info on the car. After looking at it online we put the deposit on the car. To me it isn't about justifying it because there are millions of reasons you can bring up to not get it. So we got ours on our 25 anniversary and I can't wait till they come out with a pickup truck and if they don't do the pickup I will get the model x at a later date. They are that good
I have a LEAF (and only dream of owning a Model S - could I afford it if I really wanted to? sure, but I don't drive enough to justify it or have enough spare cash), so I am well aware of EV range and capacity loss over time. The concept is the same, but with the OP using the Model S to regularly drive 200+ miles, capacity loss over time is definitely still a factor. By the time year 5 rolls around especially with the high amount of miles driven here, I fully expect about 80% capacity to remain which will probably require some charging on that airport round-trip even with a range charge. But the first couple years shouldn't be a problem at a standard 90% charge as long as speed limits are obeyed.
The real benefit here will be Supercharging - even on those trips that are slightly out of range, it should only require a 10 minute top-off to get enough range to get you back home - but you should expect to need it at some point in time especially considering that the OP seems to keep cars for a long time.
Sub,
Your situation is almost a mirror of mine! Scary close!
I have an 8K system on the house I am in. I work from my home office (IT work). I have a pool and with cali summers I can tell you I am not making close to enough on my panels. It helps for sure, but I end up paying in the hotter months. What I produce never matches what SCE sends out. Does not account for the energy loss and such. Plus I am an energy whore with all my computers running my work stuff. Plus I have to cool the house and my systems so I do get billed. I even hit tier 5 in the summer on occasion with solar. I also already had a welder 6-50 socket right where we would need to hook up the S so it just like it was meant to be, why fight it!
My wife works about 55 miles from our home. So 110 mile round trip commute. She has been doing this in our ML350 for 6 years now. We average $7500 a year in fuel and have had 2 major repairs on seals and power steering to add another say $5-6000 in repair costs already. Car now has 115,000 miles on it and I just know its going to get some more repairs soon! Our S can't get here fast enough! She though has free charging at work in all of her parking structures. They are company only chargers and she will be getting on the schedule as soon as we pick up our car 12/23. I plan on never charging our car at home in fact. Why would I when her work will pay for it
I too needed that tax credit by years end, it was a must for us. We had been looking at Focus EV (leaf is to fugly for me) and were even in the dealership to buy it before I got rubbed the wrong way. She then mentioned the range anxiety she would have, I was like you could not have mentioned that earlier! She was worried we would have an emergency right when she got to work and she would not have the juice to get home. With the S that should not happen and I had previously had it on my list but it was just so much more than I ever paid I just said no and shelved that thought. Glad she finally spoke up as it was a test drive and order the following week! Going from the ML to a focus in regards to safety was another factor for us. I want her in the safest car possible. We also took into account if GM or any manufacture does make a 150+ mile car that focus would be worth nothing. It just could be out done so easily while the S is a car of the future here today. I understand the loss in the S's value but in the end we would be paying that either to oil or losses on a lesser car so why not live and just spend the money up front and recoup it over the years.
I did tell her when she is home their is no fighting over who gets to drive. The S is mine as soon as she gets home! I wanted the P+ being an ex super bike racer. I though could not justify that extra cost when she is commuting in it mostly. I did get offered a sweet deal on a loaner P85, but still more than I had as we are paying cash for ours. Another dig at the man as I hate banks as much as oil companies, why reward any of them! I stuck with our S85 in the trim we wanted. I figure down the road I could change inverters possibly, or upgrade to a loaner a couple years after its been refined even more. We are even looking at the X already. You only live once right?
Thanks for the long reply, yes our situations are similar. Nice that you use to race superbikes, I'm a motorcycle guy also. I currently own a KTM 690 SMC that I put quite a few miles on and I get paid to do it, long story. I could just about pay cash for the model S I want right now but I would rather have that making money for me, 3% is cheap money and i'm putting down just enough so that it pencils out to even or better than where we are now with our junker ice vehicles. Listen to me, i'm talking like it's a done deal now.
As far as the mileage decreasing, I've taken that into account. The nice thing is that as the mileage on the earlier Model S decreases, there will be more supercharges so you will need less and less range for the longer trips. There is already a supercharger near enough to the Sacramento Airport (Folsom) and it's on our way home though technically it would take 10-15 minutes longer to go that way, it's a nicer drive than interstate 5. I've looked at the map and I can see where the planned superchargers are, one is supposedly under construction in Roseville, but we need one also around Stockton on I5 and some up in the Napa/Santa Rosa area as that is where my wife works a lot. For now we would have to look for hotels where she can charge over night, not to concerned about that issue.
Checked in on the loaners I was interested in, the 2 I'm considering are still available so I may be pulling the trigger later this week.
Same here. Had P85 loaners twice and never for a second regretted getting an S85. I just replaced my rear tires after 15k miles, and heard from the SC guy that the P burns through a set of rear tires in about 5-6k miles, because the 21" wears faster naturally (and presumably from... different driving habits). Not to mention those tires are more expensive too. So I'm not so sure the loaner P85 is a "no brainer".
That aside, there is no rationalizing this. You can spare the money without worrying about retirement and such, it's just a matter of going for it if you want it badly enough. I tried rationalizing it, but quickly gave up. It's a fool's errand.
we were typing at the same time I think, I answered your question before you asked it I think. I was in the same boat as you until my wife took her new position, I wanted a model S but we didn't drive anywhere near enough. Her commute was 1 mile, mine was zero, and my daughters school is 1 mile. Now with my wife working a new position covering 4 states (she fly's outside of California) her travel alone makes it work, I don't have to factor in much personal use at all. With my business I also get to write off miles, so I get the added benefit of tax breaks and no fuel costs on those trips as well.
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