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Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

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Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#21

Post by ankzap »

dba7dba wrote: post #17
acgourley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an excellent point but I would just temper it with the fact EVs should have lower long term maintenance issues for all non-battery parts. As an aside, I wonder if in 5 years you will be able to upgrade into a more powerful battery.

Whenever I'm sitting around waiting for oil change/tuneup/etc for my 2 cars in the family, I am tempted to look into Tesla. Having to sacrifice a Sat/car every few months for oil change really bugs me. Of course oil change itself is quick and cheap, but it’s the time I have to spend. EDIT: I should've clarified that I don't spend a WHOLE Sat for a car oil change. But for a 30min work on the car, you have to go there,…

You should explore alternatives to where you get your oil change done. An oil change shouldn't take more than 15-30 minutes at a good local mechanic.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#22

Post by lafar6502 »

- How do you service your Tesla? Do you have to go to Tesla-authorized shop or can you do it in any workshop? How does it affect repair and maintenance costs if you have no alternatives?

- What about the 'guaranteed' buyback option? I'd be afraid that a buyback will be the only option to sell your old Tesla, because they won't be re-sellable on a free market without a costly hw/sw upgrade that can be done ONLY by Tesla.

- There's no way to reduce your costs by using third party replacement parts or batteries.

- A single failure can ruin your ROI calculations because the repair costs are hard to predict.

- The market for used Teslas is limited to areas where the charging network is available

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#23

Post by mark-r »

skywhopper wrote: post #12

What's up with the font on this site? In Google Chrome on Windows 7 it's nearly unreadable. Most of the internal horizontal strokes are just missing from the letters.

Also using Google Chrome on Windows 7, and no problems here. Chrome reports the font as Open Sans, 14px.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#24

Post by aroch »

dba7dba wrote: post #17
acgourley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an excellent point but I would just temper it with the fact EVs should have lower long term maintenance issues for all non-battery parts. As an aside, I wonder if in 5 years you will be able to upgrade into a more powerful battery.

Whenever I'm sitting around waiting for oil change/tuneup/etc for my 2 cars in the family, I am tempted to look into Tesla. Having to sacrifice a Sat/car every few months for oil change really bugs me. Of course oil change itself is quick and cheap, but it’s the time I have to spend. EDIT: I should've clarified that I don't spend a WHOLE Sat for a car oil change. But for a 30min work on the car, you have to go there,…

Oil changes take 20mins, I'm not sure how that equates to a whole Saturday. Hell, you could do it on your way home from work. Or if you find a nicer shop (ie. a local, nonchain shop), they'll even let you drop it off in the morning, drive you to work and then pick you up from work to get your car in the evening.

Unless you make many hundreds of dollars an hour, the opportunity cost of 60mins (there + back plus change time) is rather low

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#25

Post by not_that_noob »

not_that_noob wrote: post #11

As much as I admire Elon and Tesla, Consumer Reports rated Audi clean diesel at a cheaper cost per mile than Tesla. So the comparison I'd really like to see is Tesla against the Audis.

My bad - I misremembered - this is the quote from CR: "When it comes to efficiency, the Tesla is a runaway. The  A7 gets an impressive 28 mpg overall, but the Model S delivers the equivalent of 84 mpg. That translates into only 4.4 cents per mile for the Tesla (based on an electricity rate of  11 cents per kilowatt- hour) vs. 14.3 cents for the Audi (based on diesel costing $4.00 per gallon)."

As you were.

EDIT: Ok I now remember why I misremembered. The delta in operating cost is about 10 cents/mile. The delta in price is $18,755 (ignoring rebates, credits, etc.). So you would have to drive 187,550 miles for the Tesla to come out ahead. In other words, the TDI A7 is at a similar TCO to the Tesla, but with extended range and quick fueling.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#26

Post by soperj »

runako wrote: post #19
Deusdies wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, generally the North American car manufacturers produce cars of much poorer quality compared to the Japanese, Korean, and European car makers.

I think this is a dated perception. JD Power shows a fair showing of American cars in its 2013 initial quality study: http://autos.jdpower.com/ratings/quality/cars.htm

I've always found JD Power to be a bit biased towards American made cars. Maybe because he worked for Ford and GM, I don't know, but even at their worst, they always seemed to be featured by them.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#27

Post by takeda »

lafar6502 wrote: post #22

- How do you service your Tesla? Do you have to go to Tesla-authorized shop or can you do it in any workshop? How does it affect repair and maintenance costs if you have no alternatives? - What about the 'guaranteed' buyback option? I'd be afraid that a buyback will be the only option to sell your old Tesla, because they won't be re-sellable on a free market without a costly hw/sw upgrade that can be done ONLY by Tes…

> How do you service your Tesla? Do you have to go to Tesla-authorized shop or can you do it in any workshop? How does it affect repair and maintenance costs if you have no alternatives?

There's not much to service, and normally you should do it once a year. The mechanics currently don't have schematics for Model S so it probably feels better to have it fixed at the company. I would imagine that you could get brakes replaced at your local mechanic, but I can't think of anything else they could do with it.

For example Tesla doesn't even have ODB-II port for diagnostics (it was recently revealed that instead of CanBus they use Ethernet). Things like that make the car is very different and the mechanic might know less about the car than yourself.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#28

Post by r00fus »

justinph wrote: post #18

I'm surprised a Prius V was not included in this matrix. It would seem to fit favorably within the range of features the OP was looking for, but also is efficient, low maintenance, and safe. I love Tesla, but they are just not there yet on cost.

I'd second this, but as someone who loves hybrids/EVs, I am very disappointed that a minivan class hybrid doesn't exist in the US (it does in Japan: Toyota Estima Hybrid is apparently a hybrid Sienna). Was forced to buy a standard minivan (we chose Sienna) as the PriusV is too small for our needs.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#29

Post by tasty_freeze »

First: "I'd only purchased 3 cars before in my life. A Toyota Camry, that I drove for 12 years. ... A Honda Odyssey, that we had owned for 6 years. And a Nissan Leaf, that we had owned for 3 years. "

Then: "The RAV4 EV, which we had just purchased, decimated the pack."

These two statements aren't compatible. Or somehow I am repeatedly misreading what he is saying.

Re: Tesla Model S – Cost of Ownership vs. Honda Odyssey

#30

Post by js2 »

Just to throw some maintenance numbers out there since I happen to own a 2003 Odyssey with over 170k miles and I've kept track of the costs in a spreadsheet. So far I've spent just under $10k in maintenance.

The big annoying charge was ~ $4200 at 110k miles in 2010. The transmission failed, so this charge was for a Honda remanufactured transmission and PCM, plus the 105k maintenance (new timing belt).

The other significant charges are brakes and tires. It's almost $1k to replace the tires and brake rotors, which on this vehicle have been around every 50k miles.

SWAG at fuel costs: 170k / 20 mpg * $3 ~ $25k.

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