sp4rk
Banned
Not sure I can without sneaking a peek at a VIN and referring to my cheat sheet ...The novice can't tell them apart anyway.
Only tell tale sign is "Signature" Red ... and with mine I may even fool a few of my "peers".
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Not sure I can without sneaking a peek at a VIN and referring to my cheat sheet ...The novice can't tell them apart anyway.
Agreed here. This was my scenario. My previous car before the S that I just got rid of was a Range Rover Evoque Dynamic. I think the final cost including taxes was around $57,000. I had put $5k down and had a loan for around $52k 2.75% for 60 months - payment was $937/month. I do 90% highway driving, and the Evoque was rated 28mpg. I drive roughly 3000 miles/month. The ACTUAL mileage I got from the Evoque was about 20mpg (side note: that really ticked me off). At $4/gallon for premium fuel, I was spending $600+/month on gas. Now my cost per month was $937+$600=$1537.
Now lets look at the total monthly cost for the Model S. For me, where I park daily has free charging. I will most likely charge there, not at home (when the mobile app is out, I'll probably set it up to slightly charge/warm up the vehicle right before I leave every morning). So essentially, "fuel is free". Total cost for my pretty much loaded P85 is $103k (no EV sales tax in NJ). Lets assume I put no more money down besides the $5k reservation, so I finance $98000. If I go for a 72 month loan (I know, not exactly apples to apples), but I think it's relatively easy to get a 72 month loan at 2.49%. That monthly cost is now $1466, cheaper than what I was paying for the Evoque. I could also probably do an 84 month loan at 3.49%, That's now around $1316/month. Not bad for a car that costs almost double what the Evoque was costing me. (side note: I'd love to see if I could get that lower, anybody know any banks offering good 84 month loans?)
This doesn't even take into account that I won't be needing to pay for oil changes or brakes either and the myriad of parts on an ICE car that could break that I no longer need to worry about. Even if I do the same 60 month loan, while total monthly price would be slightly more, I'll still save a TON over the life of the vehicle (and I plan on having it at least 10 years).
My point is simple - for me, ESPECIALLY TCO over time, even though the Model S is almost double in price what the Range Rover was, the total cost of ownership is actually A LOT cheaper. THAT is how I can afford a $100k car. I mean come on, price of the Evoque +$7200/year every year I owned that car? Over 10 years that's $57k+$72k=$129k. LOL. Ridiculous. (besides, the Range Rover would NEVER last that long anyway, so I'd have to buy a new car there too before end of 10 years haha.) And all this still doesn't even factor in the $7500 fed rebate or the home charger rebate either, so really the savings are even more than I've pointed out above.
I think it's important to be honest and very matter of fact about the price range of the Model S as it can be purchased from Tesla, as well as discussing Tesla's plans for future lower cost cars, but not your specific car. It assumes the best (people are asking because they might want to know if it is something they could possibly afford). I've never had anybody push it past that and ask how much *my* specific car cost .
"It's more than I wanted to pay, but worth more than I paid. Did you want to reserve one?".
I always say "about the same as a BMW 5 series." If you include the M5 as a comparison for the perf, it's generally true. BMW's are a dime a dozen around here, so it doesn't raise too many eyebrows. It avoids talking about actual money, and if they know how much a 5 series costs then they follow luxury cars. If they only have a vague idea that's fine too.
I'm a newly minted Model S reservation holder (new as in yesterday) but my current ride is a Fisker Karma. I get the question all of the time, and it's very awkward. Unlike the Model S, the price range for the Fisker is much narrower, starting at 103K and topping out around 120K with all of the boxes checked. I haven't yet found a graceful way to answer, so my reply is typically "don't ask" if I can get away with it, or "about a hundred" if I can't and then let it drop. I don't bother trying to talk about tax incentives or gasoline savings. The fact is, you don't buy a Karma, or a P-85 S for that matter, to save money. The people who ask "how much", especially as their first question, usually aren't interested in any of my real drivers: Cool technology, supporting a new company trying to do something hard, environmental responsiveness, design, the cool factor, scarcity, reducing dependence on foreign oil, etc...
I think I'm switching to the Ferris Bueller response though.
Brent
//First post. Be Gentle.
"It's cost me many, many hours of hard work."
I'm a newly minted Model S reservation holder (new as in yesterday) but my current ride is a Fisker Karma. I get the question all of the time, and it's very awkward. Unlike the Model S, the price range for the Fisker is much narrower, starting at 103K and topping out around 120K with all of the boxes checked. I haven't yet found a graceful way to answer, so my reply is typically "don't ask" if I can get away with it, or "about a hundred" if I can't and then let it drop. I don't bother trying to talk about tax incentives or gasoline savings. The fact is, you don't buy a Karma, or a P-85 S for that matter, to save money. The people who ask "how much", especially as their first question, usually aren't interested in any of my real drivers: Cool technology, supporting a new company trying to do something hard, environmental responsiveness, design, the cool factor, scarcity, reducing dependence on foreign oil, etc...
I think I'm switching to the Ferris Bueller response though.
Brent
//First post. Be Gentle.
To be fair, don't you need to count loan interest in your TCO? The $98k/84mo @ 3.49% adds over $23k...
Ooh, I like this one. "Roughly 11k man-hours. But I make better than minimum wage, so somewhat less.""It's cost me many, many hours of hard work."
Well I'm glad you're not my financial advisor. Your math is WAY off. That would only be $12.5k in interest, not $23k.
I understand what you're saying though. But soon Lithium Ion batteries will be a fraction of what they cost now (especially after the fed's commitment to lowering these battery costs announced this week), and seeing that gas will probably cost triple in 10 years closer to $11-$15/gallon (fyi gas is already over $11/gallon in Europe if you weren't aware of that, it's only a matter of time because it reaches that level here), the TCO of an EV is not just tipping but rather landsliding over to being sooo much cheaper than ICE over the years.