Sub,
Saw your post explaining what you want from us.
Ok, so here's how I justified an $85K purchase (S85 - before you could buy loaners).
I've been thinking for years about getting a car that could drive in the HOV lane. That would give me 30-60+ minutes a day more with my family. This is literally priceless time.
But I also can't stand driving cars that don't have power and handling. I come from driving 5 liter Mustang GT's, BMW 3-series (with sports package). So the plug-in Prius, Leafs, etc. don't cut it. Whereas the S85 accelerates faster and corners flatter than my old 330i sport.
I needed more range than a Leaf anyway. A real-world ~70 mile range doesn't work if I'm going to drive to work, take off in the afternoon for an event in SF/Berkeley/etc., then drive home in the evening. Whereas a real-world 200 mile range is sufficient for just about every day trip our family takes. The one exception being Napa Valley where you wind up driving there, then driving most of the day, then driving home. Napa's borderline without charging. But over time, I was confident this wouldn't be an issue and with the Fremont superchargers and more L2 chargers in Napa, it's not.
My kids were getting older and the teenager was starting to complain about the back of the 3-series getting cramped. The new 3-series was probably borderline. Our "day-trip" car probably needed to be a 5-series equivalent family sedan or bigger. Again, none of the EV's or plug-in hybrids fit the bill. But the Model S is a superbly comfortable family sedan.
And the S carries an enormous amount of cargo.
From a purchase cost perspective: the Model S was about $30K more than the comparable 3-series. I could justify the additional cost based on HOV privileges and cost savings from going solar and not buying premium CA-priced (expensive) gas.
But if I recall correctly, the Model S was at most $10K more than the equivalent 5-series. Actually, when I priced a 5-series GT (hatchback), the S wound up about the same.
Given the above, for me the S was a no-brainer from a financial standpoint.
The only real worries were the quality of the car, safety and whether the car would have any fundamental defects that would cripple the company. I was comfortable taking the risk because the powertrain was the highest risk area and the S has a 2.0 powertrain. 1.0 was the Roadster. I judged that rest of the car had about the same risk as any new model car since Tesla hired some pretty sharp auto veterans to oversee the design. I think that's been proven out. The quality has been fine - just the typical teething pains you'd expect from a new car model and the odds of a nasty fundamental issue drop every quarter.
From a safety perspective, I know that what counts is caring about it and getting enough supercomputer modeling time. Given Tesla's relationship with Daimler, I figured they could get access there if they couldn't buy it on the open market. And I figured Elon had a personal stake in making the car safe because he was going to be driving his family in it. I think the safety test results and accident reports we've seen speak for themselves on that one.
Knock on wood but the family and I have been thrilled with the car. We took three day trips and put >1000 miles on the car in the first couple of weeks. The S is the primary family car and day-trip car. It's a blast to drive and I get to commute in the HOV lanes. And our 9.4KWH solar install was sized to include the Model S draw.
All is well ...
