Which is considered a smarter buy as far as battery longevity -- older with fewer miles driven or newer with higher mileage? I keep cars for a long time so it is very important that the battery last as long as possible. With ICE cars I would always go for the lowest mileage and not worry so much about age. I'm not so sure with an EV.
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Smarter used M3 buy?
- Thread starter Palmtree
- Start date
It may not be as important to get low mileage with a Tesla since they have very high mileage vehicles still working well - there are fewer points of breakdown in an EV. What I would consider more is the hardware - does it have the ability to keep up with updates. Older Model S need a chip replaced for some current features. If you know the car is likely to get 500k miles with few issues, what would be your next top priority?
Whichever used car you buy, you won’t know how kind the previous owner was on the battery so that’s out of your hands. The low mileage car may have been left to sit longer at a sub-optimal SOC that hurts battery life and the higher mileage car could have been kept healthy with good charging habits.
Whichever used car you buy, you won’t know how kind the previous owner was on the battery so that’s out of your hands. The low mileage car may have been left to sit longer at a sub-optimal SOC that hurts battery life and the higher mileage car could have been kept healthy with good charging habits.
The price delta between used and new is not very large on most model 3s, especially if your state offers incentives for EV Purchases. Unlike most other cars, where the "buying wisdom," is to search out a 1-3 year old, low mileage vehicle, many people PLAN to do that with getting a model 3 only to end up buying new, because the price delta is not that big.
"not that big" is relative, of course, but you typically are not going to save more than a few thousand buying used vs new, especially if you ignore the cost on something like FSD.
With that being said, you would want to know what the 100% charge of the vehicle was, if you are considering buying one used (and that isnt something that is actually super easy to get, while being remote). Just like other used cars, late model high mileage vehicles usually will have most of their mileage done on a highway, commuting etc.
The difference with an EV is, you may or may not car HOW they "refuled" the car (as in, did they supercharge it a lot or not?). we know for 100% fact that fast charging is more harmful to a battery than slower charging. All the battery research and chemistry tells us this. We know that supercharging is considered "fast" charging, and all other charging for a model 3 would be considered "slow" charging.
What we dont know is if the "harm" that comes to a model 3 battery that is supercharged a lot matters or not. What I mean by that is, it could be that a battery that is supercharged constantly loses 4% more range over 5 years than one that doesnt (completelyu 1000% made up number btw, nothing more than an example). is 4% over 5 years measurable? Sure. Does it matter in the overall usage of the car? Probably not. Still, if my membership on this site has shown me anything, its that people will completely lose....their....mind... over range that has zero impact on their day to day lives.
Some people lose their collective mind when the car reports 7 less miles "than it used to". There is no guarantee that a car that is supercharged all the time will have less miles than one that hasnt been... even though we know for a fact that fast charging is without a doubt damaging to batteries. Tesla has designed a very good battery management software for the car.
So, if you are one who will be obsessing over how the car was charged, its something to keep in mind.
If it were me, however, unless I had a pressing need, I would wait longer and target new if there was any way I could... unless I could get a used LR for the price of a new SR+
"not that big" is relative, of course, but you typically are not going to save more than a few thousand buying used vs new, especially if you ignore the cost on something like FSD.
With that being said, you would want to know what the 100% charge of the vehicle was, if you are considering buying one used (and that isnt something that is actually super easy to get, while being remote). Just like other used cars, late model high mileage vehicles usually will have most of their mileage done on a highway, commuting etc.
The difference with an EV is, you may or may not car HOW they "refuled" the car (as in, did they supercharge it a lot or not?). we know for 100% fact that fast charging is more harmful to a battery than slower charging. All the battery research and chemistry tells us this. We know that supercharging is considered "fast" charging, and all other charging for a model 3 would be considered "slow" charging.
What we dont know is if the "harm" that comes to a model 3 battery that is supercharged a lot matters or not. What I mean by that is, it could be that a battery that is supercharged constantly loses 4% more range over 5 years than one that doesnt (completelyu 1000% made up number btw, nothing more than an example). is 4% over 5 years measurable? Sure. Does it matter in the overall usage of the car? Probably not. Still, if my membership on this site has shown me anything, its that people will completely lose....their....mind... over range that has zero impact on their day to day lives.
Some people lose their collective mind when the car reports 7 less miles "than it used to". There is no guarantee that a car that is supercharged all the time will have less miles than one that hasnt been... even though we know for a fact that fast charging is without a doubt damaging to batteries. Tesla has designed a very good battery management software for the car.
So, if you are one who will be obsessing over how the car was charged, its something to keep in mind.
If it were me, however, unless I had a pressing need, I would wait longer and target new if there was any way I could... unless I could get a used LR for the price of a new SR+
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Also, define "I keep cars for a long time"
The current gen Model 3 batteries are rated for something like 450,000 miles.
Which is significantly longer than most folks own a car.
If you're that 1 guy that buys a volvo and drives it 800,000 miles though you might want to wait about 8 days before making any decisions though.
The current gen Model 3 batteries are rated for something like 450,000 miles.
Which is significantly longer than most folks own a car.
If you're that 1 guy that buys a volvo and drives it 800,000 miles though you might want to wait about 8 days before making any decisions though.
where in Missouri do you live, if your close to Kansas City, go to the SC, good people there you may get a deal on showroom car, I did 3yrs+ ago on a 2017 MS 75, a very good deal. Still drive it and love it everyday.
Like you I tend to keep cars for a long time. Between my wife and I we have purchased 5 cars in the last 20 years (track cars not included). We tend to buy 1-3 year old dealer demos and lease returns. When we bought our LR AWD a little over 2 years ago between what we paid and the tax credits I think today we could sell it for at least or more than we paid. Given current demand for used 3’s well exceeds supply I would guess in the next 2 years it would make more sense to buy new.
I’ll add the same was seen with the S/X. First few years they existed used were selling for 90% of new. Heck we sold our 2014 base model s In 2018 for $7k less then we paid for it new (~90%). Now a 4 year old S goes for half what it was new much inline with other cars.
I’ll add the same was seen with the S/X. First few years they existed used were selling for 90% of new. Heck we sold our 2014 base model s In 2018 for $7k less then we paid for it new (~90%). Now a 4 year old S goes for half what it was new much inline with other cars.
Thanks for all the great advice. I like to drive a car until it is no longer reliable without spending more than it's worth on repairs. For example my current car is a 2008 Prius with 300k miles. It still runs fine but uses a lot of oil so it's gotta go fairly soon. I'm not a big "car guy" but I really want to go full ev since we produced over 8000 kwh of solar last year beyond what we used. We are grid tied and the compensation for excess production from the utility is horrendous.
It sounds like the consensus is that it doesn't matter that much between miles and age of the battery. How it is charged is most important. Once I own it, it'll be nearly 100% charged at home but it will get driven about 110 miles a day so it will be charged frequently. Some articles I have read refer to the battery life in charge cycles. If a battery is supposed to be good for say 2000 charge cycles does that mean a battery that is charged every 110 miles will only be expected to last 220,000 miles and a battery charged every 220 miles will be expected to last 440,000 miles?
It sounds like the consensus is that it doesn't matter that much between miles and age of the battery. How it is charged is most important. Once I own it, it'll be nearly 100% charged at home but it will get driven about 110 miles a day so it will be charged frequently. Some articles I have read refer to the battery life in charge cycles. If a battery is supposed to be good for say 2000 charge cycles does that mean a battery that is charged every 110 miles will only be expected to last 220,000 miles and a battery charged every 220 miles will be expected to last 440,000 miles?
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
1500 full charge/discharge cycles for the current gen Tesla batteries supposedly.
So if the car has 300 miles of fully charged range that's ~450,000 miles of rated life, regardless of if you use that 300 miles in 1 day or 3 days or whatever. Doing 100 miles of charging twice is effectively the same "amount" of cycle usage as doing 200 miles of charging once.
(there's theoretically some benefit in doing two 30->80% charges instead of one 0-100% charge, but that doesn't change the overall rated lifecycle question)
So if the car has 300 miles of fully charged range that's ~450,000 miles of rated life, regardless of if you use that 300 miles in 1 day or 3 days or whatever. Doing 100 miles of charging twice is effectively the same "amount" of cycle usage as doing 200 miles of charging once.
(there's theoretically some benefit in doing two 30->80% charges instead of one 0-100% charge, but that doesn't change the overall rated lifecycle question)
If you are planning on driving "110 miles a day" definitely target one of the LR variants of this car. You will be much much (much much) happier if you do. Your 110 mile commute will likely consume somewhere between (on average) 120 -190 miles of the cars "range" depending on temperature, weather, elevation, heater use, etc.
if you buy a car that started with 310 miles range, even if its down to 280 or something as 100% you will have plenty left over from your regular commute.
One more thing, if you did not know this already. You will normally set your charging to 80% to 90% and most people will not want to drive an EV down below about 15-20%, so your effective range is from 90% to 20 %. couple that with weather related range, etc and you would likely be unhappy with a SR+, if your daily expected commute is 110 miles a day.
Yes. Definitely AWD long range for me. Sometimes my driveway looks like this -- and it's much steeper than it looks.
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I bought a 2018 used at 61K miles. I ended up doing so as the car was in great shape, and I got a Long-Range version of the car with the enhanced autopilot features I wanted (lane change on turn signal and dumb summon) for much less than it would have cost new (would have had to go AWD LR + Full Self Driving). As stated earlier, I'm hopeful that because of the far fewer moving parts that it proves reliable in the long run. I'm hoping to get 7-10 years out of it.
Yes, please listen to this. If you need to drive 100+ miles a day (I drive 120 miles or so), you must get the LR. The temperature and wind really cuts down on the range.
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