Thinking of taking the plunge....

[Grizzly]

Hi all,

So I'm admittedly very early on in my research on this, but I am seriously thinking of buying a Tesla S/3

I'm just trying to weigh up whether the upfront cost is worth it for the potential gains..... I drive around 50 miles round trip to work upto 5 days a week, with regular drives about town to the gym etc.... I was originally interested in a hybrid as a sort of best of both worlds package, but I don't think I'd get the benefit as most of my work miles are on the motorway....
I'd be looking to buy this time next year, when I have a some of money become available to me through a share scheme.

Do you think the second hand market will see a decrease in price once the Model 3 is away and running? Or am I living in a pipe dream?

Thanks

 

[theoceanwaves]

Second hand market will be strong as these cars can be updated over the air so continually getting better vs other manufacturers

 

[LukeT]

There's an article somewhere written by someone high up in Toyota. Basically they say:

Li-ion batteries are the scarce resource.
We can build a huge number of plug in hybrids that do the first [whatever the mileage is, say 50?] miles on electric.
We build a lot of cars for people who drive only this mileage every day, except for once in a blue moon.
So we can move a massive proportion of miles travelled onto electric for a relatively small amount of battery capacity. To electrify the last bit takes lots of extra battery capacity. We'd rather use that on more cars.

It doesn't work for my use but I liked the logic at this transitional point in time. It might work for you?

 

[WannabeOwner]

50 miles round trip to work upto 5 days a week,

Get your company to install charging at work, and give you some for free (if they make it cheap you will probably charge at home instead)

We are putting 10 charging bays in the car park at work. Cost is £10K, and we then get a £5K grant ...

We reckon that nearly all the staff are no more than 20 miles away. 40 miles, per per, 200 days a year is about £300 electricity and my view is that is fine for a perk for anyone that wants to be early adopter of EV, and is good for the company credentials (there are only about 30 employees at that site)

Failing that:

50 miles 220 days a year is about 3,600 - 2,750 kWh (Heavy-Right-Foot . Eco driving style per year. On Economy-7 you might get as good as 8p/unit ... that's £220 p.a. for fuel (for the commute part of your mileage). No idea what your Petrol usage is ... but work-commute 50 miles, 220 days a year, 400-miles-petrol per fill up is 4.5 hours a year stood on smelly forecourts and queuing to pay. (Assuming you have off street parking and will install home charging or have work charging - if not don't buy an EV yet)

Do you think the second hand market will see a decrease in price once the Model 3 is away and running?

Not sure there will be many by then ... but there will be increasing numbers of 2nd hand Model-S ...

I also expect that price of Base Model-3 will be lower, and that might suit you.

 

[WannabeOwner]

We can build a huge number of plug in hybrids that do the first [whatever the mileage is, say 50?] miles on electric.
We build a lot of cars for people who drive only this mileage every day, except for once in a blue moon.
So we can move a massive proportion of miles travelled onto electric for a relatively small amount of battery capacity. To electrify the last bit takes lots of extra battery capacity. We'd rather use that on more cars.

I absolutely agree. I Supercharge 10% of my miles, so 90% of the time I am not using the whole battery, and my daily commute is < 50% of my battery. You could cut it my battery half and build 2 EVs. A Range-Extender would be ideal ... and drivers would never, ever, have any range anxiety - just stop and get some petrol every 150 miles on a long journey for the "lawn mower generator". In fact I'd have better range anyway, because I wouldn't be carting a Tonne of battery around on all my short trips ...

But almost none of the car industry is going in that direction ... its as though no one has told the Boss that there isn't going to be unlimited battery supply available ...

 

[Grizzly]

Thanks for the response everyone!

I average around 11,000-12-000 a year I think. Split between work, rugby away games, trips to see the in-laws etc.
Wouldn't have thought a hybrid would be particularly useful at 70mph on the motorway?
To be honest, I looked at the price of a used Tesla out of morbid curiosity and found to my surprise I could get one..... Albeit with a large down payment. I'll keep my eye on the market, like I said, it'll be about a year until I'm looking anyway

 

[banned-66611]

Hi all,

So I'm admittedly very early on in my research on this, but I am seriously thinking of buying a Tesla S/3

I'm just trying to weigh up whether the upfront cost is worth it for the potential gains..... I drive around 50 miles round trip to work upto 5 days a week, with regular drives about town to the gym etc.... I was originally interested in a hybrid as a sort of best of both worlds package, but I don't think I'd get the benefit as most of my work miles are on the motorway....
I'd be looking to buy this time next year, when I have a some of money become available to me through a share scheme.

Do you think the second hand market will see a decrease in price once the Model 3 is away and running? Or am I living in a pipe dream?

Thanks

If you are only doing 50 miles a day you could easily get a used Leaf to cover it. Charge at home.

If you are not buying until get year go and sign up on the Kona Electric waiting list and maybe look at the Niro as well. Both longer range and cheaper, but with long lead times that you can deal with.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I looked at the price of a used Tesla

Just in case you haven't found it this site is good - it will show you price changes and hardware levels (if either have ever come up before, for that VIN no)

Tesla UK new and used car prices

sign up on the Kona Electric waiting list

I would love that to happen ... but I am so sceptical that we'll see them, sadly.

On top of massive orders and negligible batteries I think they are being sued for stealing secrets form battery supplier - even if not true and no fault found that isn't good for a relationship with critical supplier

 

[Grizzly]

Yeah the Niro is on my list as well, but it just doesn't look as cool as the Tesla!!

 

[Saghost]

There's an article somewhere written by someone high up in Toyota. Basically they say:

Li-ion batteries are the scarce resource.
We can build a huge number of plug in hybrids that do the first [whatever the mileage is, say 50?] miles on electric.
We build a lot of cars for people who drive only this mileage every day, except for once in a blue moon.
So we can move a massive proportion of miles travelled onto electric for a relatively small amount of battery capacity. To electrify the last bit takes lots of extra battery capacity. We'd rather use that on more cars.

It doesn't work for my use but I liked the logic at this transitional point in time. It might work for you?

Toyota execs also say that hydrogen cars are the future and that they are selling superior, self charging hybrids. :-/

There is some truth to that argument, if folks were seriously building suitable extended range electric cars, though the efficiency in batteries comes at the cost of a lot of extra cost, complexity, and maintenance for the ICE you never use and its emissions controls.

Maybe if the MiTRE reaches market and hits cost targets - no maintenance, no emissions needed, far less weight and volume.

Or we could just invest in more battery production. We aren't close to hitting natural resource limits on any of the ingredients yet AFAIK.

 

[banned-66611]

Yeah the Niro is on my list as well, but it just doesn't look as cool as the Tesla!!

It doesn't, but it does have decent cargo space and lots of nice comfort features that the M3 doesn't. Also it's a hell of a lot quieter.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Also it's a hell of a lot quieter.

Better range too (unless I am mistaken?)

 

[ewoodrick]

There's an article somewhere written by someone high up in Toyota. Basically they say:

Li-ion batteries are the scarce resource.
We can build a huge number of plug in hybrids that do the first [whatever the mileage is, say 50?] miles on electric.
We build a lot of cars for people who drive only this mileage every day, except for once in a blue moon.
So we can move a massive proportion of miles travelled onto electric for a relatively small amount of battery capacity. To electrify the last bit takes lots of extra battery capacity. We'd rather use that on more cars.

It doesn't work for my use but I liked the logic at this transitional point in time. It might work for you?

And so, instead of putting just an electric motor in the car, they can justify adding a petrol motor.

 

[WannabeOwner]

they can justify adding a petrol motor.

Two different things I think (but, yeah, "more of the same")

Car driven by conventional ICE engine, with electric motor backup. <spit>

Car driven by electric motors with GENERATOR range-extender. <ok-ish>

if you run an old, knackered, generator on a gallon of gasoline (so: the generator runs constantly at optimal revs, it does not need to have pollution/emissions control across ALL revs) and charge your EV ... it will travel further than if you put a gallon of gasoline in a decently efficient ICE.

Someone is Oz did just that ...

 

[banned-66611]

Better range too (unless I am mistaken?)

Yes, considerably. The Niro is 282 miles WLTP.

 

[12Pack]

There's an article somewhere written by someone high up in Toyota. Basically they say:

Li-ion batteries are the scarce resource.
We can build a huge number of plug in hybrids that do the first [whatever the mileage is, say 50?] miles on electric.
We build a lot of cars for people who drive only this mileage every day, except for once in a blue moon.
So we can move a massive proportion of miles travelled onto electric for a relatively small amount of battery capacity. To electrify the last bit takes lots of extra battery capacity. We'd rather use that on more cars.

It doesn't work for my use but I liked the logic at this transitional point in time. It might work for you?

Absurd.

Marketing by a company heavily vested in ICE production and well behind in battery manufacturing. Hybrids are a ridiculously expensive kluge.

 

[Midnight Star]

Yep, very disappointed in Toyota tbh

- The reality is most of their hybrids are "self-charging" not plug-in, so their oh-so-rare batteries are basically energy stores for petrol engines

- They were pioneers in green car tech but have ended up in a dead end imo with SC hybrids, hydrogen & no pure EV on offer

My last 3 cars were a Prius, Prius and Prius+. My next one will be a Model 3

 

[Lasairfion]

The hybrid option makes up a lot of sense, right up until you think about the health costs of continuing to use fossil fuels. The amount of scientific studies out this year linking air pollution to health issues physical, mental and IQ related is scary.

Also as for the limits on battery supply, there are a lot of people starting to plan/build massive battery plants. The production rate will likely increase at a fast rate (even if not exponentially), so I expect supply to be met faster than you expect (also cobalt use is falling fast).

 

[vitesse]

We went for a Tesla (used Model S 70D) for several reasons, but frankly - saving on fuel costs was low on the list of priorities. Even our three year old 30,000 miler was £44K, though that includes a Tesla warranty refresh (4 years/50K miles).

It's really cool to think we could be paying as little as 3p a mile overall (mostly home charging but some free Supercharging) compared to 20p a mile with our current petrol car and I reckon we can save £2.5-3K on petrol, road tax and servicing a year. But we would never have spent £44K on any other car. Having a home charger installed is an additional £500 one-off, even after the OLEV grant. Insurance is doubled as well.

We did want an electric car, partly to stop using dirty and planet-heating petrol, let alone diesel, but also for the performance benefits and the Tesla experience. Having test-driven a Leaf, it almost put us off EVs.

I didn't see the point of hybrids; a fossil-burning motor plus the electric drive is much more complex and less efficient. Servicing is more expensive and there's more to go wrong.

For longer journeys with a Tesla you will need to be prepared for strategic stops at Superchargers and this will slow your progress down compared to an ICE car, but for us the very fact that the Supercharger network is there was the tipping factor. It being free (at least for our car) was a bonus.

 

[LukeT]

Not to change my point above, but the argument is about plug in with generator backup, and about future cars not current. Hybrid without plug in is just a slightly more efficient ICE - pretty much irrelevant.

And I'm the same on the costs. It's not about that for me. Over expected life of the car a MS will increase my costs by a good 25% even after some good business tax incentives. But then I'm not a buyer of £40k+ BMWs, against which it compares ok on that basis.

I simply won't buy an internal combustion engine in 2019. I spent a decade working in renewable energy, although not in the last 5 years. I have the means and enough of an understanding of the effects on our planet that I simply feel that if folk like me don't do it we're all ****ed.