What's with the article's font? Very annoying to read. Looks like a printer running out of ink.
zoom you browser in 10% (ctrl+). i get this issue on a lot of personal blogs and this always fixes it to some degree
Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
11–20 of 169 posts
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#12Would you buy an eight year used Tesla for 30k? I'm a fan of Tesla and hope to be an owner some day, but I think the author is being overly optimistic here.
Well we know that Elon Musk has promised a buyback guarantee, indexed to the buyback cost of a similarly old Mercedes S class[1]. So that sets a floor on the depreciation value.
Also, as btian notes below, the electric drivetrain is also much simpler than a gasoline one, so it should be in much better shape relative to non-electric cars. I'm relatively optimistic because the part that depreciates the most is the battery: and if the rest of the car holds up well, then switching the battery at a lower cost (taking into account 8 years of battery tech advancement) should make for a pretty high resale value.
[1]: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/04/02/elon-mus...
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#13What's with the article's font? Very annoying to read. Looks like a printer running out of ink.
Are you running it in Chrome/Windows?
If so: Chrome's font rendering uses GDI rather than DirectWrite and it leads to some very ugly rendering with certain web fonts. This is a known issue and they are working on changing this: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=137692#c...
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#14I was curious about the RAV4 EV comment so some googling turned up this: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/throwing-money-at-elect...
Wow, why are the big automotive companies so bad at making a good looking electric vehicle? Or are we just spoiled with the looks of the Model S?
From the article you linked to: "GM is reportedly losing more than $40,000 on each Volt" WHAT?
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#15Would you buy an eight year used Tesla for 30k? I'm a fan of Tesla and hope to be an owner some day, but I think the author is being overly optimistic here.
Yes... I agree, there is a great deal of over estimation longevity of the drive systems and maintenance of the Tesla.
Electric motors are much less serviceable than gas engines at this point. There are still a lot of moving parts.
I think a tesla will lose value much faster than this person thinks as battery technology improves and the life of the existing battery pack declines.
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#16What's with the article's font? Very annoying to read. Looks like a printer running out of ink.
Are you running it in Chrome/Windows? If so: Chrome's font rendering uses GDI rather than DirectWrite and it leads to some very ugly rendering with certain web fonts. This is a known issue and they are working on changing this: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=137692#c...
Yup, I am. Thanks for the info.
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#17Can some one explain NPV to me? This is the first I am hearing of this term and wikipedia does not offer an explanation that is intuitive enough. Its odd that the NPV is listed as $40K+ when the actual cost of the car is $90K+.
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#18Talk about a worthless comparison... Auto loan and insurance costs completely left out? (and these are big factors) Depreciation in a high state of speculation? Comparing a top of the line minivan with a mid size car? A commuter/short trip car (imagine big road trips planned around recharge stations) vs a touring vehicle.
I realize there is other cars besides the Odyssey compared, but why so much emphasis put on the minivan comparison? How about comparing as close of a car luxury, feature, reliability and purpose wise?
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#19I have also ran similar calculations in my head. I think what I'd want to be convinced is a thorough analysis from a mechanical/industrial engineer on how much you can expect to save from a fully electric car on maintenance. The claim I've heard from Tesla is that, since there are much fewer moving parts within an electric motor, the car will last substantially longer. While this makes intuitive sense, I would love to see a breakdown of the actual numbers. Gas savings are pretty easy to calculate.
That said, there is one more factor I had considered, for fun. If Tesla continues to deliver more cars and eventually electric cars dominate the new car market in 5-10 years, I would imagine the Model S would be worth an investment as a "classic" car. If you maintained it well, I wonder if the actual value of the car would have a chance of appreciating at a much higher rate past, say, 50 years.
Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey
#20I was curious about the RAV4 EV comment so some googling turned up this: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/throwing-money-at-elect...
Wow, why are the big automotive companies so bad at making a good looking electric vehicle? Or are we just spoiled with the looks of the Model S? From the article you linked to: "GM is reportedly losing more than $40,000 on each Volt" WHAT?
Also, "Not even Tesla has made money from building its slick Model S." Smells like funny accounting.