Model 3 SR+ - Hidden costs?

[jon8oy86]

Hi all,

I'm coming close to agreeing with the Mrs to go for a SR+. I couldn't tell you last time I did over 200 miles in a day, so range will not be an issue and frankly I can't afford to take the jump to LR anyway!

On the affordability point, I'm trying to factor in all the costs I'll need to consider. This would be my first EV, so here are my considerations so far:

• Purchase of the actual car (had recently been showing as £38,500, but I see today a doc fee has been added which is almost £1k extra!!!)
• Insurance (I've had a few quotes and fair to say EV is a bit pricier than ICE at the moment from insurers)
• Installation of home charging point (£500 grant from OLEV plus up to £300 from Home Energy Scotland as I'm Scottish )
• Increased electricity bills (will look at tariffs that provide lowered overnight costs once I'm further along in the process)
• Modifications to the car - as I will likely get zero optional extras and buy as standard as is possible, I expect to shell out once the car arrives to personalise it a bit. Things like wrapping the centre console and adding mudflaps seem sensible, plus looking at exterior partial wraps, paint protection, tints, etc
• Luxury vehicle tax (ugh)

Is there anything glaring I'm missing? Do Tesla add any charges in after the initial order? Any advice gratefully received!

Cheers,

John

 

[NorfolkMustard]

Don’t forget the deductions too (my numbers in brackets)

- Petrol/diesel (£250/month)
- servicing (£25/month ~£300/year)
- brake pads/discs (£35/month ~£800/2yrs)
- Free parking (£20/month - my local council has free parking and free 7kW chargers in their council owned car parks and on-street parking, which is nice)

Tesla won’t sting you for extras, what you signup for when you pay the deposit is everything. They won’t even try to upsell you on delivery day like traditional dealers will.

 

[Roy W.]

Hi John,

Welcome to the forum!

My advice would be to go for it. I’m on my third EV now - Nissan Leaf 24 - Hyundai Kona electric - Model 3 LR AWD, and all three have saved me money constantly.

The biggie is obviously fuel. Depending which ICE car you drive, it can easily cost 10-15p a mile in fuel. On a low-cost off-peak tariff, I’m charging my M3 at home for less than 1.5p a mile. You can work out the saving yourself depending on your annual mileage.

Unlike all other car companies Tesla have also removed the requirement for regular servicing, so no annual services. There is a two year inspection. Because EVs are mechanically much more simple, and you rarely use the physical brakes, discs and pads can last literally years.

I find I do about 95% of my charging at home. On longer trips you’ve got the brilliant Supercharger network (use a referral code when you order your car for 1000 free miles). But the big benefit for you in Scotland is the free fast charging in most towns. Other than Dumfries & Galloway who charge, all the other Chargeplace Scotland chargers are currently free. We had a trip to Skye in the summer, and even on the small island there are four 50kW chargers dotted about.

We’re all here to help, so make sure you keep coming back with any new questions you’ve got.

Cheers,
Roy.

 

[MrBadger]

I couldn't tell you last time I did over 200 miles in a day, so range will not be an issue and frankly I can't afford to take the jump to LR anyway!

Obviously everyone's usage patterns are different, and there may be alternative forms of transport that may be available, but its not the trips that will be the problem, it will be the stay away's when off grid.

We did a 5 day 50 mile (from home) stay away with no overnight charge point and needed to get home with 80%, but leaving home at 40% required 3 supercharger stops totalling about 1-1/2 hours and added 40 minutes to our regular 1:20 journey time. We had hoped to charge more locally, as nearest supercharger was 13% battery each way, but found that charge point closed. We could have tried another, but it was easier to just supercharge on way home. I must admit, whilst no range anxiety, the trip was not as straight forward as I expected, but its early days with the car and I think being away for longer would give more opportunity to charge locally.

However, we have LR and I think if we had standard range, it would have been a completely different story and we would have spent our life planned around charge points instead of having the flexibility to charge when more convenient.

 

[davidmc]

Hi John

Welcome to the forum!

Agree with the above posts, but Fuel is the big saver, especially on a cheap tarriff at home or Free charging (Think you get it in Scotland?)

You can achive a 1p/mile or less fuel cost if you take advantage of free charging & cheap tarriffs (compared to an ICE at around 12p/mile)

Im a SR+ driver as a similar situation as you, LR just a bit to much for me but SR+ is plenty fun. Also in a few years you will have something to look forward too if you upgrade

Dont forget to use a referral code (website link when ordering) for 1000 free miles on Tesla superchargers (expires after 6 months from collection)

Also Octopus Energy have a great tarriff for EV's if you have a smart meter (Again referals links for a £50 credit to you)

 

[Yev000]

You forgot $50/Year for a TeslaFi subscription - PM me if you want a referral...

And here is an idea of the savings vs 27MPG diesel car:

Also bear in mind that in the winter the real range is more like 150 miles (100 to 0) and 20-80 range is about 100 miles if you don't want to tax your battery every day. My round trip commute is about 45 miles and I can probably do 2 days before topping it off this time of year. Short trips are the worst for efficiency, you can easily use 10 rated miles on a 1 mile trip due to cold battery and car. Takes about 10 miles to of driving warm up the battery fully.

 

[elecTED]

We have an SR+. Depending on speed, load, weather etc we typically get anywehere between 140-200 miles on a full tank (mix of city and motorway driving).

You're lucky living near Holyrood. You probably qualify for a £35K interest free loan to spend on a new EV! That is a massive saving in itself (no interest/lease costs on £35K, if it was going to be a cash purchase invest the £35K and make money!).

Fuel savings will be totally dependent on your specific use case. Some people may save £2K a year others will save less than £500. Depends on how many miles you normally do, city vs motorways etc.

Average yearly servicing costs should be less in an EV (less moving parts). Difficult to quantify for M3 in UK as car has only been around for a few months.

Luxury car tax is a real stinker! Curently £320 for years 2-6.

Mods to car - I would say these are optional extras (apart from car mats that SR+ does not come with!) so not really extra cost of ownership.

Electricty bill - I like to use easy numbers. To fill the battery up at home it costs me around £7.50 for an SR+ (and around 24 hours using a 3 pin plug using the UMC cable Tesla supply). At a Tesla Super Charger the costs are approx double (~£14 to get 80% range back). If I did loads of miles I might consider a more EV friendly electricty tariff.

You're gettin the home charge point fot next to nothing as you live next door to Holyrood. You may as well go for it.

You'll save on congestion and low emission zone charges too!

Plus you'll be more chilled out driving an EV... mainly to extend range

 

[Grymbok]

Obviously everyone's usage patterns are different, and there may be alternative forms of transport that may be available, but its not the trips that will be the problem, it will be the stay away's when off grid.

We did a 5 day 50 mile (from home) stay away with no overnight charge point and needed to get home with 80%, but leaving home at 40% required 3 supercharger stops totalling about 1-1/2 hours and added 40 minutes to our regular 1:20 journey time. We had hoped to charge more locally, as nearest supercharger was 13% battery each way, but found that charge point closed. We could have tried another, but it was easier to just supercharge on way home. I must admit, whilst no range anxiety, the trip was not as straight forward as I expected, but its early days with the car and I think being away for longer would give more opportunity to charge locally.

However, we have LR and I think if we had standard range, it would have been a completely different story and we would have spent our life planned around charge points instead of having the flexibility to charge when more convenient.

As an SR+ user of ~10 weeks now I've found that the two problems I've had have been a) trips away for several days, and b) days out.

As @VanillaAir_UK says, if you're away for days and staying somewhere you can't charge this will become a problem. We've done two cottage holidays since getting the car. The first was to the Lake District where we wouldn't charge at the cottage but there were charging options nearby, and it all worked out OK with minimal disruption in the end. The second was to Whitby which is an EV charging desert. We took my wife's ICE car instead.

On the day trips side - much like @jon8oy86 when I got the car I would have sworn I pretty much never do 200 miles in a day. But it turns out that 80+ miles to see my brother plus a journey out when we get there and the round trip home adds up pretty quickly. It's not been a problem ever but has required intra-day charging that I didn't expect to be doing. Still learning.

In hindsight, would I have gone LR AWD? Well no, since I couldn't afford it. So far, the extra capacity would definitely have helped if I could afford it, but I'm learning to managing charging needs and I think with a few more months under my belt (and as UK charging infrastructure improves) it will all get easier.

 

[Alan J]

Hi all,

I'm coming close to agreeing with the Mrs to go for a SR+. I couldn't tell you last time I did over 200 miles in a day, so range will not be an issue and frankly I can't afford to take the jump to LR anyway!

On the affordability point, I'm trying to factor in all the costs I'll need to consider. This would be my first EV, so here are my considerations so far:

• Purchase of the actual car (had recently been showing as £38,500, but I see today a doc fee has been added which is almost £1k extra!!!)
• Insurance (I've had a few quotes and fair to say EV is a bit pricier than ICE at the moment from insurers)
• Installation of home charging point (£500 grant from OLEV plus up to £300 from Home Energy Scotland as I'm Scottish )
• Increased electricity bills (will look at tariffs that provide lowered overnight costs once I'm further along in the process)
• Modifications to the car - as I will likely get zero optional extras and buy as standard as is possible, I expect to shell out once the car arrives to personalise it a bit. Things like wrapping the centre console and adding mudflaps seem sensible, plus looking at exterior partial wraps, paint protection, tints, etc
• Luxury vehicle tax (ugh)

Is there anything glaring I'm missing? Do Tesla add any charges in after the initial order? Any advice gratefully received!

Cheers,

John

I've owned my SR+ for 2-3 Months and because Public Charging is free in Scotland it has literally cost me nothing, suggest you Download Zap Map and find your Local Charger, they are at most Railway Stations.

As someone else has commented you should also be eligible for the £35K Interest Free Loan in addition to the £3.5K UK Gov Discount.

 

[MrBadger]

Modifications to the car - as I will likely get zero optional extras and buy as standard as is possible, I expect to shell out once the car arrives to personalise it a bit. Things like wrapping the centre console and adding mudflaps seem sensible, plus looking at exterior partial wraps, paint protection, tints, etc

Your may want winter tyres depending on your typical drive. It comes shod as standard with summer ones...

 

[Adopado]

I'm coming close to agreeing with the Mrs to go for a SR+. I couldn't tell you last time I did over 200 miles in a day, so range will not be an issue and frankly I can't afford to take the jump to LR anyway!

If you've not done it already I suggest you play with Abetterrouteplanner online. You can set up for the SR+ and try multiple journeys to see how the usage and charging is going to work out in practice.

 

[elecTED]

In hindsight, would I have gone LR AWD? Well no, since I couldn't afford it. So far, the extra capacity would definitely have helped if I could afford it, but I'm learning to managing charging needs

Same here. The LR would have made problems easier to solve (longer continuous journeys, less time spent charging etc) but the maths (already doubled budget to £40K going from ICE to EV replacement car) did not stack up for me - £8.5K extra for the LR for around an extra 80 or so real world miles.

So the way I see it is £8.5K in hand with occasional extra planning and problems to solve. Keeps the mind and body active and some stress now and again isn’t all that bad for you.

 

[TezzyMod3]

The hidden cost for me was the amount of phantom drain you get. Especially when pre-heating the car!

I have to admit it has got a lot better since I stopped checking the app every 5 minutes, and I got TeslaFi to put the car to sleep.

It doesn't bother me but if I was doing a lot of daily miles/stopovers, it would mean I need to supercharge more often.

 

[booyaka76]

Same SR+ owner of 6 weeks (2 of them in service centre however!) - the £9k extra for the LR was never going to happen as 95% of my driving to see clients/work etc is under 100 miles a day.

 

[xdcthedoc]

Have you considered car cleaning costs?

I never gave a crap about my previous cars and rarely washed them.... with my Tesla I want to do it every other week because it looks so damn good.... I am spending time and money that I never used to )

Damn Tesla!

 

[WannabeOwner]

Is there anything glaring I'm missing?

A decent extension lead. For the "trips away" it is well worth charging from 13AMP at Relies (you can pay them if you like, assuming they are paying around 15p a unit that's about 4 miles for you so will still be good value). best to have something decent though, rather than their frayed lawn mower extension lead!

My Daughter went to Edinburgh, from Cambridge, a few days after getting her M3SR+. Back then some of the Superchargers only had a couple of CCS sockets converted, so she had to "pair" which slows charging somewhat, but even so she didn't seem bothered at the stops as they were not significantly more than she would have chosen to stop on a long journey anyway.

I second using A Better Route Planner to test long trips that you are likely to make. It will tell you how often / long you need to stop to Charge Up.

Costwise quite a lot depends on your annual mileage. Dunno about any preferential rates for Electricity in Scotland, but Down South the best rates are around 5p / unit. You should get 3-4 miles a unit (less so in Winter, and particularly on short journeys in the cold). Petrol is what? 12p a mile at 50 MPG (assuming that you did actually get that on all trips, even short cold ones ...)

 

[p_iv]

Even being on an expensive electricity tarriff I've saved £200 in the first month. Which should offset the £400 I spent on charge point installation in two months. Recon I can do better next month after my smart meter is installed.

Only other cost I've paid in the past month is about 50p's worth of screen wash Oh, and a small amount of shampoo and hot water for its first ever wash. A second one is now long overdue...

 

[elecTED]

Have you considered car cleaning costs?

I never gave a crap about my previous cars and rarely washed them.... with my Tesla I want to do it every other week because it looks so damn good.... I am spending time and money that I never used to )

Damn Tesla!

There’s an acronym for this type of behaviour, OCTD

Obsessive Compulsive Tesla Disorder

 

[Shetlandmdl3]

I see your in Scotland you have gone for the EST 0% loan?

 

[elecTED]

I see your in Scotland you have gone for the EST 0% loan?

How long do you have to live in the cold (Scotland) to qualify for EST loan?