Multiple Car Owners: Did you Keep/Use Other ICE car(s)?

Great question. My wife has a RAV4 that she drives daily, she is a medical student and has to travel to different hospitals where having a nice car could be disadvantageous. We use occasionally her car when taking the Tesla would be unsafe or unwise. These are situations where parking can be sketchy, including some concerts and outdoor venues where the only option is to park on jagged rocks or loose gravel. Once she's done, I'm certain that we will get another Tesla, but probably keep the RAV4 for some sketch duty in undesirable situations.

We kept our ancient Dodge Caravan for moving lumber, plants, dirt, etc. and are quite happy we did.

Drivers: me, my wife and two 16 year daughters.
Current Cards: Leaf, Volt and old Sienna (with 180k miles)
Plan when I get my MS in a few weeks:
Me - MS
Wife - Volt
Girls - Leaf
then the Sienna will just be used for hauling things or driving 8 people at one time

urbanscribe said:

[+] How many of you kept another ICE car after getting the Model S? Did the reasons you had before getting the Tesla bear out?

Click to expand...

We kept our 8 year old minivan.

urbanscribe said:

[+] What were the specific reasons over the long term which may have supported keeping the ICE?

Click to expand...

There are times when having the ability to carry 8 people in a shot is useful. Also...Home Depot runs, and dogs. It's easier for our older lab to get into the minivan. If he makes a mess in the car, much prefer it to be the van than the Tesla!

Ski and road trips. Even with 85kWh and Superchargers, long distance trips are still quicker and easier with an ICE. On the East Coast the Supercharging network only gets you limited routes and destinations. Once the fun of using the Superchargers wears off, we find the ICE more convenient and less stressful than planning charging and destination charging, and hoping for no detours or weather that would mess up that planing.

urbanscribe said:

[+] What split of daily/routine driving between Tesla and other ICE?

Click to expand...

We still use the ICE about once a month. Having a cheap third car has been useful beyond our original plans. One day my i3 had a flat tire...I needed to be somewhere so I just took the minivan instead, and had BMW service come and deal with the tire in the meantime. Same thing happened with the Model S...we were going on a trip, and it needed service, so we took the minvan to the airport and let the Tesla elves take care of the car while we were away.

If you've got a place to keep the third car, it provides additional options that to me has been well worth it.

The interesting question becomes...when we get the X, do we keep the S and ditch the minivan? That was our original thinking (assuming the Supercharging network gets built up as shown by Tesla). But that network hasn't progressed much here in the East, still cannot get to parts of Maine or Vermont or Pennsylvania (well, you can get there, just not back!), so we'll see.

Denise drove the ICE cars until they were wrecked, now we are ICEless with two EVs (S85 and Leaf). I was somewhat upset that she didn't wait until the Model 3 came out as the Leaf isn't much different in price.

4.5 months in, I still have my 2006 Toyota SUV. I've used it 3 times to drive to and park at the airport, and once to move my daughter between apartments. That's it.
I still have it because it's costing me virtually nothing to own. The second car discount on the MS is about the same as insurance on the SUV. I'll probably give it to one of my kids, eventually.

I keep my 23 YO pickup truck. I'll replace it with a Tesla when it is available.

My prior daily driver was a 2006 Toyota 4Runner, bought new 9 years ago. The trade-in value was ok, but I figured it wouldn't be too bad to sell it in a couple months, or have a car for rough parts of town or winter driving. A family member just moved from South Florida to South Carolina and I loaned him the 4Runner. Sadly, my CPO has had to be taken in for service so many times and then sit around for paintwork to cure that I have now put more miles on the 4Runner (had to get it back a couple weeks ago) than I have in 4 months of owning a Tesla. So I'm glad I kept my 4Runner and I'm starting to worry that it will outlast the Tesla at the rate things are going.

We have 2 vehicles on the road still, but only use the ICE (Trailblazer) when I have the MS @ work & my wife needs to go out with the kids. Otherwise, it just sits in the driveway rotting away.

When we get our X next year I will ditch that one too. We haven't found a single destination that the MS couldn't reach via the supercharger network or chademo stations. We may even sell the Trailblazer before we get the X and just borrow another vehicle for the few instances we need to be in two places at once.

Since May we've been from the NYC suburbs to Pittsburgh twice, Cape Cod (all the way to p-town), Outer Banks NC, Northern Vermont, Cedar Point (Ohio), and dozens of >100 mi trips into NJ/CT.

woof said:

The interesting question becomes...when we get the X, do we keep the S and ditch the minivan? That was our original thinking (assuming the Supercharging network gets built up as shown by Tesla). But that network hasn't progressed much here in the East, still cannot get to parts of Maine or Vermont or Pennsylvania (well, you can get there, just not back!), so we'll see.

Click to expand...

Then now is the time to identify places where it would be helpful to have destination charging, get the property owner on board, and contact the Destination Charging team. I've done that already with a few locations where I'll want to be able to go on a roadtrip, but no viable charging options.

I currently have a Jeep for times when the Roadster just can't work due to size constraints (dogs, Home Depot, garden store). But I plan on selling it when I take delivery on the X & no longer owning an ICE.

We kept a F150 pickup but rarely use it. It's been used more to help other people move items than for our needs. Surprisingly the MS works quite well for 90% or more of the Home Depot trips. When the back seat is folded down there is a shockingly large amount of space available.

FreeOfPge said:

When the back seat is folded down there is a shockingly large amount of space available.

Click to expand...

You might want to have Rocklin Service check that out ...

We kept our 2003 Tahoe- but we did get rid of our 2011 Leaf and bought a second Model S- The two reasons we kept the 2003 Tahoe- 1. To drive from Tucson to Houston w/o driving 400+ miles out of the way. 2. To pull the utility trailer for trips to the dump and HomeDepot. Probably only drive the Tahoe about once a month just to keep the battery in it charged.

Got our Model S in Dec 2013 and sold our Prius. 10 months later sold our only other car, a Porsche Cayman, and bought a Tesla Roadster. We are 100% EV. Will never buy another ICE. They are so last century...

See my signature below....got rid of our last ICE 2 months ago (after 20+ years of driving Lexus vehicles). No worries....

When we got our Tesla Roadster in 2009, we sold our last gas car (which was a plug-in Prius). Our other car was a 2003 RAV4-EV, which we replaced with a Model S in 2012.

So no gas cars for us for the last 6 years. During that time there was only one trip where we weren't sure the EVs would make the trip without more charging time than my wife wanted to do, so we just swapped cars with my son. Now that a CHAdeMO adapter is available for the Model S, even that trip will no longer be a problem - in fact we just made it last week. So no regrets going all-EV.

On the few occasions that my wife wishes we had another car, like others above it's not that she wants a gas car...it's that she wants an old beater to drive on a forest service road, or park in a sketchy area, or something like that.

bonnie said:

You might want to have Rocklin Service check that out ...

Click to expand...

Phew! You've had your phun.

A Model X was supposed to replace my Yukon Denali and I was going to keep my SL55 for fun. Sold the Yukon then I bought an S after X delays.

After owning the S for a month, I sold the SL55 as I realized I would not be driving it much if at all. Too primitive, although I miss having a convertible.

Perhaps an X will eventually replace my wife's Lexus, although a Model 3 would fit the need and budget better.

Before the Model S, we had a 2011 Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen TDI as our primary car, a 1973 Volvo 1800ES which I restored, and Herman, a rusty, dented 1980 BMW 320i (e21) which has been in the family since new.

We sold the Jetta and the Volvo and kept our rusty Bimmer as "back-up", which probably makes Herman feel better...

ecarfan said:

We are 100% EV. Will never buy another ICE. They are so last century...

Click to expand...

Same here.

I had been waiting for electric vehicles to come to Canada, and the wait took so long our existing cars had run to 10 years each and more than 300,000 km total.

When the Smart ED came to the Toronto dealer in March 2013, I test drove one and ordered it on the spot, waiting 9 months for delivery was agony. Meanwhile, Tesla had only just released the Model S in Canada a few months earlier.

We decided to get a Mercedes SUV as our first premium car, as my wife wasn't as positive as I was on battery electric vehicles.

Funny thing happened, my Smart ED arrived, and I was over the moon happy with it, but every so often I'd go to the garage and find she'd taken it out instead of her SUV. A few more months passed and it became clear she liked the Smart ED for it's quick acceleration and silent driving.

It all came together two months ago when she traded the Mercedes in for a CPO Tesla Model S.
We are 100% electric now and will never go back to gas!

Oh, and I drive my Smart ED in preference to the Tesla for most trips, I like the freedom of throwing the little car into corners and "sorting it out" on the other side, whereas the Tesla is just too good, and the drama is more due to me not being able to find the limits of the car.

Having a fun but "appropriately limiting" car for my daily commute will likely see me never getting two Tesla's...