Model S total cost of ownership spreadsheet / model - looking for input!

[ljwobker]

Just to nit pick - you have the Model S maintenance too low - the $3800 covers only 100k miles.

Also when it comes to maintenance, you don't have a line item for repairs (included in maintenance?). While this is completely unknown, it may be significant. You could look at extended warranty costs as some guide - of course you need to look at Invoice cost for the dealer based ones because they retail at $3k but can be had for $1200 (as an example). I don't think any of your comparison cars have extended warranties as expensive as Tesla's when you account for the price you can buy it at.

I specifically excluded repairs, because at least for the baseline numbers (my Acura) I included them in "maintenance". I also assumed that any major repair outside of that would be due to a collision and would therefore be an insurance claim. (Thankfully) I haven't done any major damage to a car in 10+ years so I don't have any first hand experience there.

Property tax for Tesla = $5000 for 8 years; Altima $2000. (estimates)

Thanks, I added a row for that calculation. I took the NC/Wake county tax rate of 0.9% and did a straight line depreciation from the purchase to the residual, then multiplied that out by the years. It will slightly overestimate the taxes because the depreciation is NOT straight-line in reality, but ought to be good enough to be no worse than a rounding error here.

Everyone who does these things is always trying to minimize the extra cost of a Tesla - often making it cheaper than a $40k BMW. I applaud your worst case scenario but I still think you could do better.

In what ways can I improve here? The real attempt here is to most accurately model the strictly financial costs of owning a car, I'm trying really hard not to do stupid stuff like "the amount of time I spend fueling the car" or whatever. My very high-level, qualitative read is that you can't legitimately call it cheaper than an A4, 3-series, or Infinity G37, but once you start talking about the 540 BMW or Audi A6 or Infinity Q50, you're looking at *roughly* break even in the long term.

Obviously your driving screams out for a Tesla. I think your annual mileage estimates are too low....Make the mileage 24k and the Tesla is close to the cheapest option.

I'd love to do that, but I can't figure out where those extra miles would actually come from. It's very easy to see where I would move a few more miles away from the ICE cars and onto the Tesla, but I just don't think that my wife and I will be driving significantly more than we do already just because we have a different car. I did the math and across the 3 cars we own (the Acura, the Subaru, and the LEAF) we've driven almost exactly 24k miles combined per year for the last 8 years.

Can't even get 120 in N. Durham? I live extremely close to you and I could use a 40 mile range horribly degraded Leaf the vast majority of the time (charging available in Raleigh at work).

Never meant to imply I couldn't get charging, I meant to say that the LEAF (even degraded) gets me all my day-trip stuff within the Triangle metro area. It's the long trips down to Bragg and then the mountains and beach trips that aren't even remotely close to possible in the LEAF.

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Is there any chance you can go from three cars down to two cars as a result of picking up the S? Significantly affects your costs. Rent an ICE for the "most corner of corner-case trips".

I hadn't seriously considered that - in some ways because I don't think the wife would be at all interested in getting rid of the subaru... and I'm sure as hell not putting a bike rack on the top of a Model S. Financially, it is relevant to include the non-operating costs of that 3rd car though (insurance, taxes, depreciation, etc)

I notice in your spreadsheet you compare against a couple of other vehicles, e.g., Audi A6 TDI. I'd argue that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison, even if it does reflect your current thinking about what you might pick for yourself. The luxury, performance and people/cargo capacity of the Model S put it in a different comparison band than the alternatives you are considering. I'd suggest that a more accurate comparison is to a BMW 5- or 7-series, to an Audi A8, a Porsche Panamera Turbo, or a suitable Mercedes. One poster said that the Model S sits at "that interesting intersection of a family mini-van and a supercar" (I'm not quoting accurately but I think I have the gist). How true. My P85+ does 0-60 at an insane acceleration while performing like a dream and yet holds 5 adults+2 kids+frunk cargo, or two adults plus a TON of cargo in the back and in the frunk.

You might say that you are only doing a purely economic analysis... but shouldn't your analysis be able to capture at the very least the cargo differential? Cost per pound moved per mile? The Leaf is going to need extra trips.

After all, if you're in the market for an S, you *could* choose to buy one of the other vehicles I've mentioned above. And when you start thinking about those economics, the S becomes relatively cheap very quickly.

All excellent points. The comparisons were chosen based on my personal "comparisons" and were mostly cars that I knew at least a little bit about and would remotely consider buying as a replacement for the Acura. I threw the Altima in there just to provide a lower cost comparison. In my *personal* world, if I had to replace the Acura with an ICE it would most likely be an A6 or Q50. I don't have kids nor do I have much need for hauling, so the space benefits of the Model S aren't all that important to me (though clearly they are to a large number of people). And (again, only for me personally) there is no chance in hell that I would ever plunk down the kind of money it takes to drive and maintain a Panamera or a 7-series BMW or an A8. The Model S provides enough benefits (the way it drives) compared to a normal car that I was willing to investigate spending "that kind of money" .. and I think from a financial standpoint it would be substantially cheaper to drive a Model S than one of those really high-end sedans. If someone is willing to add a column for one of those cars it would be really useful - but I have zero background with stuff that nice so I don't think I could do a good job properly identifying either the up-front or operating costs.

 

[Pollux]

I hadn't seriously considered that - in some ways because I don't think the wife would be at all interested in getting rid of the subaru... and I'm sure as hell not putting a bike rack on the top of a Model S. Financially, it is relevant to include the non-operating costs of that 3rd car though (insurance, taxes, depreciation, etc)

When we put our bikes on the Tesla next summer, we're going to use the hitch system from Torklift.

http://torkliftcentral.com/ecohitch/tesla/ecohitch_tesla.php

We will put that together with a Thule Swing rack. We've already got one of these combinations for our 2012 Prius v, and it worked just fine this past summer for driving from Boston way up into Canada for a bike trip. While we have a pano on our Model S and could use a roof rack, like you, that just didn't sit well with me. I think the hitch is a reasonable alternative. And in our case, we should be able to move the Thule rack between the Prius' hitch and the Tesla's hitch, avoiding buying a second rack.

And (again, only for me personally) there is no chance in hell that I would ever plunk down the kind of money it takes to drive and maintain a Panamera or a 7-series BMW or an A8. The Model S provides enough benefits (the way it drives) compared to a normal car that I was willing to investigate spending "that kind of money" .. and I think from a financial standpoint it would be substantially cheaper to drive a Model S than one of those really high-end sedans. If someone is willing to add a column for one of those cars it would be really useful - but I have zero background with stuff that nice so I don't think I could do a good job properly identifying either the up-front or operating costs.

Oddly enough, I have had a very difficult time convincing myself to shell out for a Panamera, 7-Series BMW or A8. I think that's partly because my experience with an Audi A4 was very positive for the quality of the car's initial build and performance, but negative for maintenance from roughly year 4 onwards. Many thousands per year -- timing chains, exhaust systems, catalytic converters, etc., etc., ad infinitum and ad nauseum. And time lost, too, with the car being unavailable not to mention the pain of shuttling it to and from the garage for service. So for me, the S gives me most of the luxury (and far more space) than the more expensive luxury car competition, plus performance that's easily competitive and in most cases over-competitive. Sorry, I didn't build a spreadsheet for the costs of those luxury cars. I just "know" that they are expensive for all the years after the initial purchase and not just for the acquisition cost. To take one example, a spec-performance-competitive Panamera is the Panamera Turbo, which offers acceleration competitive with or slightly better than my P85+. It starts at $141K. And I'm not sure anyone can argue with a straight face that a turbo Panamera will be nearly as low-maintenance as a Model S.

 

[772]

When we put our bikes on the Tesla next summer, we're going to use the hitch system from Torklift.

http://torkliftcentral.com/ecohitch/tesla/ecohitch_tesla.php

We will put that together with a Thule Swing rack. We've already got one of these combinations for our 2012 Prius v, and it worked just fine this past summer for driving from Boston way up into Canada for a bike trip. While we have a pano on our Model S and could use a roof rack, like you, that just didn't sit well with me. I think the hitch is a reasonable alternative. And in our case, we should be able to move the Thule rack between the Prius' hitch and the Tesla's hitch, avoiding buying a second rack.

aaron.s posted pictures of a setup that looks similar to that one.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...Pictures/page2?p=535257&viewfull=1#post535257

 

[gene]

A friend of mine, out of the blue (I guess he's considering buying a Tesla) sent mt this:

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I have been trying to estimate the costs on NOT owning a Tesla. The fuel cost is in the area of $1000 to $2000 depending on what you drive now and how far you drive. But the big one is safety. AAA estimates annual accident cost per person at $1500. I calculated that based on national averages Tesla should by now have about 200 injuries. But it has zero. So the chance of injury is likely less than 1% the national average. Hence without a Tesla one risks a cost of about $1500 per person per year. If you tend to drive alone the cost of not owning a Tesla is about $2500. But if you tend to drive as 2 it could be $4000. At that sum it is cheaper to drive a Tesla than a Prius
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[David_Cary]

A friend of mine, out of the blue (I guess he's considering buying a Tesla) sent mt this:

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I have been trying to estimate the costs on NOT owning a Tesla. The fuel cost is in the area of $1000 to $2000 depending on what you drive now and how far you drive. But the big one is safety. AAA estimates annual accident cost per person at $1500. I calculated that based on national averages Tesla should by now have about 200 injuries. But it has zero. So the chance of injury is likely less than 1% the national average. Hence without a Tesla one risks a cost of about $1500 per person per year. If you tend to drive alone the cost of not owning a Tesla is about $2500. But if you tend to drive as 2 it could be $4000. At that sum it is cheaper to drive a Tesla than a Prius
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Except that like the school doesn't make the child, the car does not make the driver. Tesla's are generally drive by successful, mature adults. The majority of injuries are teenagers, related to drugs/alcohol, and/or happen after midnight. Compare the injury rate to a less than 2 year old BMW 5 or 7 series and it may not be much different. I would love to see that comparison. If there was a significant difference, then we can talk.

And do we know that Tesla has zero injuries or just zero fatalities? And do we even know that for certain? Does Tesla have a body count and are they going to have a press release when someone does die?

 

[jerry33]

And do we know that Tesla has zero injuries or just zero fatalities? And do we even know that for certain? Does Tesla have a body count and are they going to have a press release when someone does die?

Just zero fatalities, there have been injuries although I haven't heard of any serious ones. When a serious accident happens, Tesla has contacted the owner shortly after (within hours, it appears). Given the way the media hypes up every Tesla problem, we'd know almost instantly had a person died. Of course, there will eventually be some deaths but it should be far fewer than in cars with a lower safety rating.