The Beauty Vs Fear of Driving a Computer

[lupend88]

Beauty- Software updates. Your car becomes outdated much later than most.

Fear- Fast paced industry. Think of how much better electric cars are now than they were 5 years ago.

This leads me to the age old question- buy or lease? I'm afraid that if I buy, they will have electric cars than can go twice as far in just a handful of years. Does this worry anyone else?

 

[dragoljub]

My fear is bad software requiring lots of reboots. It's much more likely to get buggy than perfect software.

If battery tech gets better you can swap packs. Possibly even under warranty.

 

[Petra]

Whether something better comes out doesn't impact the utility of my Model S, nor how much I like the car. The same will likely be the case with the Model 3.

I've found that you only get in trouble with this sort of thing if you make too many compromises when choosing a car. My view is lease if you're making a lot of compromises or are looking for a business write-off, buy if you intend to keep the car.

To make a really bad analogy, my main computer (i7 2600k/GTX580) is 6 years old but it still does everything I need it to do. I don't see myself rebuilding it any time soon, unless I decide to get a Vive or something... and, even then, it would just need a new video card.

 

[KarenRei]

This leads me to the age old question- buy or lease? I'm afraid that if I buy, they will have electric cars than can go twice as far in just a handful of years.

If Model 3 proceeds as Model S did, in four years you'll go from a $35k 215 mile vehicle to a $39k 255 mile vehicle. Now, that's maybe not fair, as that's changes within a vehicle class, not changes between vehicle classes. And also they needed to keep S-class prices up to maintain a distinction with the upcoming Model 3 on both features and price. But changes in "a handful of years" are limited.

Also note that the next Tesla class will be the Model Y. While they're working on a lot of great tech improvements for it (battery advancements, elimination of the 12V system and most of the traditional wiring harness, etc) that should help bring down costs, by nature of being a larger vehicle they face a bigger challenge in terms of range - so most of their tech and price improvements will just go toward offsetting the vehicle's greater thirst.

While migrating the Y architecture's changes over to the 3 line (or a new line) will probably require a few years after the Y comes out, at least Tesla's battery advancements can move into all vehicles. But they're not huge changes over the course of "a couple years"; we're not talking CPUs here.

 

[ChadS]

I'm afraid that if I buy, they will have electric cars than can go twice as far in just a handful of years. Does this worry anyone else?

No.

First, if a future car can go twice as far, that doesn't help me because my wife already needs a restroom before I run out of range in my current car.

Second, I've been buying EVs for over 8 years already and have no regrets. Resale values have been strong, in fact higher than the residuals that would have been on the cars had I leased. (I did lease one, but that was because it was a fantastic bargain for other reasons).

Third, buying is more flexible. You can swap cars if and when a more suitable one appears; or for best financial results, just hold on to the one you have. Yeah, you can get out of a lease, but usually it ends up being more expensive that way. I'd almost say leasing is always more expensive, but with tax credits and Tesla's treatment of showroom discounts, that is not always true so like everything else you have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis.

Perhaps some are not comparing buying to leasing, but rather comparing buying an EV to keeping an ICE, so you can get a better EV later. But if that better EV comes, it will come regardless of what car you drive now. The current EV is already better than your current ICE, so you will miss all this time of having a better car because you waited. If I had waited for the Model 3, I would have missed out on a LOT since 2009.

 

[azred]

Beauty- Software updates. Your car becomes outdated much later than most.

Fear- Fast paced industry. Think of how much better electric cars are now than they were 5 years ago.

This leads me to the age old question- buy or lease? I'm afraid that if I buy, they will have electric cars than can go twice as far in just a handful of years. Does this worry anyone else?

If I ever decide the new car I'm considering as my personal car should be leased, I will drop that car from consideration.

 

[JeffK]

Beauty- Software updates. Your car becomes outdated much later than most.

Fear- Fast paced industry. Think of how much better electric cars are now than they were 5 years ago.

This leads me to the age old question- buy or lease? I'm afraid that if I buy, they will have electric cars than can go twice as far in just a handful of years. Does this worry anyone else?

You have to ask yourself how often do you drive long distance and does it matter?

There's no need to buy the latest car so it can work with the latest spotify app or some such nonsense. Does the car do what you bought it to do or not?

That said, we are in a transition phase to self driving cars. That's a much bigger thing to worry about than range.

 

[Ugliest1]

I bought my Model S 3.5 years ago, as my "permanent car" since we wouldn't be able to afford to buy another one, and I figured Tesla was ahead of all other manufacturers. And I still think that's true -- however I didn't realize that Tesla would out-innovate even itself with Autopilot etc (which I missed out on with a Dec 2013 car).

And I'm still very happy with our choice... the car continues to be fantastic.

 

[lupend88]

Whether something better comes out doesn't impact the utility of my Model S, nor how much I like the car. The same will likely be the case with the Model 3.

I've found that you only get in trouble with this sort of thing if you make too many compromises when choosing a car. My view is lease if you're making a lot of compromises or are looking for a business write-off, buy if you intend to keep the car.

To make a really bad analogy, my main computer (i7 2600k/GTX580) is 6 years old but it still does everything I need it to do. I don't see myself rebuilding it any time soon, unless I decide to get a Vive or something... and, even then, it would just need a new video card.

That is very good to know, thank you. My only pause I have with that analogy is that if your computer ended up lacking in hardware in a short amount of time, you wouldn't break the bank to get a new one. A car though is a little different. The most expensive car I have owned only cost me $9k (bought a used BMW 325i) so the thought of spending more than 3X that on a car really makes me hope I can drive it for 10-12 years and still love it until the end.