Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Tesla Model S - expected lifespan? 5-10-15 years.....

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I don't uderstand, why you would want to drive model S 30-40 years. Of course, if you take it as a hobby, I can understand. But there is not any financial rationale to do so. All costs considered, it will be cheaper to buy a new car at some point, than keep repairing the old car.

Also, as some have pointed out, I believe it becomes almost impossible to get some spare parts in 30 years from now. Propably a lot sooner. Legacy electronics is difficult to repair if something gets broken. Lets think IBM PC from year 1981. From where would you get e.g. memory or processor for that?

I think just about every reply to the OP post has been expressed from the POV of a ICEV. There are already people reverse engineering the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAFs. Why should we imagine that the same won't happen for the MS? With 3D printing progress, in 30 years you won't send an actual 30 year old design of a metal part through the post, you'll just get one printed for you locally. There is absolutely no reason to suppose the MS' 85kWh pack won't keep going for ever even if it only has half the original capacity. The OP is clearly 'hands-on' and given the relative mechanical simplicity of the MS I can't see why he wouldn't be able to keep that side going for that length of time. The main issues for me would be repairs to broken glass and the issue that Tesla have with being so restrictive on non-Tesla approved repairs. The latter could be overcome by reverse engineering the OS perhaps but it is very much an unknown issue...

I, too, plan to keep my MS for a very long time - at least as long as it takes for the financial aspect of owning it equating to that of owning an equivalent ICEV. But it will certainly be very interesting to see how it all pans out.
 
Assuming that the "brain" on your tesla dies I can imagine other difficulties with a transplant. First of all proving the vehicle identity to the government. I assume Teslas software people are smart enough so that specific modules are not hardcoded to a specific car, and believe me this is not as stupid as it may sound. It happens with other manufacturers. BMW's for instance won't let you buy a used light-switch from a junker, it has to come clean and non-coded from the factory. Otherwise the car will report that is has been tampered with.

But there are companies specializing in repairing automotive electronics and they would probably be able to fix a lot of small problems that might crop up.

But what about the internal storage of the car. If the "harddrive" in the car dies could you replace it yourself? or would you need a firmware dump of a Model S. In theory a wifi connected Model S could initialize a blank storage unit and grab the firmware from the internet, but I suspect that it's not able to bootstrap/cold boot itself.
 
....
I, too, plan to keep my MS for a very long time - at least as long as it takes for the financial aspect of owning it equating to that of owning an equivalent ICEV. But it will certainly be very interesting to see how it all pans out.

I'm torn on how long to keep mine. Sell it at 3 years, and get a reasonable amount towards a newer one, or hold on to it for a fair chunk longer, it's an almost binary decision. (For us in the UK at least)

There's going to be artificial upward price pressure with the 50% residual on three year old cars, and I fully expect there to be a secondary significant depreciation hit after year 4 and warranty expiration, so I predict it will need to be held on for another 2+ years to recoup that hit in other savings. (Kia is a good example: their cars actually hold up fairly well after 2 years and fall off a cliff at 7 when the warranty expires.)

Until cars get into the out of warranty age and we start seeing the true cost of keeping them on the road though this is all speculation. They could be the most reliable vehicle on the planet, or plagued with niggly expensive repairs requiring proprietary parts... time will tell.
 
Well if you read my Signature, you can see that I have some pretty old cars in the stable as well as two newer daily drivers.
20 to 20 years on a Tesla S...
The first thing that comes to mind as a long term problem are the electronics components... various boards and displays, most of which
as I understand it are Tesla specific and very proprietary. Such parts may be hard to get in 15 to 20 years...
Solution?... buy a second Model S, perhaps a wreck, and tear it apart for spare parts. Done this many times with my 1968 AMX to get
those hard to find bits. Especially in years 10-15 when most cars are considered for their scrap value. After 25 years, cars are considered
surviving "antiques"...

Second problem... current lack of Tesla Maintenance Manual with procedures. Not an owner yet but I am not aware of Tesla publishing
such a manual. This would be critical for those who wish to perform self maintenance and diagnostics, especially for independent garage mechanics.
There is also a software workbench that Tesla uses to analyze so called "Logs"... this software is not public domain as of yet.

If you were to maintain the car after the warranty period is over, I suspect it would be worth your while to check into
a warranty extension which would cover the electrical bits.

I think a similar car to the S in concept is the Acura/Honda NSX sports car. Limited production. Exotic in its day. Expensive.
In the aftermarket, some NSX specific parts are hard to find, especially certain body parts. However, some former NSX mechanics with an enterprising bent have started their own regional specialty shops for care and maintenance of the NSX. I suspect this will happen with Tesla,
for sure in California. Here in my small town in Connecticut and within 40 miles, there are specialty shops for Morgans, Austin Healey, Alpha, Mercedes, Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, and a few restoration shops that can do most all classics.

It is doable to keep and maintain an S for many years, but at what cost overall and over time?
You would REALLY have to LOVE the car...
 
Last edited:
It will last far longer than any ICE car will. Battery packs will last EASILY 20+ years due to their design. I plan on keeping mine about 20 years. By that time, 100% of new cars will be electric and autonomous. I'll upgrade when I no longer have to drive it and it can drive itself fully and I can get my time back to do other things while I'm in the car.
 
Another ex Landrover owner here, yours sounds similar to mine. Mine was a 1973 LWB 2 door, it died when the rear cross members rusted through though at circa 25 years old. I guess living in Texas has it's benefits ;)

I lived in Vancouver during that time.

- - - Updated - - -

It is doable to keep and maintain an S for many years, but at what cost overall and over time?
You would REALLY have to LOVE the car...

As Tesla has a history of upgrading older vehicles (e.g. the Roadster's new battery that was announced), it's not beyond imagination that in fifteen years there could be an instrument cluster/interior refresh. Basically you'd send your car in for remanufacture--probably at about half the price of a new car. This is frequently done with airplanes, and the main reason it's not done with cars is corrosion and accidents, so by fifteen years there aren't enough left to bother with. Reduce the accidents to 5% of their current levels with sensor suites and software, and have cars that don't corrode and it becomes possible--perhaps even economical.
 
You are entitled to think whatever you like. A sample size of one, your Lexus, isn't entirely convincing, though. Cars from the 1990s didn't need any software updates. They didn't rely on 3G services, didn't stream Google Maps, didn't receive music from smartphones and weren't controllable by apps. How would you like the Model S without all these services?

I was responding to point out that your assumption that cars with touch screens couldn't possibly last more than 15 years. I see plenty of the same vehicle as what I was driving out on the road every day. Given that the touch screen on the vehicle controls climate, I have to assume most of these cars have that functionality working still.

Honestly I stopped using the navigation on my Lexus. Not because there was anything wrong with it but because the map updates were expensive and I could use my smartphone's navigation with constantly updating maps. I suspect at some point some or all of those features built into the car will be supplanted by something else. Those are cool features of the car but none of them are necessary and I'm likely to keep driving the car even if I'm not using them. I'm not sure what I'll do once I have to pay for 3G but I may very well just stop using all that stuff, unless the pricing of the data comes dramatically down.

But all in all the Model S is likely to continue to be updated for quite some time. We'll have to see how it goes once Tesla stops making the Model S and has less incentive to do software updates. But like I said above, I don't consider those software updates critical. I can and will live without google maps on the car.

As to spare parts, Lexus is backed by the logistics of Toyota and it is mainly a US show. I wish you good luck trying to find cheap second hand parts in Europe, where they are about as rare as Ferraris. Like it or not, Tesla is still very much an exotic in Europe and how many parts will be available in 30 years is anyone's guess. It's not like a Golf of which you'll find a dozen on any scrapyard. You don't want to go hunting globally for spare parts for the car that provides your daily transport.

In 1999 yes Lexus was entirely a US only brand. However, the same car was sold in Europe and Japan with a Toyota badge (well not the exact same car since I had the GS400 which had the V8 which was only sold in the US, but the GS300's were sold in other markets as a Toyota). But I'm also not in Europe. The Tesla is sold in quite large numbers in Europe. Maybe not in Germany where you are but they certainly are very popular in Norway. Which isn't too terribly far from Denmark where the OP is.

I would also like to point out that the thread opener isn't talking about owning the car for 15 years (which I consider as quite realistic), but about twice that time span.

I figure on 10 years. I'd like to keep the car for 15. If I make it to 20 will largely depend on what happens to transportation in the meantime. 30-40 years is probably pushing it but if you love the car and want to keep it going, why not.

Compared to the long term Tesla at Edmunds . com even Lamborghinis start to look like indestructible workhorses. Anyone can find a survey that meets his opinion.

That was also one of the very early cars and it looks a lot worse than it was because Tesla replaced who assemblies rather than bothering to find the exact cause of failures and fix them. Unless the OP is getting a D they are very likely to be getting a car of much higher quality than the early 2013 cars like the Edmunds car was.
 
I figure a reasonable estimate for average runtime age of any car would be double the longest warranty you can get on it. There will be vehicles that won't last that long, others that last longer, and the outliers where an enthusiast has kept it going with some ingenuity. I am not an owner (yet), but I believe even with the extended warranty, you can only get to 8 years. So 16 years so easily doable to be. Moving being that to 20 is probably likely for an enthusiast, but beyond that would only be likey if Tesla has stayed around and survived for the long term so that an aftermarket or junk supply of parts exist. If Tesla goes out of business before the 3 takes off, then you have a problem.

For the Op, given his situation and abilities, I'd plan for 20 years, save in case 10 years, and hope and learn to get to 30 years. Beyond that, others have commented well on here and truly, there are many vehicles that are more or less "exotic" that can be maintained this long, so Tesla should be able too once it hits some arbitrary critical mass.
 
Second problem... current lack of Tesla Maintenance Manual with procedures. Not an owner yet but I am not aware of Tesla publishing
such a manual. This would be critical for those who wish to perform self maintenance and diagnostics, especially for independent garage mechanics.

AFAIK it's all kept secret :(

One of the problems Tesla has in the UK (and I think rest of the EU) is it's mandatory to provide these manuals and supply any specialist equipment to independent garages at "reasonable cost" to allow effective servicing, and installation of any TSB, without requiring you to take the car to a main dealer for warranties to be honoured.

Elon's "slip" on honouring warranty if you don't bother taking it to the service centre every year, may not quite be as "unplanned" as you'd like to think... let the cars run for a 4 year service interval, unless on Tesla's own finance who specify you must pay Tesla for servicing once a year.

That way, here in the UK at least, by not making it mandatory for them to be serviced within their warranty period means they don't have to give out any technical data to independents, but still get full revenue from (expensive) servicing on all their financed cars (which is the majority)... very sneaky ;)
 
I figure a reasonable estimate for average runtime age of any car would be double the longest warranty you can get on it. There will be vehicles that won't last that long, others that last longer, and the outliers where an enthusiast has kept it going with some ingenuity. I am not an owner (yet), but I believe even with the extended warranty, you can only get to 8 years. So 16 years so easily doable to be.
I don't think that duration of warranty has any relation to durability of the product. Some ICE cars (including some premium brands) come with a two or three year warranty and they all can easily run for 10-20 years.
Warranty is more of a marketing tool. BMW has a four year warranty. That doesn't mean it's only half as good as a Tesla with and eight year warranty. Some newer cars offer longer warranties so that people won't worry about maintenance costs.
 
I don't think that duration of warranty has any relation to durability of the product. Some ICE cars (including some premium brands) come with a two or three year warranty and they all can easily run for 10-20 years.
Warranty is more of a marketing tool. BMW has a four year warranty. That doesn't mean it's only half as good as a Tesla with and eight year warranty. Some newer cars offer longer warranties so that people won't worry about maintenance costs.

Correct. Warranty has zero relation to the life of a product. The main reason for warranty (other than marketing) is to cover infant mortality and factory screw ups. These almost always occur within a short period of time, although there have been a few cases where the defect doesn't show up for a few years.
 
The Tesla app already lets you adjust the A/C from your smartphone. Perhaps one day the app will let you control pretty much everything the touchscreen can, with appropriate safeguards to prevent literal backseat driving!

Tesla says that their new executive rear seat is controlable with your smartphone. So using a phone or tablet may be a viable workaround for a failed touchscreen on a 30-year old Model S, if Tesla provides smartphone control of more functions.

GSP
 
Given the number of Model S's built, and being built, there will be no shortage of touchscreen rebuilders in 30 years.

Owning an older car is just different than owning a new one. Sometimes you have to look around and source parts, rather than just taking it to the dealer and telling them to fix it.

Also, we don't really know how Tesla is going to approach this in the future. For that matter, we don't know if Tesla will be in business in 30 years... Mercedes will sell you parts for any car they've ever made. If Tesla goes mass-market, ala Ford, they may not do that, but we really don't know.

Tesla says that their new executive rear seat is controlable with your smartphone. So using a phone or tablet may be a viable workaround for a failed touchscreen on a 30-year old Model S, if Tesla provides smartphone control of more functions.

GSP
 
GM and Mercedes may not be around in 30 years.

By law every manufacture in the US must guarantee parts for its vehicles for 20 years after manufacture.

So that is 20 years after the last Model S 1.0 is built.

I can't imagine EU/German laws being less stringent.

I can't imagine the aftermarket not wanting to sell classic Model S owners a $3k touchscreen replacement.
 
By law every manufacture in the US must guarantee parts for its vehicles for 20 years after manufacture.


Expanding on this a bit:
united states - Are Auto Manufacturers required under US Federal Law to provide parts for a set period of time? - Skeptics Stack Exchange

More than likely this belief comes from the EPA requirements regarding warranty terms for emission control systems. Which of course is not applicable to a Model S anyway.