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Tracking Trip Details for business expense purposes

Discussion in 'Cars and Transportation' started by Psysped, Jan 13, 2020.

  1. Psysped

    Psysped Member

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    I use my Model 3 for business. I'm looking forward to the .575 mileage deduction without gas or car service charges. I have a home charger. I'm charged 7.25 cents per kilowatt-hour at home, so a lot less than gas. My question to the forum is: Does the Model 3 have software to track and export trip details?
     
  2. CharleyBC

    CharleyBC Active Member

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    I'm not aware of such features built into the car's UI. However, check out the sort of report one gets daily from the TezLab app:
    upload_2020-1-13_12-16-18.png
     
  3. ecarfan

    ecarfan Well-Known Member

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    No it does not.
     
  4. ewoodrick

    ewoodrick Well-Known Member

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    While it does look nice, don't be fooled by appearances. Car operation is pretty expensive.

    Let's just say that you drive a $50,000 car for 100,000 miles, that's $0.50, without power, insurance, taxes.

    At 7 cents, are you on a TOU rate? Sounds might cheap for CA.
     
  5. Psysped

    Psysped Member

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    No, Trinity County, CA gets its electricity from the Western Area Power Administration at cost.
     
  6. TT97

    TT97 Active Member

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    TeslaFi will track trips (and charging)...

    2020-01-13.png
     
  7. Potpourri

    Potpourri Member

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  8. TomLee

    TomLee Member

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    Best to install a dedicated power meter to track usage. There were different kind of losses, be it sitting loss, heating loss, charging loss and more, that each app will not report on, or they don't even track them properly. Tesla App and screen display only show you the power consumption on driving, not at all for other type of consumption(loss). I only installed a dedicated meter beginning of this year. Based on my 15 days of tracking, closest app to track the power consumption is Teslafi (5% off, Stats 14% off and Tezlab 26% off).
     
  9. swaltner

    swaltner Active Member

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    I don’t think the OP needs to track kWh consumed for tracking expenses. They mentioned tracking mileage and taking the standard mileage deduction or reimbursement from their employer.

    As mentioned, no built-in recording of mileage for trips. There is teslafi, but I don’t like the idea of giving a 3rd party access to my car, so I don’t do that. While an API key doesn’t share your password, it does provide full access since Tesla doesn’t have ACLs on their API.

    For me, I have one trip meter labeled Roadtrip! and reset that at the beginning of the month or a road trip where I want to track mileage. The 2nd trip meter is marked Monthly and I reset it at the end of each month to log vehicle expenses into a custom spreadsheet to track expenses (along with tracking $ and kWh used for charging at home and at Superchargers.

    you either do it manually or look at one of the 3rd party tools that does data logging.
     
  10. TomLee

    TomLee Member

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    That does not give the consumption numbers OP wanted. Tesla screen display gives you ONLY consumption while driving, not overall.
     
  11. Fresnel

    Fresnel Member

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    I'm not sure if this is helpful to you but the "Stats" App tracks things like charging and costs so you can track how much kw you put back in the car each day and the costs. You can also export the data to a spreadsheet. It's pretty neat.
     
  12. kmstivers

    kmstivers Member

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  13. rtanov

    rtanov Member

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    Yeah, but you are not counting the delivery charges :)
    I have 4.6 cents/kWh, 100% renewable in Cincy, but Duke Energy is slapping ~5 cents for delivery which brings it to 10 c/kWh. I wish there was a way around that :(
     
    • Like x 1
  14. willf20

    willf20 New Member

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    That's assuming the car is worth $0 at 100,000 miles. You'd only need to take depreciation divided by mileage, not the full purchase price.
     
  15. Brando

    Brando Active Member

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    WHY are you just using the - what is it now - $0.55 / mile.
    That was what I did for 20 years. kept my car and soon I was getting paid extra to drive my car, as my used 4 banger was cheaper than the federal allowed number.
     
  16. Psysped

    Psysped Member

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    Driversnote uses your phone to track mileage. You’re Bluetoothed to a small sensor you put in your glovebox. It works well, but you get some drift in mileage. You need to update your odometer reading on your phone daily or so. Why Tesla does not have a function to track business mileage is a head scratcher.
     
  17. TT97

    TT97 Active Member

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    There are plenty of third party apps that use the Tesla API to track mileage (to the 1/100 of a mile). I use TeslaFi (see post #6) but lots of options available both through browsers as well as dedicated apps.
     
  18. Big Earl

    Big Earl bnkwupt

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    OP didn’t ask for consumption numbers, but rather mileage numbers for the federal mileage credit. If you’re reporting rated miles worth of energy used to the feds, you’re doing it wrong and cheating the system.
     
  19. TomLee

    TomLee Member

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    money spend on the electricity is real, mileage on the screen is real. I’m just suggesting the kWh used can not be read from the screen directly. Where is this cheating come from? FYI, my meter, directly connected to the charger, reported 185kWh electricity flow into my car, however, Tesla said I used only 68kWh for the same month of Jan! All that 120kWh was used while it’s sitting there!
     
  20. Big Earl

    Big Earl bnkwupt

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    As far as government mileage reimbursement is concerned, energy efficiency and energy added are irrelevant. The federal mileage reimbursement is calculated by miles driven.
     

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