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Slightly different take on the 70D vs. 85D debate

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As someone still grappling with this decision, the current value of the trade off seems pretty apparent--0.8 sec of 0-60 time + 30 miles of range for an extra 10K. Obviously, whether this is 'worth it' would depend on your driving habits, wants, priorities and needs.

I wonder though about resale value--as battery size increases, the low end range models seem likely to become progressively less desirable. I suspect there is very little market for a 60 now that the 70 has come out, for example. Also, it seems that the future 'upgrade path' is more open for 85 owners than 70 owners, at least based on current info.

Given that, it begs the question as to whether the 85D is going to generally hold its value better than the 70D? If it costs 10k more new but also is worth 10K more in trade in, then the 'cost' of the higher end model is not so clear. Usually low end models hold their value better then higher end models for most cars, but not sure that is true for EVs. This might tilt the value calculation for some people (including me).

What do people think?
 
The 3 most important things in an EV are range, range and range.

The Tesla is such a joy to drive you will want to drive it more than the car it replaces. It will change your driving hapits. Last weekend we drove our model S 85 to Great Basin NP. At the end of the first day it showed 29 miles rated. This was after starting the day at the Nephi Supercharger with a full tank. If we had been driving a 60 or a 70 our day of exploring the park would have ended much sooner.

My next Tesla will be a 90D.
As they say your mileage may vary.
 
Don't you grapple with the 90D also? If you're choosing a new car, and big vs smaller battery, the 90 is in the mix. But of course then you add the new battery chemistry issue. I'm almost (not quite) glad I didn't have that factor when I got mine recently. I tend toward range maxing in my EV decision making and would have had a strong attraction to the 90, even though the new chemistry scares me, not knowing how much testing Tesla has done on it.
 
As someone still grappling with this decision, the current value of the trade off seems pretty apparent--0.8 sec of 0-60 time + 30 miles of range for an extra 10K. Obviously, whether this is 'worth it' would depend on your driving habits, wants, priorities and needs.

I wonder though about resale value--as battery size increases, the low end range models seem likely to become progressively less desirable. I suspect there is very little market for a 60 now that the 70 has come out, for example. Also, it seems that the future 'upgrade path' is more open for 85 owners than 70 owners, at least based on current info.

Given that, it begs the question as to whether the 85D is going to generally hold its value better than the 70D? If it costs 10k more new but also is worth 10K more in trade in, then the 'cost' of the higher end model is not so clear. Usually low end models hold their value better then higher end models for most cars, but not sure that is true for EVs. This might tilt the value calculation for some people (including me).

What do people think?

Good point and nicely explained/written.
Just one remark I would like to add: I think the 10k price difference for a new car is also impacted by depreciation. Means a 10k price difference is probably only 6-7k worth after a couple of years at the time of a trade-in.
 
HeartDocMD:
Costs Effect Decisions. That is fairly simple and clear.
However, you correctly understand that there are three events that are cost related... Purchase Price, Lost Opportunity / Depreciation Costs and Resale Value.

Production cars are a fairly poor investment no matter how you look at it.

That said, you have to look at your use case for the EV and figure out if during the coldest months, when regeneration and efficiency of the battery pack is at its lowest, the car you are configuring has the range you need. A pretty good rule of thumb that I have learned here is to take the rated miles at normal state of charge and reduce that by 20 to 30 percent in cold weather. I notice you do not indicate your location but if you are in the northern climate then this will be a factor for you to understand.

I have read enough on TMC to have "learned" that the more battery the better in the long run. Your use case could modify that statement.
 
I think one thing both the D and the 85 give you is future flexibility.

Right now I live in NC-some snow but not terrible, and probably don't have a compelling case for the AWD in terms of winter weather. Similarly, we have reasonable SC coverage (espeically once Asheville opens) so the added range is not critical.

However, if we moved for work, etc., we could easily end up in a situation where our needs were different. Add in the potentially greater residual value, and to me, seems like the 85D (didn't consider the P as that is clearly not worth it to me) is increasinglly seeming like the overall value balancing all the factors.
 
We went from a 85 to a 70D. We rarely use all the range and charging infrastructure is getting much better. A Chademo adapter can do more than a little more capacity.

Range difference is not much. The case for the 85D is the power. Getting much stronger acceleration than the 70. It is addictive.
 
I think one other piece of information that we don't have is whether Tesla will change their philosophy on Supercharger deployment and spacing. In the past, installations were spaced such that an S60 could travel between the locations. Will this change as the lowest level of battery capacity rises, as is apparently going to be the case in the future? In other words, in the past the Superchargers were spaced about 130 miles apart to accommodate cars with 60 kWH batteries. Will this spacing start to drift further apart, now that the lowest battery is the 70 kWH model? And when the 85 kWH model is the smallest battery available, will the new Superchargers be 200 miles apart, making it difficult for the S60 to travel those routes?

Personally, I'll get the highest capacity battery available when I buy my MX.
 
There are too many variables and things that are hard to predict when you talk about resale say 3 or 4 years down the line. This is particularly hard with EVs if we assume battery improvements over time.

The fact is with most regular expensive cars, the more expensive variants depreciates more significantly than the less expensive ones. E.g. a Panamera S may be 110k new while a non-S was 90k, but after 3 years, the S goes for 72 while the non-S goes for 65, a 7k difference in what used to be 20k.

The 60's depreciated significantly due to the introduction of the 70 basically at the same price as the 60 (in fact cheaper due to more standard features). The 90 is more expensive than the 85. Moreover, the 60 is on the verge of being viable for road trips while the 70 goes beyond that verge. So much about depreciation of all our current cars will depend on battery progress.

If for example in 4 years, the 100 and 120 are out, replacing 70 and 90 at the same price of the 70 and 90 today, then both cars will be worth very little. If on the other hand, in 4 years, we have just a 100 and a 80 at current 70 and 90 prices, then they won't depreciate as much. However more expensive cars always depreciate more than their cheaper variants... I don't think it's possible to retain that 10k difference at resale, maybe still a 3 to 4k difference after 4 years at max.
 
Agree very hard to know the future for EV marketplace.

Taking a quick look at current CPO prices for S60 compared to S85, it seems like the S60s are selling for 60-65 and the S85s are selling for mid 70's, so around a 10K-12K gap. Recognizing it is a larger gap in performance and range between 60 and 85 then between 70 and 85.
 
I think one other piece of information that we don't have is whether Tesla will change their philosophy on Supercharger deployment and spacing. In the past, installations were spaced such that an S60 could travel between the locations. Will this change as the lowest level of battery capacity rises, as is apparently going to be the case in the future? In other words, in the past the Superchargers were spaced about 130 miles apart to accommodate cars with 60 kWH batteries. Will this spacing start to drift further apart, now that the lowest battery is the 70 kWH model? And when the 85 kWH model is the smallest battery available, will the new Superchargers be 200 miles apart, making it difficult for the S60 to travel those routes?

Personally, I'll get the highest capacity battery available when I buy my MX.

If anything, I think it is going to trend the other way - as Tesla needs more capacity on routes they'll add new stations in between the existing ones rather than expanding the ones they have, and thereby make the gaps much shorter (though a road trip doing every hour would be annoying.)
 
Agree very hard to know the future for EV marketplace.

Taking a quick look at current CPO prices for S60 compared to S85, it seems like the S60s are selling for 60-65 and the S85s are selling for mid 70's, so around a 10K-12K gap. Recognizing it is a larger gap in performance and range between 60 and 85 then between 70 and 85.

The reason for this is because 70 came out at the same price (in fact cheaper due to better standard features) as the 60, thus reducing 60 residual. The fact is compared to a 70, a 60, even if new, would probably cost close to 10k less (especially counting for the standard feature differences). Basically it's impossible to determine 70 vs 85 future resale value differences by looking at 60 vs 85 when 70 replaced 60 at a cheaper price...

Therefore, the only thing I have to go by is what I see with all cars 60+k, and that is the more expensive variants of the same body depreciates more quickly... However I think this will be pretty minor in the 85D (say a 5-6k greater depre over 4 years) but will be significantly more on the P85D. We see the same thing on say a BMW 5 series... E.g. a 3 year old 535i may have depreciated 25k, a 550i then would have deprecated maybe 30k, while a M5 would have depreciated 40k+.
 
I think there has to be a level of acceptance that not only do we not know what the market will decide, but buying cars is a losing proposition any way you look at it. You're going to pay for the privilege of driving a Tesla no matter what you buy. Maybe you can eek-out a little more value if you plan to replace it in three years, but I'm not sure that game is substantially worth it.

That said, EV owners of all people know that range above 100 is not important probably 95%+ of the time for most people. (And yes, I'm sure your anecdote about your long-range driving habits does not negate the averages. :))
 
How about the charging time? I was originally going to get a 70D, but opted for an 85D at the last minute (I pick her up in 2 days!).

Anyway, from what I seem to be learning, the 85 pack operates at a higher voltage, thereby allowing faster initial super-charging. I'm obviously not sure if that's true or not, shaving off 5-10 minutes of supercharging on a road trip might be worth something, too?

I also think the cold weather buffer might be another good reason.
 
As someone still grappling with this decision, the current value of the trade off seems pretty apparent--0.8 sec of 0-60 time + 30 miles of range for an extra 10K. Obviously, whether this is 'worth it' would depend on your driving habits, wants, priorities and needs.

I wonder though about resale value--as battery size increases, the low end range models seem likely to become progressively less desirable. I suspect there is very little market for a 60 now that the 70 has come out, for example. Also, it seems that the future 'upgrade path' is more open for 85 owners than 70 owners, at least based on current info.

Given that, it begs the question as to whether the 85D is going to generally hold its value better than the 70D? If it costs 10k more new but also is worth 10K more in trade in, then the 'cost' of the higher end model is not so clear. Usually low end models hold their value better then higher end models for most cars, but not sure that is true for EVs. This might tilt the value calculation for some people (including me).

What do people think?

I think looking at a new vehicle for resale value makes little sense. If that's a concern, you should look at inventory, used/CPO cars and use the savings to invest in instruments that are likely to appreciate in value. Cars are never (or very rarely) a good investment. You need to look at 70 vs. 85 based on range, charging advantages, battery degredation issues, cold weather driving, etc. instead of resale value. Those things will be much more important to your enjoyment of the car than saving $10k or whatever when you go to sell it.