The Tesla Thread

[daz]

When it comes to cars I only tend to buy outright if I want something specific spec-wise (because on a lot of leases, the option cost is amortized over the lease term, so a £3k option can add ~£80/month to a lease).

Because Teslas only have about 5 options, they are perfect for leasing and as you say the whole electric car landscape is changing massively at the moment. What is here today could easily be eclipsed in 3 years time - either in price, performance or other features.

I mentioned earlier in the thread I had put a deposit down on a M3 but I changed my mind a week before delivery, I just don't think I can have it as my main family car with young kids - the boot is just a bit too small, so I'm going to wait until the Model Y which I think will be the right one.

 

[Russinating]

It's sort of an age-old argument isn't, that I'm sure Fox will have his thoughts on. Personally I prefer to own (whether that's cash or PCP) as opposed to lease, and a lot of that is psychological with knowing it's yours/has some value as an asset as opposed to just renting. Much the same with home ownership vs renting (ignoring property appreciation of course), where a lot of that 'feeling' is knowing it's yours.

For me all the Tesla's are almost half gadget. Do I need a new phone? No. Do I need the latest graphics card? No. Do I need a Tesla? No. Do I know that all these things (and all other pieces of tech) hugely depreciate over time? Absolutely.

It's by no means a sound financial decision, and I'm seeing some of the cost of owning a Tesla to be purely to be an early adopter, to play with a new toy, etc.

My current car is a diesel Kia Sportage that I've had for 6 years it's a world apart. Even still, with a year's warranty left, that's depreciated from £19,429 (bargain) to ~£7,500 with 50k miles, so 38%, or £165pm over that period. No idea what lease prices were for that car back then.

With 100% FYA and the lower BIK the M3 will cost me £37,081 over the 4 years with a PCP, less than the cash purchase price. If I paid cash it'd cost £31,987‬. Really not bad considering. Tesla's own value suggestion is a 75% depreciation over 3 years (I seem to recall), which from the OTR price is £9,872. Assuming they're right (although personally I think that's probably a tad too low assuming ~10-15k miles pa), that'd put my cash price of ownership at £22,115 over 3 years, or £614pm. That's £259 total (£7.19pm) more than the lease screenshot someone posted a few pages back (plus BIK of £236.94‬ which you'd pay regardless of cash/lease).

If they're worth even one percentage point more, 26%, after 3 years then cash ownership (through a business) would be cheaper than leasing.

Correct me if I'm wrong or my maths has gone awol of course!

 

[daz]

Over 2-3 years, I think the figures are very close, and therefore it comes down to personal circumstances and what you prefer to do with your budget.
If you keep the car for 5 years plus, in my experience owning is going to be significantly better.

The other aspect to consider when owning is that whilst a car is "worth" £x, actually getting that back from it is not necessarily straightforward and you're almost always going to lose out a certain amount when it comes to trade in or using a car buying service.

 

[Hodders]

Surely the thing to do is to wait 2 years and but a second hand one?

My dad always says that buying a new car is the worst way. Always second hand. Let someone else take the depreciation hit.

I'd love a Tesla, I reckon I'll start looking in 18 months after some research into the battery life these things have.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I imagine getting a used one for a reasonable price will be difficult for the foreseeable, I would expect they will enjoy a wave of good residuals like the Leaf and Zoe are due to a lack of supply and relatively high demand in the used market.

In 2-3 years there will be more available in the new market but in the used market the only cars which are selling in any kind of volume today are still the Leaf, Zoe and Model 3 (at a push, its not been out long). There will be a few Hyundai/Kia's about but the'll command a high price as they are comparatively rare.

 

[Journey]

I'm torn on the Model 3 residuals, on one hand you've got a premium vehicle which in the traditional market meas you'll take a big hit in the first few years, but due to the continuing demand for 'cheaper' BEV's this may in fact keep the price higher, as a cheap premium vehicle is different to a cheap middle of the road vehicle.

You'll have people who'd happily pay £28k for a 2 year old model with 30k miles on it, at that is a saving of £10k on list (now), and by the the BEV grants may have gone, so another 3.5k saved vs. any other new car, then there is the fuel savings if moving from ICE. Keeping a car that costs £28k for 6 years, but saving £1000+ a year on the fuel makes the upfront cost much less of an issue, not to mention the reduced maintenance etc.

Then you've got the Tesla innovation factor to consider, how will the vehicle change in the next 2 years, for all we know they could release a brand new updated model with a new battery pack that is much better, and costs the same or less than the current Model 3, meaning the price of the second hand models may end up falling faster than expected. 2022 is a long way off in BEV terms, I liken it to the 1990-2000's of CPU development, huge strides being made and better everything means it is very hard to predict the value. A £18k Model 3 SR+ at two or three years old would be obscene value but is it probable?

Looking at it from all angles just makes you second guess yourself, because some of the outcomes seem equally likely.

 

[jpaul]

EV's are not yet cheaper, all in, per mile in the UK versus ICE, so that confirmed the waiting strategy to me.
- see the lease company report I posted in hybrid thread .. in Netherlands/Norway they are ... I'm open to other objective data ?

edit: cross-posting

a presentation/analysis that corroborates that pure electric and hybrid are not yet more affordable than petrol/diesel ... so, a personal eco choice

 

[Jonnycoupe]

That data you posted literally has nothing to do with anything in my view. Please pull out 3 salient points to make that data close to empirical. As an expected baseline it doesn’t even refer to the vehicle segment of comparison.

 

[Journey]

You can tell that data is a load of horse ****, it gives the average TCO depreciation as 52% with a BEV, and 39% on Diesel and 32% on Petrol. I know for a fact if you pop on to Auto Trader and do some basic clarification that the depreciation of the BEV market is much less than any 'normal' ICE vehicle from the past couple of years.

Also it puts fuel as 6% of the total cost of an EV and the petrol and diesel are only 9% and 8% respectively. I'd love to know where they are getting the fossil fuels so cheap, last time I checked the ability to travel 40 miles on 10kWh of electricity, vs 40 MPG of petrol, meant one cost £5.66 and the other between £0.50-£1.50, I'll let you guess which is which. In my maths world £5.66 is 11x+ more expensive than £0.50, yet there is a 2% difference in the total cost.

It's no wonder people are classed as idiots when they read things like that and believe them.

 

[jpaul]

You can tell that data is a load of horse ****, it gives the average TCO depreciation as 52% with a BEV, and 39% on Diesel and 32% on Petrol. I know for a fact if you pop on to Auto Trader and do some basic clarification that the depreciation of the BEV market is much less than any 'normal' ICE vehicle from the past couple of years.

you're misinterpretring ... 52%/39/32 of monthly outlay is depreciation for the 3 vehicle classes .... because, amongst other things, electricity is cheaper.

 

[Journey]

you're misinterpretring ... 52%/39/32 of monthly outlay is depreciation for the 3 vehicle classes .... because, amongst other things, electricity is cheaper.

If they are saying that 52% of the TCO is depreciation and 6% is the fuel cost on the same chart, then they must be on some new drug. They state the average cost for the UK is €676 for the UK, with the bar for depreciation filling ~50%, so €338 per month, 1% of €676 is €6.76 and the 6% would be €40.56, yet for diesel the cost seems to be €567, ~33% of the of bar for deprecation ~€187, and the fuel at ~8%, 1% of €567 is 5.67, so they are saying diesel fuel cost for a UK diesel make up only €45.36 of the €567.

So now can you see why it is total crap? BEV fuel costs at €5 difference vs. a diesel, sure.


Edit: Just for clarification, the Mercedes C-Class Coupe we have lost £20,000 in 3 years from new, that is a diesel model so 50% in total, and we've spent just over £3,900 in fuel over that time (all tracked in Fuelly) which is almost 10% of the car value from new. The same cost of kWh for BEV even using a terrible tariff would have been £1,125 and the Hyundai Ioniq EV is worth £20-21k, but only cost £31,000 with all the same gadgets, so it lost 33%.

The fuel cost would have been much larger for the Merc but it was driven incredibly efficiently, averaging over 42 MPG in 30k miles.

 

[Nasher]

I guess it factors in repair costs. Nothing on an EV (esp. a Tesla) is cheap to fix.

 

[SpeedFreak]

But the biggest component has less to go wrong. Fuel injectors, timing belts, gaskets, oil etc...

 

[Russinating]

EV's are not yet cheaper, all in, per mile in the UK versus ICE, so that confirmed the waiting strategy to me.

How do you figure that? You can charge an EV overnight at less than 5p/kWh which equates to less than 1.3p per mile.

500 miles would cost £6.50 vs £69.16 in my current car (43MPG).

 

[Jonnycoupe]

you're misinterpretring ... 52%/39/32 of monthly outlay is depreciation for the 3 vehicle classes .... because, amongst other things, electricity is cheaper.

which classes thought, fast EV compared to a slow diesel?

 

[jpaul]

500 miles would cost £6.50 vs £69.16 in my current car (43MPG).

residuals ie depreciation, is the opposing force, as you discussed
if you're doing 15K a year, that's an £2k p/a delta for ice fuel ... the 64K$ question is whether the depreciation on the EV is less/more than that £2K premium.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I guess it factors in repair costs. Nothing on an EV (esp. a Tesla) is cheap to fix.

Warranty.........................................

 

[Nasher]

Warranty.........................................

Tesla warranty is 4 years but for some reason only 50k miles. Which isnt very generous. Its like they know something is going to break before 100k. One of the £6k motors maybe

The battery itself is seperate and 8 years.

 

[Journey]

Tesla warranty is 4 years but for some reason only 50k miles. Which isnt very generous. Its like they know something is going to break before 100k. One of the £6k motors maybe

The battery itself is seperate and 8 years.

Proving once again you literally know nothing about Tesla or BEV's.

"The Battery and Drive Unit in your vehicle are covered for a period of:

• Model S and Model X – 8 years (with the exception of the original 60 kWh battery manufactured before 2015, which is covered for a period of 8 years or 125,000 miles, whichever comes first).
• Model 3 - 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period.
• Model 3 with Long-Range Battery - 8 years or 120,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period."

8 years and 100k miles on the drive train as a minimum.

Stick the the ICE threads where you show yourself up as equally knowing not much.

 

[thewanted]

Tesla warranty is 4 years but for some reason only 50k miles. Which isnt very generous. Its like they know something is going to break before 100k. One of the £6k motors maybe

The battery itself is seperate and 8 years.

In true @Nasher style, no research has been done. The battery AND drive unit are covered for 8 years and 100/120k miles in a Model 3: https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/vehicle-warranty