My wife and I decided to sell our Model S after having it for 10 months thus far. We drive minimum 40,000 mile/year. The reason we bought the car in the first place was due to gas prices and the amount we drive per year. Here's where it gets bad. We do some calculations
If we were to sell our Model S the plan was to buy a SUV that has 3 row seating. There was a certain thing that kinda derailed our plan for our lives together and that was no joke 1 week after buying the car we became pregnant. We did not see that coming at all. Our thinking became how will we fit all our kids here recently since she wants more and that's what started the we need to sell idea. Our son was born about 2 months ago now. If we sold we were not going to spend more than $5,000 for a used SUV. I will get some hate on here for saying this but this also played into our selling idea. Our Model S has been to the service center for issues 3 times since we got it. Battery issue, sunroof issue, and door handle issue. Paying for these issues outside of the warranty would be expensive and things will break outside of the warranty. Guess how many times our Nissan Leaf has been to the service center? Twice, once for a battery check and another time to replace the cabin air filter. We just passed 40k miles on it recently and have not had a SINGLE issue. As far as what the car was built for in my opinion it has been a much better car than the Model S. My favorite car is the Nissan Leaf and I drive it every day. My wife's favorite is the Model S and she drives it every day. That being said the Model S is the better car of course because of the larger battery and the Supercharger network.
So let's do some more math. Maintenance on a used car $200/month at least. Gas on a used car $267-$888/month. Total $467-$1088/month. This is being pretty generous on the maintenance. $5,000 initial gas and maintenance for 5 years $28,000-$65,333 for a grand total of at least $33,000 to a max of $70,333. That's only assuming we stop with either plan at 5 years. We planned on keep the Model S for 8 total years (7 more to go) at minimum. So the darn math ruined our plan to sell the car
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We thought we made a bad decision buying the car in the first place but the math reassured us that we did not make a mistake. 40k miles a year is a lot of driving and in this situation the Model S really shows it's worthiness. A week ago I never would have thought that the car is a "Cheap" car in the sense that it will save money over the long term compared to a ICE. We don't think we will have major maintenance issues over the long term like a ICE would.
| 15mpg | $3/gal | $667/month |
| 15mpg | $4/gal | $888/month |
| 25mpg | $2/gal | $267/month |
| 25mpg | $3/gal | $400/month |
So let's do some more math. Maintenance on a used car $200/month at least. Gas on a used car $267-$888/month. Total $467-$1088/month. This is being pretty generous on the maintenance. $5,000 initial gas and maintenance for 5 years $28,000-$65,333 for a grand total of at least $33,000 to a max of $70,333. That's only assuming we stop with either plan at 5 years. We planned on keep the Model S for 8 total years (7 more to go) at minimum. So the darn math ruined our plan to sell the car
. We thought we made a bad decision buying the car in the first place but the math reassured us that we did not make a mistake. 40k miles a year is a lot of driving and in this situation the Model S really shows it's worthiness. A week ago I never would have thought that the car is a "Cheap" car in the sense that it will save money over the long term compared to a ICE. We don't think we will have major maintenance issues over the long term like a ICE would.
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