I made a TCO calculator for Model 3 vs Other Cars

[NewTMSMan]

Insurance cost?
Thanks for excellent spread sheet.. Obviously the details of electric cost (multiple variables) will vary widely depending on electric supplier here in US.
I would want to add in insurance costs which I am hearing are significantly higher for Tesla compared to other brads here in the US.

Cannot speak for others, but it was not higher for me compared to a Porsche Panamera.

 

[RedAntisocial]

As far as I can tell you have a few costs that need correcting:
1) Delivery: cost of electricity is not just the generation cost of the electricity ($0.065), but you also need to include the variable costs of delivering the electricity to you (i.e. the electricity did not just get to you for free, for example there are transmission and distribution charges).
2) Charging efficiency: You calculate your weekly electricity costs as the kWh amount used in the car, but to get say X kWh of energy in the car what came out of the time of use meter (what you pay) is more than X kWh, there are charging losses.
3) Time of Use: Are you really going to be able to charge 100% of the time overnight at lowest costs? Depending on your driving pattern, I think you should minimum add a 10% fudge factor to at least account for: some charging off peak times, and needing to charge on the road. After all Tesla supercharger rates won't be free and will probably come in at around CAD$0.20/kWh. As I understand it Tesla does not actually charge per kWh, but at a rate per minute that is tiered depending on your charging rate.

So now some more gory details:
1) Delivery: Given your north of Toronto location, I presume you have similar costs to me in Toronto (Toronto Hydro), which even if you are not with Toronto Hydro would have been approved by the Ontario Energy Board. I know there are sunk costs that you already pay so it does not make sense to pro-rate those or include those as a cost for electric vehicles (eg. $27.69/30days customer charge that is buried in the delivery charge). However, delivery charge components that are specifically billed on a kWh basis should be included in your cost to drive a vehicle as those directly go up based on kWh consumption and are not sunk costs. There are a ridiculous number of charges that specifically apply to electricity consumption and are billed on kWh basis, including:
Transmission charge: $0.0133/kWh
Distribution charge: $0.01512/kWh
Anyhow, you probably need to add about $0.03/kWh as the "Delivery" charge on top of cost of electricity.
2) Charging efficiency: You can google this but people seem to be getting around 80% efficiency. i.e. If you pay your utility for 100 kWh, only 80 kWh will make it into the battery. So you need to increase kWh costs by 25% to add back the 20 kWh costs that you used when you drove with 80 kWh used in the battery.

I find that when you do the math on a high mpg ICE (eg Prius) vs say a Model 3, using the "true" kWh costs vs a high mpg gas car, the "fuel" savings are somewhat marginal. Certainly not enough to say that it financially makes sense to get a Model 3. However, if Model 3 does become full self driving like Elon Musk says it will, that is a different story. It greatly increases the utility of a Model 3.

Thanks! I'll work those factors in when I update the sheet tonight! And I'll do them the same way I've done other non-fixed values and make them a configurable value.

 

[T34ME]

Woah, the spreadsheet could be going off the rails now and be incalculable.

"Electric cars (not just Teslas) address the bigger picture and the costs could be staggering."
I am a tesla 3 reservation holder, but I really don't think electric cars address the bigger picture. Electric cars is only an incremental improvement in the big picture. All those thousands of pounds of raw materials that make up an electric vehicle can't be ignored. Their mining, manufacturing, transportation polluted and desecrated some part of the planet. To address the big picture, people need to move home, work, school, grocery shopping, etc to walking or bike distance. 20lb in raw materials of bike VS thousands of pounds in an electric car is the quantum leap that saves the planet and our health, but China didn't seem to like that when they had that not too long ago. I don't expect prosperous materialistic western countries would like that either.

I agree with parts of your post and disagree with others. Yes, the process is incremental. Any current EV is not the perfect solution, but it is an improvement over the now defunct ICE vehicle concept. Future EVs will be an improvement over the current generation. For example, when all EV chargers are powered by PV (or wind or oceanographic), rather than fossil or nuclear fuels, which is occurring at a rapid rate, will be one of those improvements.

And yes, the environmental cost of producing an EV is higher than producing an ICE......INITIALLY. This is due primarily to the environmental cost of producing the batteries. But battery technology is developing rapidly and more environmentally friendly batteries and car top PV are on the horizon. But even with current battery technology, the environmental cost of an EV is lower than an ICE after about one year due to all those nasty pollutants being spewed out by ICE (which are extant absent in an EV) resulting in long term damage to health and climate change.

I don't think prosperous materialistic countries are going to like the cost of increasing health care and natural disasters costs either that will be paid for by our progeny. Yes, the TCO of an ICE is complicated and at this time is difficult to calculate. That is why a TCO based on personal and simple out of pocket costs to the user, without considering the ancillary costs to future generations, is shortsighted, inaccurate, and baseless. Purchase an EV for yourself because it IS a better choice, but also purchase one for the future benefit of your children. Leave the planet in a better condition than you inherited as an inheritance and legacy for your children.

 

[RedAntisocial]

Yes, the TCO of an ICE is complicated and at this time is difficult to calculate. That is why a TCO based on personal and simple out of pocket costs to the user, without considering the ancillary costs to future generations, is shortsighted, inaccurate, and baseless. Purchase an EV for yourself because it IS a better choice, but also purchase one for the future benefit of your children. Leave the planet in a better condition than you inherited as an inheritance and legacy for your children.

Most people don't even purchase their car based on TCO, but rather on sticker price or aesthetics alone. Only the recent spike in fuel costs has made the majority even pay attention to the MPG/Lp100km ratings when they're looking to buy a new car.

Are the long term benefits something that everyone should consider? Absolutely. Can everyone afford an EV that suits their needs? Definitely not at this time. But that's changing, and that's good. We're just not there yet.

If I was driving half the distances I drive, the TCO calculator shows a VERY different picture.

For everyone else: Keep the feedback coming! It's great!

 

[barjohn]

Your cost of maintenance on the Bolt is way off. The only maintenance is tire rotations and fluid level inspections. Annually, pretty close to zero. (One of the concerns of M3 buyers has been whether Tesla will continue its high cost maintenance charges as in the current MS, MX).
Here where I live in Riverside, CA, electric rates are much much higher with a three tiered system and the rates running from $0.1035/kwh (first 875kw) to $0.1646/kwh (second 875kw) to $0.1867/kwh (all KW above 1500kw), then there are additional charges called Customer Charges $9.40/mo, Reliability Charge $11.67/mo, State Energy $0.76/mo, then Util User Tax $28.96/mo, then Electric PB Charge $11.97/mo. Our gas costs currently are above $3/gallon regular grade.

I have an M3 or order to replace my Hyundai Genesis and the Bolt I also own costs me less to operate than the Genesis despite the higher costs for electricity here and for a large fast car it gets very good mileage at around 22mpg around town and close to 30mpg on the highway.

 

[RedAntisocial]

@NewTMSMan HELP!!!!

How do I convert your residual calculation to use Kilometers? You have it set to 32000 miles, which would ~= 51,200km/year, but I'm trying to keep my values consistent and I need a breakdown of the values used in your calculations

 

[RedAntisocial]

Your cost of maintenance on the Bolt is way off. The only maintenance is tire rotations and fluid level inspections. Annually, pretty close to zero. (One of the concerns of M3 buyers has been whether Tesla will continue its high cost maintenance charges as in the current MS, MX).
Here where I live in Riverside, CA, electric rates are much much higher with a three tiered system and the rates running from $0.1035/kwh (first 875kw) to $0.1646/kwh (second 875kw) to $0.1867/kwh (all KW above 1500kw), then there are additional charges called Customer Charges $9.40/mo, Reliability Charge $11.67/mo, State Energy $0.76/mo, then Util User Tax $28.96/mo, then Electric PB Charge $11.97/mo. Our gas costs currently are above $3/gallon regular grade.

I have an M3 or order to replace my Hyundai Genesis and the Bolt I also own costs me less to operate than the Genesis despite the higher costs for electricity here and for a large fast car it gets very good mileage at around 22mpg around town and close to 30mpg on the highway.

Yeah, I need to straighten that out. Those maintenance costs are from my local dealer based on the "schedule" they have... which really seems to be a work of fiction. I mean, these are the same people who keep trying to tell me my Volt needs an oil change every 8,000km...

 

[AceSkywalker]

Woah, the spreadsheet could be going off the rails now and be incalculable.

"Electric cars (not just Teslas) address the bigger picture and the costs could be staggering."
I am a tesla 3 reservation holder, but I really don't think electric cars address the bigger picture. Electric cars is only an incremental improvement in the big picture. All those thousands of pounds of raw materials that make up an electric vehicle can't be ignored. Their mining, manufacturing, transportation polluted and desecrated some part of the planet. To address the big picture, people need to move home, work, school, grocery shopping, etc to walking or bike distance. 20lb in raw materials of bike VS thousands of pounds in an electric car is the quantum leap that saves the planet and our health, but China didn't seem to like that when they had that not too long ago. I don't expect prosperous materialistic western countries would like that either.

Few people can adjust their work, school, shopping, and so on to within walking or biking distance. It would be nice from a convenience perspective as well (not having to wake up at 4:45 to make it to work by 6:30AM), but doing so is a financial non-starter with overinflated housing prices. I do the next best thing which is drive the ICE 4 miles to the train station and park & ride (since work is next door to a stop).

Such recommendations are ideal, but far from practical.

 

[NewTMSMan]

@NewTMSMan HELP!!!!

How do I convert your residual calculation to use Kilometers? You have it set to 32000 miles, which would ~= 51,200km/year, but I'm trying to keep my values consistent and I need a breakdown of the values used in your calculations

Just change everywhere in the formula you see 12,000 to 19,200 and use kilometers driven per year as the input. Should work just fine.

 

[RedAntisocial]

Just change everywhere in the formula you see 12,000 to 19,200 and use kilometers driven per year as the input. Should work just fine.

Huh, interesting. That's what I did and it just seems like the cars are holding a lot more value than I expected, which is cool!

Thank you again, sir!

 

[DR61]

then there are additional charges called Customer Charges $9.40/mo, Reliability Charge $11.67/mo, State Energy $0.76/mo, then Util User Tax $28.96/mo, then Electric PB Charge $11.97/mo

The fixed charges for electric service to a residence should not be a factor in EV TCO. You will pay these charges regardless of whether you own an EV, gas vehicle, or no car at all. In my city you cannot even legally occupy a residence without paying these charges.

 

[internalaudit]

Nice spreadsheet.

But really reliability tanks after 5 years? Do you change the oil ever? My current ICE car/truck are 9 and 11 years old respectively, and still reliable daily drivers (of course they are maintained by me not jiffy LOL). The two ICE cars before that were 13 and 14 years old, finally then did reliability wane.

+1

First five years is when the car takes the most hit in the form of depreciation. If I'm going to keep turning in my car / sell on the 5th year, I might as well lease a nicer vehicle.

02 Civic bought when it was 1.5 years old (after it turtled) has creaky suspensions and noisy belt during start up.

11 Accord bought new and still drives like new

16 RAV4 hybrid - no issues at all except for liftgate ECU that needed to be replaced to avoid future issues.

I just learned to say no to service line items I can do on my own or are really not necessarily (every two instead of one year).

 

[nano1]

Would be cool to see this as a webpage where you can select specific cars of just show them as a line up like you have in the spreadsheet.

 

[RedAntisocial]

Would be cool to see this as a webpage where you can select specific cars of just show them as a line up like you have in the spreadsheet.

While that wouldn't be beyond me to do, I get more value personally out of the spreadsheet, as it's considerably easier to update.