Used S VS Audi A4

[Chrisshould]

I have a lot of questions.

I drive a 2014 Audi A4 140 miles a day work commute, #'s include

$400 car payment
About ~ 800 miles a week
About ~ 3 fill ups a week at about ~ $33 a fill up = ~ $100 a week for gas
~400-600 spent a year on oil changes
~400-800 a year on tires

Costing me about $1000 a month to drive

There is a super charger near my work, it would replace that 145 miles in 22 minutes......

I would love some opinions from anyone taking the time to read this....
I really wanna Tesla III but can't really wait that long till delivery and plus I'd be so far down the line I wouldn't get the $7500 tax rebate

 

[ecarfan]

Buy a CPO Model S. No need to wait. You get a full factory warranty. You can lease it for less than what your A4 is costing you to own. And obviously it is a far superior car to an A4.

As for the $7500 Federal tax credit, if you buy a Model S inventory car (never been titled, they are sold as new cars) you will get the rebate. Call Tesla and talk to them about it.

You say you "have a lot of questions" but I'm not seeing them in your post.

 

[jaguar36]

On a pure cost basis, its a terrible idea. You'll have a much higher and or longer car payment, you'll save some one gas vs electric, but your oil changes cost about the same as the Tesla annual maintence and the tire cost will be similar.

Superchargers also aren't for daily use, and even if they were (or you ignored Tesla's guidance and used them anyway) is your time really worth so little that you'd want to use them to save a couple bucks on electricity.

Besides for cost, there are a ton of other pros and cons on the S vs an A4, primarily they are completely different cars though, even ignoring the drive train. The S is comparable in size to the A8.

 

[Chrisshould]

Buy a CPO Model S. No need to wait. You get a full factory warranty. You can lease it for less than what your A4 is costing you to own. And obviously it is a far superior car to an A4.

Lease? Wouldn't I lose a ton of money on that much Milage on a lease?


As for the $7500 Federal tax credit, if you buy a Model S inventory car (never been titled, they are sold as new cars) you will get the rebate. Call Tesla and talk to them about it.

Inventory cars I'm assuming are used as test drive cars ?

You say you "have a lot of questions" but I'm not seeing them in your post.[/QUOTE]

The questions are mainly gonna come from yalls opinions?

I do have to install a 240 line in my garage?
And do these cars charge by simply Albeit it slow by just plugging them into the wall (like on vacation or at work) ?

 

[Chrisshould]

On a pure cost basis, its a terrible idea. You'll have a much higher and or longer car payment, you'll save some one gas vs electric, but your oil changes cost about the same as the Tesla annual maintence and the tire cost will be similar.

Superchargers also aren't for daily use, and even if they were (or you ignored Tesla's guidance and used them anyway) is your time really worth so little that you'd want to use them to save a couple bucks on electricity.

I didn't know they weren't for daily use? Why aren't they ? And yes the plan was to drive 75 miles to work then charge, then drive home and back to work and charge as much as possible at the super charger

Besides for cost, there are a ton of other pros and cons on the S vs an A4, primarily they are completely different cars though, even ignoring the drive train. The S is comparable in size to the A8.

Thanks

 

[Az_Rael]

I do have to install a 240 line in my garage?
And do these cars charge by simply Albeit it slow by just plugging them into the wall (like on vacation or at work) ?

The cars do charge from regular wall outlets, however in practice that only works if you drive less than ~40 miles a day. You blow waaaaaaay past that, and would need a 240V charger installed.

As far as supercharging as your main source of charging - you would have to spend every day there, and you can't just leave the car parked while you are at work. Now, if there is Level 2 charging near your work where you could leave the car parked (check plugshare) you might could get away with not installing 240V in your garage.

 

[Chrisshould]

The cars do charge from regular wall outlets, however in practice that only works if you drive less than ~40 miles a day. You blow waaaaaaay past that, and would need a 240V charger installed.

As far as supercharging as your main source of charging - you would have to spend every day there, and you can't just leave the car parked while you are at work. Now, if there is Level 2 charging near your work where you could leave the car parked (check plugshare) you might could get away with not installing 240V in your garage.

The plan would be drive 75 miles to work
Work 8 hours
Drive 10 minutes to super charger
Charge for 25 minutes
Drive 75 home 75 back to work and repeat

 

[hmmm]

Back of the envelope math ahead...

You could get a bare bone S60 with AP (I would add this based on how much driving you're doing) for about $950-ish a month if you were to finance the car over 78 months. Based on your mileage, leasing is not a viable option.

I would say purely from a $$ perspective, it may be a wash at best (once you include tires). BUT, there is the intangible part, such as: how much more fun it would be to drive an S vs an ICE, the benefit of AP and arriving at work less tired (IMHO) etc. Putting a $$ on these intangible benefits is a very personal thing.

2 Things I would me mindful of though:
- At your pace, you would be out of warranty in a little bit over a year (which is true of any 4yr/50k warranties for ICEs too of course), but the cost of repairs out of warranty *may* end up being higher for an S than an ICE (depending on the ICE of course).
- Because of the very high mileage you'd put on the car, the resale value would be really bad (true of other cars too...)

OR: could you get a job closer to home, get an S and really enjoy it?

 

[Canuck]

your oil changes cost about the same as the Tesla annual maintence

Oil changes = mandatory or warranty voided -- not to mention car requires them.
Tesla annual maintenance = optional and warranty not voided if not done. Doubtful they are even required but you do get free wipers.

 

[Az_Rael]

The plan would be drive 75 miles to work
Work 8 hours
Drive 10 minutes to super charger
Charge for 25 minutes
Drive 75 home 75 back to work and repeat

While that would work, I would think it would get old after a while to add another 25 minutes to your already long day with that commute. One of the best things about owning an EV is waking up every morning with a full "tank" and not having to spend time at the gas station.

 

[Chrisshould]

Some other options I guess are the Chevy volt or a3 etron

 

[Chrisshould]

Oil changes = mandatory or warranty voided -- not to mention car requires them.
Tesla annual maintenance = optional and warranty not voided if not done. Doubtful they are even required but you do get free wipers.

People don't do them?

 

[Az_Rael]

Some other options I guess are the Chevy volt or a3 etron

I own a gen 1 Volt with an 80 mile round trip commute. I average about 67mpg. Other folks who have done the math figured a gen 1 Volt works numbers wise up to about 100 miles a day. After that a Prius is cheaper. Not sure about the new numbers for the Gen 2.

As far as maintenance goes on the Volt, you will do waaaay less oil changes and the first major maintenance isn't until 45k. I just did that on mine for $400. I have not had any other repairs. It's been a good car

 

[Canuck]

People don't do them?

A lot do not. When I bought 2.5 years ago, Tesla was still pretty new, and no one really knew what to expect about maintenance, so I bought the plan. It gave me peace of mind, and I got to know the people in the service center (since otherwise these vehicles do not require service), and $500 is not a lot for me, so I don't really regret getting it. I probably wouldn't do it again though. There's really no service these vehicles require so I basically paid $500 for new wipers. There's a lot of threads here about whether it is worth it or not. You can decide for yourself.

 

[Chrisshould]

How often are people replacing whole batteries?

 

[Saghost]

How often are people replacing whole batteries?

There have been a small number of packs replaced for specific failures, mostly of the contactors on early packs - all under warranty as far as I know. I think most of the packs that were pulled were refurbished with new contactors and returned to service for later replacements.

Tesla packs are going to last a long, long time unless damaged by accidents/flooding. A complete cell failure just means a 1.4% reduction in range, whether it fails open or closed (individually fused and surrounded with materials to avoid a chain reaction.)

After that, there's only a one percent chance that the next cell failure will cause any range loss at all (the smallest parallel block sets the charge capacity, big battery Teslas have 96 blocks in series in their 16 modules; small battery cars have only 14 modules and 84 blocks.)

 

[AndreSF]

I would love some opinions from anyone taking the time to read this....
I really wanna Tesla III but can't really wait that long till delivery and plus I'd be so far down the line I wouldn't get the $7500 tax rebate

I think you have already talked yourself into buying a Model S Or close to it.

CPOs are pretty good value IMO (not sure you can easily lease used car though, nor your miles driven per year would fit into typical restrictions for lease; 15K/year at the most). Won't get the tax rebate, but still CPO might be very competitively priced.

Yes, ideally, you need a charging solution at home and potentially at work as opposed to relying on Supercharger for daily commute. There is ton of info on home/work charging solutions here and on tesla.com.

There are also a few stories on owners with MS hitting 100K miles, how they held up, etc.

Good luck!

 

[ApauloThirteen]

Hi,

Go try/test drive the autopilot equipped Tesla model and see if that'd work for some of your commute (freeway? clear lane markings? light/heavy traffic?). The other posts about a plug in (volt, volt gen 2) are good but if you can autopilot some/most of that long trip, that would be an important consideration.

 

[AndreSF]

Some other options I guess are the Chevy volt or a3 etron

Volt is a great option indeed, would cost you much less than A4 for sure to maintain (previous experience of driving Gen1 Volt for 3 years; wife had an A4 some years ago) . Dunno much about A3, but I know it has a tiny battery compared to Gen 2 Volt.

 

[JeffS]

Couple of issues that I think you need to consider. 1st and most important - as soon as you switch to electric...the chances of you ever going back to 20th century technology is somewhere right around 0%. This may not seem like a big deal - but at this point in time, because of your commute, it really limits the cars you have to choose from, to (checking list...nope, not that one, no - not that one either, cross those off, and this whole mfr brand is out, and not that one) one.
One car.

Teslas are not financially sound decisions at this point in time. The III will be. But the S is not.
But then again - neither is an A4. If this was a purely financially motivated decision - you'd be on a Honda board asking enthusiasts where to find the best 2014 Honda Civic used, with 30,000 miles, that you can run into the ground.

If you cross over and buy an S, it will be a watershed moment in your life. I'm not being humorous like before either. It will truly be life-changing. The disposable income part of the equation...the delta between a financially sound mode of transportation and a Model S...will be probably be the most enjoyable money you spend ever. And it will be making a true difference in the world.

Finally - something to consider as you consider the S. This is probably my biggest complaint with the car. (true in all areas except maybe CA).
You can't pick your nose when you're in your car.
Like...ever.
There is ALWAYS someone looking at you and your car. Literally...always.
People holding their phones on the steering wheel behind you taking pictures.
Pedestrians pointing and staring.
Motorcycles pulling up next to you in traffic to visit.
Complete strangers in parking lots walking around your car while you are coming out of the grocery store with a cart full of junk food and sugar'd soda (they can be very judgy - especially the granola tree hugger crowd that is interested in your EV)
Police officers curious to see if you see them, and if you'll launch or not.

There. The true colors of S ownership.

I hope you jump. I do I do.