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My First Tesla Article! Why college students should buy Gen III.

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Hi Everyone,

I spread my pro-tesla propaganda on facebook to my friends to no end and i figured i should write an article for them explaining why im so pro-tesla. It obviously doesn't only apply to college students so I decided to share it with everyone here.

Feel free to critique.
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Why College Students Would Be Foolish To Not Buy A Tesla Motors Gen 3 As Their First Car


If you are in college chances are you still have a couple years before you graduate and get a big boy/girl job. Some might find this to be extremely depressing while others are getting tired of awkwardly running into last week’s one-nighter. One undeniable perk all students can look forward to when they graduate is earning a lot of $$$$. One of your first major expenditures might be getting your first car. Now, if you know about Tesla Motors and how kickass they are, congratulations, you are probably tech savvy enough to pass engineering. If you don’t know about Tesla Motors you need to sit up, drop your pants and start reading on how you could be saving over $3,000 a year!(skip below for the number crunching)

What is Tesla Motors:
Before we start I want you to drop all misconceptions you might have about electric cars. You should be in utter confusion when i start talking about “electric” cars. Alright.

Tesla Motors is the first majorly successful American car company in almost 100 years. What this means to you is tesla is doing something so unconventional they have managed to enter and shake up a dinosaur of an industry.

Tesla is revolutionizing the auto industry with their new electric cars. Electric vehicles(EVs) are cars that run solely on electricity. They have a giant battery that stores enough charge to zoom you from place to place. Instead of an internal combustion engine(ICE) Tesla uses an AC induction motor. What makes Tesla’s motors awesome is that they are compact and can provide instant torque. The difference is big enough that the term “Tesla grin” has been coined after the grin every driver has when he/she first experiencing the car’s acceleration.

You cannot view Tesla as just another car. That would be as foolish as viewing the first iPhone as just another phone. Tesla is not simply an auto company. It is a tech company in the auto industry. When designing their cars Tesla questioned everything and I mean EVERYTHING. As an example, they asked themselves:

“When you enter a car, you have to first put the key in the ignition, then place your foot on the breaks and then change from park to drive. Why the hell do you have to do that? Why can’t you just enter your car put your foot on the break and by doing so let the car know you are ready to drive?”

Tesla answered hundreds if not thousands of these questions and came up with a new car from the ground up.

Currently, Tesla’s flagship car, the Model S, is a high-end sedan that has a base price of $70,000. Though we will be pulling information from the Model S and using it for the Gen 3 I can assure you that tesla will not skimp out on the quality of their car. If you want to contest that, feel free to message me and we can battle it out.

Why you should get a Tesla Motors Gen 3:
Tesla’s Gen 3 car is due to arrive late 2016. As a college student this might be a time you are considering getting your first car. Remember, You can save more than $3,000 a year! Before i go further here are some assumptions for the remainder of the article.

Assumptions I Make
1) I live in Canada. All prices are tailored towards canadians and all units are in metric. Though most numbers used are universal so it applies to the general public also.
2) I will be looking at the monthly cost of owning a Tesla as chances are you will be financing your first car.

3) The Gen 3 has been compared most closely to the BMW 3 series for performance, quality and price. I will be using the BMW 3 series as my benchmark.

Alright lets get started

The Numbers

Both BMW 3 Series and Gen 3 have the same base price of approx. $40,000

The model for financing both of these is at 3% annual interest with a 15% down payment and 72 months to pay it off.

For the BMW 3 Series
$6000 as the downpayment and from there pay a monthly fee of $516 a month.

Average KMs driven by drivers aged 20-34 = ~24,500 km
Average price of gas = ~$1.30/liter
Average km per liter for mid-sized sedans = 8.5 liters/km

Yearly costs of gas = $2878/year -OR- $240/month

Cost of maintenance and repairs = $3480/5-years -OR- $58/month

Total cost after down payment = $814/month -OR- $9768/year

For the Tesla Gen 3
$6000 as the downpayment and from there pay a monthly fee of $516 a month.

Average price of charging the car for 100 km = $2.21
Average cost per KWh = $0.12

Yearly costs on electric bill = $492/year -OR- $41/month

Cost of maintenance and repairs per 5 years = $1160 -OR- $20/month
(Because electric cars have far less moving parts they require approx. 1/3rd the maintenance and repairs of an ICE car. I.e. you dont have to worry about things like oil changes)

Total cost after down payment = $577/month -OR- $6924/year

Additional Perks of Owning a Tesla:

Now that you’ve seen the numbers I might more have your attention. Don’t stop reading now. I’m about to reveal the secret sauce behind certain un-quantifiable aspects of owning a Tesla.

Safety
Tesla is one of the few cars on the road with a 5-star rating across the board. The BMW 3 Series comes close. It has a 4-star rating for frontal crash.

Here are some test examples comparing the Model S to BMW 5 Series and 3 Series Cars. You can expect the Gen 3 to be as good if not better than the Model S in safety.

Tesla Model S NHTSA Side Crash: [url]http://yt2gif.com/view/351735[/URL]
BMW 528i NHTSA Side Crash: [url]http://www.yt2gif.com/view/351748[/URL]

Tesla Model S NHTSA Front Crash: [url]http://minus.com/ll0XBntGxLuKB[/URL]
BMW 328i NHTSA Front Crash: [url]http://minus.com/levXNEFbsPLvK[/URL]

Service
Getting your car serviced can be a ****** experience at times. You see, there is a huge discrepancy when it comes to getting your car serviced. The “extra parts” industry in the US is an ~$8.5 Billion dollar industry. Auto companies restrict repairs on their cars to be done only by their dealers. Dealerships make most of their profits from servicing your car. What makes Tesla different an infinitely better is that they service your car directly. Tesla’s philosophy is to never make a profit on service. They believe that you should not have to pay extra because their product broke down on you. Furthermore, Tesla’s Service is revered as world’s best. If your car requires servicing, they will show up at your house with a loaner car, pick up your car and return it when it has been serviced. On top of that, their loaner cars are their top end cars meaning you get a chance to drive around the upgraded Model S while your Gen 3 is being serviced!

No More Gas Stations!
98% of the population drives less than 58 kms a day. With the basic Gen 3 model at 320 kms of range you can charge your car in your own garage over night and have a full charge in the morning every morning. For long road trips Tesla will have built a “Supercharging” network that covers 99% of the US and most of the Canadian population by the end of 2015. The Super charging stations will allow you to charge for free for the rest of your life. They are designed to be self sustaining and are solar powered. You will be able to stop and charge your car for 20-30 minutes every 3 hours of driving. Just enough time to stretch your legs and grab a coffee/bite to eat.

Technological Benefits and The Age of the Intelligent Car
Here are a few awesome features that you can do further research on:
- Tethering and over the air updates
- State of the art integration into your life
- Tell your car to heat up via phone before getting in
- Air conditioner use doesn’t reduce power output
- More storage; front trunk or “frunk”
- Zero emissions that are better for the air
- Massive 17” Center Console
- No engine noise
- Low center of gravity with better handling

Conclusion
Owning a Tesla as your first car from the big boy/girl job you get makes complete sense. It’s like the equivalent of getting the first iPhone when it came out at half the price of the leading phones in the market.

Feel free to leave feedback!
 
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Looks like you have a couple spelling mistakes, and it looks like you didn't include in your accounting of lifetime costs of the car (where you calculate average $/mileage driven) the amount that one might save by using the supercharger system. Is that a legitimate savings over the lifetime of the car or is it just a gimmick, based on your calculations.

Another critique of the article is that it doesn't do what Elon does so well: confront criticism and eliminate it. You should consider taking some of the major problems that the public sees as hurdles to EV adoption and you should deconstruct them and explain why they are legitimate or just strawman arguments.

Oh one last thing, since you're advising students to do the lease: how much more does one pay by leasing this gen 3 compared to buying it outright.

Otherwise it's a good article. Nice job.
 
Looks like you have a couple spelling mistakes, and it looks like you didn't include in your accounting of lifetime costs of the car (where you calculate average $/mileage driven) the amount that one might save by using the supercharger system. Is that a legitimate savings over the lifetime of the car or is it just a gimmick, based on your calculations.

Another critique of the article is that it doesn't do what Elon does so well: confront criticism and eliminate it. You should consider taking some of the major problems that the public sees as hurdles to EV adoption and you should deconstruct them and explain why they are legitimate or just strawman arguments.

Oh one last thing, since you're advising students to do the lease: how much more does one pay by leasing this gen 3 compared to buying it outright.

Otherwise it's a good article. Nice job.

thanks for the feedback!
this is the first draft (should have stated in title) so i'll definitely go over the spelling and stuff in the morning.

i've left out things like "savings because of super charger" because you would realistically only be using the super charger on long road trips and these would only be 1-time savings. instead i view it as another perk of owning a tesla that is hard to quantify. I would be as bold as saying that the $3k savings is underestimated by $1-$2K once you factor in all of the perks.

I'll also be changing the title to "...not to consider buying..." as a friend conveniently pointed out not many recently graduated students would be looking to purchase a car that eats close to $600 a month. and that the early adoption rate would have to double for us to even see second hand cars being sold in larger volumes. students would want that flashy car which has been pre-owned and is now selling on a bargain.

i was orignally going to add a "false arugments against tesla" section but opted not to. my friend tried to use some of them and you've also mentioned i should tackle them. will definitely do that in the morning.

And good call on the adding the financing/out-right buying
 
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One other think I would like to point out. I don't know anyone who bought a BMW right out of college. I spent ~$15k financed over 5 years on my first vehicle out of college (I didn't have a car in college). And most of my friends drove their beaters for another 2-4 years.

But other than 'first car out of college' I think everything seems ok.

Repeating 'saving $3000 a year' seems like a bad advertising slogan. I would try to either make that a central point to you article, or not repeat it as much. Broad advertising like claims, tickle my BS alarm.

But I generally don't receive things like the general population so I could be way off.
 
Thanks for sharing your write up.

Another thing to point out is that Elon Musk has not said that Gen 3 car's service policy would be the same as the model S. He did mention though that to keep cost down they would remove some items that are currently in the model s. I would imagine Tesla Ranger service and model S loaner cars to be one of these things.
 
“When you enter a car, you have to first put the key in the ignition, then place your foot on the breaks and then change from park to drive. Why the hell do you have to do that? Why can’t you just enter your car put your foot on the break and by doing so let the car know you are ready to drive?”
There's a lot better examples than this. Keyless ignition systems have been around for quite a while already, I had an Enterprise rental car recently (think it was a cheap Nissan Altima) that had keyless ignition.

You make a number of assumptions and state them as facts; it's dangerous to get people over-excited then disappoint them later. Here's a few examples:

Tesla’s Gen 3 car is due to arrive late 2016.

Tesla/Elon has stated more than once that they are production constrained right now and thaere are long term battery supply limitations. I doubt 2016 but I do like what another member wrote recently:
Tesla was behind on the Roadster schedule (but they delivered)
They were behind on the Model S schedule (but they delivered)
They had to move back the Model X schedule (but they will deliver a great vehicle)

Why would people expect to see them way ahead of schedule on GenIII?

Moving on:

If your car requires servicing, they will show up at your house with a loaner car, pick up your car and return it when it has been serviced. On top of that, their loaner cars are their top end cars meaning you get a chance to drive around the upgraded Model S while your Gen 3 is being serviced!
Firstly, that's only if you buy Ranger service, secondly I wouldnt bank on getting a Model S while your Gen III is being serviced. Much more likely you'll be offered a fully optioned Gen III as a loaner.

The Super charging stations will allow you to charge for freefor the rest of your life. They are designed to be self sustaining and are solar powered. You will be able to stop and charge your car for 20-30 minutes every 3 hours of driving.
I'm not sure Supercharging is confirmed yet for Gen III? Also you used the base price in your calculations; it's more likely that there will be different battery options and only the bigger battery pack will take you ~200 miles.

- Massive 17” Center Console
In the GenIII?

You seem to be assuming that Gen III will just be a smaller version of Model S with no cost savings; Gen III is going to be great but by definition it's likely to be (to a currently unknown degree) a more basic car than Model S.
 
Most financial analysts would say that you need to be making about $70K a year to afford $577 in car expenses and $100K to afford $800. These are not typical starting salaries IMHO.

Note: Calculation based on 10% of your income for all of your auto expenses (payment, insurance, maintenance and gas/electricity). Most analysts believe a car should actually be bought with cash or at the very most a 3 yr loan.

A more typical starting salary of $40-50K would be $3-400/ month for ALL your auto expenses.
 
Off-peak electricity in Ontario is around 12.52 cents/kWh (varies a bit by utility; Hydro One Rural is a lot higher). Mid and On Peak are 16.85 and 19.19 cents respectively. These costs are what'd you'd pay your utility and include commodity, regulatory and delivery charges all loss adjusted and with taxes added (just as your gasoline cost includes all taxes).

Your cost for 100 km (62 miles) of $2.21 @ 12 cents = 18.4 kWh. This works out to just under 300 Wh/mi which is light for the Model S. I dive very conservatively and see just over 300 Wh/mi but once I include "losses" inherent to an EV (charger inefficiencies, standby power etc) I'm actually north of 400 Wh/mi and this is in the nice summer weather. Add at least 20% to that in winter.
 
I'm not sure Supercharging is confirmed yet for Gen III?
Nigel, Elon did confirm recently that Genlll will be Supercharger compatible.
Thanks. Big implications on some other threads discussing usage/capacity.
It was confirmed in May:
Tesla Motors, Inc. Supercharger Announcement
May 30, 2013 at 10:30 AM PT


Rough Transcript
12. ... mainstream buyers [Ed: Sorry I missed the question.]
...
Ultimtely we need to come out with a more affordable car. That can use the SC. In 3-4 years.

12b. So future vehicles will support... ?
All future cars will have that capability [SC].
 
Also, the ~200 mile range has been talked about with no indication that it's the "optional" range. Personally, I want around 300 miles, like the "S". I have no problem with the idea of paying extra for a bigger battery, like the "S". While I'm hoping that the base price DOES come in at $35,000 before incentives and that people CAN buy a good car for that price, I have no illusions that it'll be the price I pay once I add the options I suspect I'll really want. (Supercharger, biggery battery, tech package but NO LEATHER)
 
Also, the ~200 mile range has been talked about with no indication that it's the "optional" range. Personally, I want around 300 miles, like the "S". I have no problem with the idea of paying extra for a bigger battery, like the "S". While I'm hoping that the base price DOES come in at $35,000 before incentives and that people CAN buy a good car for that price, I have no illusions that it'll be the price I pay once I add the options I suspect I'll really want. (Supercharger, biggery battery, tech package but NO LEATHER)

When talking about the Model S, Elon always said that it would be a $49,900 car with a 300 mile range and 0-60 in 5.6 seconds and capable of supercharging. He didn't mention until much later that the $49,900 version would not be the 300 mile range version, nor would it be the 0-60 in 5.6 seconds version, nor would it have supercharger capability. I remember when he announced that, there were quite a few upset people on this forum.

Example: Ads which illustrate why I am so pissed about Tesla's marketing of the 160
Example: Options / Pricing gripes for 160 mile version

I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing something similar with Gen III.
 
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When talking about the Model S, Elon always said that it would be a $49,900 car with a 300 mile range and 0-60 in 5.6 seconds and capable of supercharging. He didn't mention until much later that the $49,900 version would not be the 300 mile range version, nor would it be the 0-60 in 5.6 seconds version, nor would it have supercharger capability. I remember when he announced that, there were quite a few upset people on this forum.

Example: Ads which illustrate why I am so pissed about Tesla's marketing of the 160
Example: Options / Pricing gripes for 160 mile version

I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing something similar with Gen III.

Yeah I really hope he means the 200 mile version talking about the 35K dollar Gen III car. Well when he announced that Model S would start at 50 000 dollars in March 2009(?) the Tesla was definately ahead of EVERYTHING else in terms of battery tech etc. I would say it's all about battery technology-pricing, which has been in decline for the past several years with about 8% per year if I'm not wrong. So if the batteries keep getting cheaper it shouldn't be a problem really to make Gen III cost 35K and still have a 200 mile range.
 
Yeah I really hope he means the 200 mile version talking about the 35K dollar Gen III car....r it shouldn't be a problem really to make Gen III cost 35K and still have a 200 mile range.
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I thought the 200 mile version would be only offered on the high-end Genlll but it seems Elon has now decided that below 200 miles is just not enough range for an EV. It was one of the reasons cited for dropping the 40kWh MS.
 
Thanks. WRT the OPs article "capable" doesn't necessarily mean "free".
If we're going to get technical (aren't we always?), the OP said:
The Super charging stations will allow you to charge for free_for the rest of your life.
This matches what Tesla has been saying. The fact that there is an upfront cost for the SC enabling doesn't diminish that there isn't a per-use charge. Concur?