Very valuable info for us professionals who plan on keeping our Tesla for up to very high mileages. I appreciate how Tesla stands behind their 8yr unlimited mileage warranty.
It is important to consider that around half of Model S buyers are former entry-level sport-luxury sedan buyers. For many of us, the Model S was an important leap forward justified cost-wise by potential savings in gas and maintenance . This basically validates the important finacial risk we have taken. Not all of us are financially independent, but we do take calculated risks and certainly appreciate validation of those risks. I think it's pretty vulgar (in reference to discussion in Elektrek's article) to write this business practice by Tesla as being unnecessary and costly spending. They simply don't have a clue about how compelling this can be for a sales point to early adopters and 2nd and 3rd gen buyers. If Tesla is going to develop business, this is certainly a sound and solid way of building a reputation.
Before we go on saying how these cars cost a lot to Tesla, maybe they do cost more on average warranty service, but these cars are literally paid-for rolling laboratories. They are also a scant minority of cars more than offset by profit from repeat buyers' business. A lot can be gained by Tesla in R&D through experience gained from long-term intensive usage of the batteries and drive units. Since no other carmaker implements incremental technological improvements like Tesla does as soon as the tech is a available (not next build yr) this knowledge gained from Tesloop and other high-mileage cars is invaluable to future owners as they can be confident their future cars will have improved technology and reliability reflected in their cars, sometimes a few months later, not years later.
You know sometimes when you're just seeing numbers in your office to find out how you can rationalise shorting Tesla, all you see is the tree that hides the forest.
