Are Teslas any good?

[IT]

Originally Posted by notorious

Biggest problem I see with Tesla is that battery doesn’t come with lifetime warranty and battery replacement isn’t cheap.

In petrol world 5k to 10k will buy you an excellent car and then annual maintenance budget of 2k will keep the car in great shape pretty much forever.
You can drive Audi for 20-30-40 years with 2k p.a. maintenance budget.

One day Teslas will depreciate to 5k to 10k mark, but when battery fails that’s the end of it. It becomes prohibitively expensive.

And that’s fundamental problem of electric cars.
Electric can’t compete with petrol in cheap segment.

Or am I wrong?

I think we will see the death of cheap ICE cars. They are so over engineered now to meet stringent emission's regulations, that bar having a bent tester as a mate, its going to be difficult to keep all these DPFs / EGRs / cats / whatever working as they should - and even then, they are eliminating bent testers through simple stats, so there will be few places to hide.

As it stands, the second hand ICE market is a lottery of hacked, bodged, remapped, de catted, de-dpf'd hotch potch that can lead to some big bills. Or you buy the car new, and weep with the depreciation.

I agree that battery technology isn't proven. But, what is proven, is residuals on old Ev's. you try and buy a 'cheap' second hand EV, and you can't - because they're still great cars, and very desirable. There are Telsas with silly mileage on them, still commanding good money. And why ? Well, because they might have started life with a 250 mile range, and now 'only' do 150, but really, that's more than enough for most people. It really is. I can count with my socks and shoes still on how many times I've ///needed/// to take my Tesla more than 150 miles non stop.

My model 3 has lost less money than any car I can recall in my car history. Its ridiculous. For a long time, it was worth more than I paid for it ! Its in positive equity right now. If I sold it, I'd get cash back for sure.

And what is this annual maintenance you speak of ? 2K ??. + fuel costs + repair costs + tax disk. Are you sure this is only a 5 to 10K car, because the costs seem to be mounting.

I no longer pay for fuel. Well, I do. But honestly its like trying to count how much I spend on drinking water from the tap. Its trivial.

Yes, batteries will hold less charge over time (I've not watched mine closely enough to notice) but they will still be ample for most purposes. None of this 'has it been ragged with cold oil', 'how often was the oil changed', 'did you service the gearbox' - What the heck is a gearbox ? ;-)

It does need a leap of faith to get on this bandwagon. Hats off to Stephen for being the first I've known. He showed me his, and I still had doubts. Only by jumping in the deep end, have I seen the light - and I think any EV owner would concur.

Don't confuse stuffing some batteries and a motor in a regular car, and calling it an EV as being progress. Audi did that and shame on them. I do like quality, I did like Audi - but Telsa are in a whole different league of innovation, and continuous innovation at that. Their build quality isn't Germanic - but its a dam sight better than I was expecting. Very tolerable indeed.

If you want a classic car as a daily, and like tinkering and DIY maintenance. 'Cheap' ICE is still for you, for now.

If you want a new daily driver, then unless you're in a block of flats or have no hope of charging it at home, then really, EV is the way forward.