Still on the fence between the Kona EV Preferred and the Model 3 Standard Range Plus

I did a quote on a Model 3 LR and it was about $200 more for every 6 months.. $400 per year.. My wife's BMW i3 is $300 per year more than my Kona and it's a 2017..

 

No wonder why you brought that up, that’s substantial. That’s what’s crazy about insurance and why I recommend getting quotes as mine was less than $100 as I stated earlier.

 

I guess that it varies by insurance.. I have Esurance..

 

I also struggled with the Kona vs the Model 3 when my wife and I were looking. Several things weighed heavily on the decision.
1. IN the US the incentives for the Model 3 have ended. The Kona was still at 10,000.
2. The Ultimate Trim (only) on the Kona was two tone and looked sharp to us. The Model 3 was very plain and mostly a single color inside... white.
3. The battery technology on the Model 3 batteries is better than the Kona but with the lifetime warrantee, it didn't matter.
4. We also didn't like unlocking the doors with the computer screen. Open the windows, the computer screen, turn on the seat heating, (no cooling), the computer screen. It was just too much.
5. Tesla was eliminating the showrooms and we wouldn't ever buy one without driving the car first. The nearest dealer was 70 miles away but parts come from California. Kona's dealer was 4 miles away and they have parts inventory.
6. The charging network of Tesla is large but with all the apps to assist in trip planning, it didn't seam to be a problem.

Finally, we didn't really need a complete self driving vaporware. We could pay more upfront and hope it would be delivered before we sold the car. Don't believe in paying for something promised but not yet invented. It's close but who knows how long.

 

I wouldn't be so sure that Tesla's Panasonic batteries are "better".. They DO have lower COBALT but that doesn't necessarily make them better. Except for total battery failures, I have not heard of anybody having noticable degradation on the Kona. Stageshoot in the UK has 67700 miles on his Kona and no noticeable degradation. Bjorn Nyland on the other side noted measurable degradation with a Model 3.. Of course, Bjorn Nyland does extreme things with cars and may wear down batteries faster.. If we look at Chevy BOLT owners who have similar LG packs like Hyundai, there are some with over 100k miles and they have minimal degradation..
I think that the Panasonic batteries are more advanced as lower Cobalt requirement will make it easier for them to produce larger amount of batteries as COBALT is the most difficult battery component to get large quantities of. It's also the most expensive part of the battery and therefore, saving on COBALT does make it cheaper to produce.. However, as I said, "more advanced" doesn't necessarily mean "better". The KONA has an EXCELLENT battery pack.. I'm at about 34k miles and I see no evidence anywhere in my battery numbers (measured by Torque Pro) that shows signs of wear at this point..

 

I drive the same distance, 160 miles, multiple times per week. I live in western MA about 3.5 hours south of you. I had no problem with the range during last winter and while our temps were not quite as low as yours, they were close. I would usually have about 50-70 miles of range left when I would get home each day, even when the temps were below 15 degrees. Plus my car doesn't have a heat pump climate system, so it draws some hefty power. The smallest estimated range (on the GOM) I saw during the winter was about 245 miles. I charge in a non-heated garage. I did travel with a blanket to keep my legs warm and I set the temp at 18° C. Since I was wearing a car coat it was fine. The Kona was really quite good in the snow. Very stable, no twitchy behavior and since it's fairly heavy (for such a small car) it tracked great through snow at depth and especially on worn snow with piles built up between lanes. Snow tires mandatory, of course. The only thing I really wish for is the heated steering wheel. My Kona doesn't have it.

 

My son just had his M3 panoramic glass roof crack. This could be an expensive fix. His warranty ended at 80,000 kms. He is going to try and get an insurance claim.

 

The federal tax credit is $7,500. Some states, but not all, offer addition tax credits and or rebates that may be applied to the purchase of a model 3.

Only the 2019 model had the lifetime warranty for the original owner. It's now 10 years or 100,000 miles. I believe BlueKonaEV said the capacity loss warranty is 70%.

Although I don't think there will be a lot of problems with liquid cooled batteries, it is interesting the warranty is worse in the 2020 model Kona.

The model 3 does have voice commands. https://www.tesla.com/support/voice-commands


https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/144696/how-to-unlock-passenger-doors#:~:text=Interior Locking and Unlocking While sitting inside Model,can also unlock the doors by pressing the

You can also unlock the doors by pressing the
Park button on the end of the gear selector a
second time. Pressing this button once
engages the Park gear and pressing it again
unlocks the doors.

Only the Kona Ultimate model has ventilated seats.

I recommend renting one for the day on Turo. Tesla does have a return policy. https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-return-policy

Unfortunately, if you are waiting for a motor from Korea, it doesn't help much to have a dealer 4 miles away.

Of course one can always use an ICE vehicle, but if I want to drive from Seattle to Minneapolis there are no DC chargers to make the trip reasonable, driving a Kona. There are still several popular weekend drives that are not reasonable to make here in Washington state due the lack of working DC chargers. Heck, even RP has reported using their ICE vehicle to make a trip.

Things are getting better, but they are still not to Tesla's level once you get out of the major cities or California.

 

According to Kyle, it was only a month or so ago that a trip from Seattle to Minneapolis was even possible in a Tesla. He says there are plans for a number of chargers in the Dakotas, so relief is on the horizon.

I talked to a Tesla owner 6 months or so ago - he described a trip to Yellowstone, and he circuitous route he had to take to get there. It is all getting better.

 

I have to agree with GeorgeS on 2 main points.

1. True, you can still get the $2,500 in state rebate in California for a Tesla, but you get $0 from the federal government. I discounted the state rebate in my calculations, because it barely offsets the state tax you have to pay for your purchase. For the Kona EV, the state tax I had to pay was around $3,000....so the $2,500 rebate offsets most of the tax. I still get the entire $7,500 federal tax credit. Bringing in the total cost of my car to around $30,000 to $31,000.

For the Tesla M3, where the car will probably cost you around $45,000 with tax/freight charges and some basic options like paint color or sport wheels; that $2,500 rebate will barely cover the state tax portion. You get $0 federal tax credit. Bringing in the total cost of the car to around $42,000.

We are not talking a few thousand grand here, it is more like over $11,000 difference. You can do alot with that extra $11,000. I had my entire car paint-protected filmed, as well as the windshield protected filmed for $3,000.....that's is still $8,000 left over. You have to ask yourself is the Tesla worth over $11,000 compared to a Kona? If money really is not a problem, then you might as well get a Model S or X. How long will you be driving your M3 before something better comes along?

2. Complete self-driving is vaporware. Musk is a salesman. You have to plucked down an additional $5,000 for a future feature you cannot even use now. I am curious as to how many people who paid the extra $5,000 will still own their M3 by the time when complete self-driving is a reality.

 

All true.. Also, you will pay over $10k more and yet will receive probably 40 - 60 mile LESS range than the Kona.. If you go with the Model 3, I would recommend the long range version..

 

And depending on where you live, you may be able to get even more via trade in for an old car, utilitiy rebates, etc. Some of which the Tesla may not qualify for either.

Self Driving will never be a reality because there are too many issues that absolutely cannot be overcome.

 

Well, Tesla solved the problem for me. The day before I was to pick it up they called and said it wasn't there. So they would disassociate me from that vehicle and search for another. I'll bet money they sold it. This after I got my son in NYC to agree to drive up Sunday and take Monday off to drive me to Mount Kisco NY (they can't sell in CT and car rentals stopped one way rentals). Again I had to cancel the insurance. I told them to just cancel everything, this was getting absurdly difficult. After 6 months it finally sunk in they don't really care if they make a sale or not. If their service is this bad I think I dodged a bullet.

 

Too bad about your Tesla experience. On the bright side, getting a Kona Electric is a good place to end up.

 

Another advantage of a Kona over a Tesla, is that Hyundai has a longer track record of building reliable cars. The EV parts may be new and still unproven, but the rest of the car is solid. With Tesla, everything is new, and it will take them a long time to work out all the bugs and design intricacies that affect long term reliability. That's why most Tesla owners go with leases, as it will really start costing you in repairs once the warranty runs out.

Case in point is my is my son's Tesla Model 3. He has had a whole bunch of problems with his, incl body, suspension, interior, etc, etc. Now his warranty has run out, just a few months ago, and the problems are continuing. He tried to get everything fixed just before then, but they are still happening. A few weeks ago his charge port stopped opening and closing properly. He can still do it manually, so can live with that. His headliner keeps coming apart. Was fixed a couple times, but now another section is coming off. He can live with that and plans to glue it himself to fix it. Then just last week, his panoramic glass roof cracked. We are getting a very hot spell here, and I suspect it has something to do with the heat (expansion and cooling). Anyway, that would be a very expensive repair and he is going to try an insurance claim for that.

Then just yesterday, on his drive up to the interior for a week vacation, his A/C started acting up. It is very hot there right now, said his outside air temp reading in the car hit 42C while driving. And he has to go up and down high mountains on the way. The problem is that it cuts out, and then starts up again, while driving. When he stops, the car's fans are going full bore (lots of noise) when you step out of the car, seemingly trying to cool it down. He has never heard/seen this before on this car. So something seems to be very wrong with that.

The problem with Tesla is that their full car warranty is only good for 3 years and 80K kms, and he is now well over that (they drive a lot). The battery and electric drive train are good for 8 years and I think 160K kms, which is OK. But that is one area that he has not any problems. It is the rest of the car that seems to be falling apart, and no longer under warranty. And he paid cash for it new, expecting and hoping that it would last a long time. Now he could be facing a lot of repair costs going forward.

So I think a Hyundai or Kia, and probably a Chevy Bolt is a lot better bet at this time than a Tesla if you want to keep your car for a while.

 

I was going to get the Tesla M3 and lined up a test drive.
Step one - adjust the driver's seat for comfort. Oops, 15 minutes of trying to get a position where the backs of my legs didn't hurt.
The Model S and Model X were just fine (the Model Y wasn't available then) but way too much money for me.
End result, I gave up. Never did the test drive.
Got into the Kona. Comfortable.
More range in the Kona than the SR+, $AUD4K less on the road after a fleet deal with Hyundai and the creature comforts were just fine.
Ok, no advanced autopilot and I have to see the dealer for software updates.
After nearly 7000km, I think it's turned out to be a great choice and it handles the long range drives (3hrs at a stretch sometimes) way better than I expected it to do.

 

Would love to go Kona over Tesla for many of the reasons mentioned, but spooked about having one where they aren't sold (Florida). Seems like the service will be inferior given the technicians will rarely (if ever) see another Kona EV. For example, it seems that technicians here wouldn't be very familiar with recall issues I've seen mentioned elsewhere. But, am I wrong & that a Kona EV certified tech will be aware of all of those types of details?
Thanks!

 

You Aussies are always getting in and out of a car on the wrong side, might explain why you can't get comfortable ;p
You live in a beautiful city, btw - we were lucky to visit several years ago, hope to get back one day.