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Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

loupventures.com

61–70 of 81 posts

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#61
post #12

How are the repairs for a Tesla Model 3 cheaper than for a Camry. $60 oil change x 20 = $1200. Everything else is the same or pricier for a Tesla.

Most Toyota engines have 10k oil change intervals and many dealers now offer free oil changes for life. Over the past five years, the only maintenance I've paid for on my Toyota has had four sets of wiper blades, a 12v battery, and tires. It didn't even need the tires, just the stock Goodyears are garbage and I didn't want to drive another snow season on them.

All-in maintenance costs were in the neighborhood of $700 over five years.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#63
post #59
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also appear to budget $0 for a home charging station, which means either you're doing all your charging at Tesla chargers, are lucky enough to have a charger at work that is regularly available, or charging at home via a very slow 1-2kW outlet.

I charge my other manufacturer electric vehicle from a standard outlet every night over 12 hours or so it's sitting there because I drive it less than the charge needed every day, much like the vast majority of people would.

A lot of people would at least occasionally get in trouble with 4MPH charging.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#64
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extent do you have variable kWh rates based on time of day in Finland? Assuming nearly full implementation of smart metering. One of the interesting features of a Tesla is that if you use it for daily commuting, the car can be set to charge overnight between 10pm and 5am, during the hours of lowest kWh rates.

Actual price of electricity is negligible, around 4-6 cent/kWh. There is really very little wiggle room here. The rest is tax and electricity transfer. You can choose to buy your electricity from anyone but you have to pay the local monopoly for the transfer. Electric transfer/infrastructure has been sold abroad by our very forward thinking smart politicians and thus that money is never seen again. Both cost double t…

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Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#65
post #44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufacturer incurs a lot of liability by setting the oil maintenance window so high. So I don’t think they would do that without data to support this requirement. If the oil filter truly couldn’t last, then there would be many more failures. Which would be payable by the manufacture (either through warranty or class action law suit). Based on this simple analysis, I believe the manufacturer docs vs. a mechanic w…

Unless they know it will last 150k miles and don't care beyond that. Or put more cynically, have set the window for artificial obsolescence of their vehicles early enough to goose sales, but late enough that their reputation and liability don't take a hit.

That’s why I mentioned class action suites. If a manufacturer did that, it would be a dream for a law firm as it would be pretty easy to show the damage of doing 5 oil changes over 150k miles as recommended (vs 15 or 30 or whatever). Of course consumers would get $5 or something small, but a law firm would get millions that would be paid by the manufacturer.

Again, hard to know. But when the manufacturers have something to lose from being wrong and random mechanic who sells oils changes doesn’t, it makes it easier to man vehicle maintenance.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#66
There's a lot of arguing here about the true cost of a Model 3. But the larger question is trends. The only reason electrics have a higher sticker prices today is the huge cost of the battery pack. But cell prices are dropping rapidly. They went down 35% in the last year alone.

The experts say this is going to continue, and in another 2 or 3 years ev's will equal ice's in sticker price, and then continue to fall. That plus various other factors will lead to ev sales skyrocketing and ice sales plummeting. A lot of the ice manufacturers like VW and GM have realized this is coming, and so they are working hard to convert over to ev's.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#67
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are damaged by heat, not cold. It's just that the damage is revealed in cold weather.

Thanks, TIL. So given all this, how long do the original batteries last in California heart?

Teslas have active battery temperature management, even when parked in "deep sleep" mode, and very robust heating and cooling capacity. Left on a hot Arizona parking lot, our Model S will occasionally run the AC for the battery. This is a huge improvement over our Leaf, which lost 30% of its battery capacity during a single summer of being parked on Scottsdale blacktop.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#68
post #63
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I charge my other manufacturer electric vehicle from a standard outlet every night over 12 hours or so it's sitting there because I drive it less than the charge needed every day, much like the vast majority of people would.

A lot of people would at least occasionally get in trouble with 4MPH charging.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#69
post #55
post #2

Seems to be predicated upon a number of questionable assumptions-- including that - a Model 3 is cheaper to insure than a Camry (thus far, the opposite is true-- and it seems optimistic to attain for a car that costs so much more, has higher performance, and higher repair costs) - the Model 3 will be cheaper to maintain by a massive factor (we'll see; there is maintenance avoided by having an electric car but also Te…

They also appear to budget $0 for a home charging station, which means either you're doing all your charging at Tesla chargers, are lucky enough to have a charger at work that is regularly available, or charging at home via a very slow 1-2kW outlet.

Each tesla comes with a mobile charger with adapters for nema 14-50 (220 dryer outlet) and 5-15 (standard 110 outlet).

I'm not sure what the model 3 charge rate is in mph for these scenarios.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership Slightly Cheaper Than a Camry

#70
post #17

Which Car Models Have the Lowest Maintenance Cost? Based on total car maintenance costs over 10 years: Rank:Make_Model@Cost Cheapest:Toyota_Prius@$4,300 2nd_cheapest:Kia_Soul@$4,700 3rd_cheapest:Toyota_Camry@$5,200 They think a Camry costs $4000 over 5 years to maintain, whereas Your Mechanic thinks it is $5200 over 10 years - something smells. Fix that, and the advantage goes away. I think it is very unlikely the Mo…

I think the model 3 batteries are good for a huge number of lifetime miles, like 500k

For comparison I once rode in a prius with 400k miles, and it had had the engine replaced multiple times.

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