With a ICE vehicle you can keep it going 10 to 20 years with proper maintenance and possibly a few repairs. Will an EV owner be able to do the same? Could you reasonably replace the batteries? or, once the batteries are no longer getting the job done, is the vehicle a scrap canidate? We keep our cars a long time, take care of them, drive low mileage. Is an EV right for us?
I bought my 2019 Std Rng Plus Model 3 knowing: There are online maintenance manuals that anyone can buy access. Tesla Service Centers will sell parts to the owner. Do you have the tools and confidence to repair it. If you don't want to buy the car, ask Gordon Johnson, Anton Wahlman, or other Tesla critics available via Twitter in other forums. But if you decide to buy it today, my understanding is new ones won't be available until 2022. There are used ones available sooner but the prices are like new. Regardless, Tesla sells everyone they make. We have two EVs: 2014 BMW i3-REx - our first has a modified motorcycle engine driving a generator as well as fast DC charging, CCS-1. We still have it with 58,319 miles, my wife's car. She loves it and it is backup for our Tesla. However, we found the CCS-1, fast DC charging network costs ~$25 versus ~$6 in gas using the motorcycle engine between Huntsville AL and Nashville TN. Still, it runs ~70 mph at 39 MPG with a fuel stop every 1.25 hours for 2 gallons. 2019 Standard Range Plus Tesla Model 3 - with 53,701, it is my primary car. After 2 1/2 years, the Tesla battery management system reports a 5% loss of range, 232 mi versus 240 mi new. Another utility reports the battery loss has flattened out. It costs ~$3.50 between Huntsville and Nashville using the reliable, SuperCharger network. We used to have a 2017 Prius Prime, 25 mi EV range, but traded it in for the Tesla. The older, smaller, BMW i3-REx was more useful than the Prius Prime. There are non-Tesla EVs available that were not around in 2019. Just bad experiences of CCS-1 chargers made (makes) them unappealing. After all, if I have a SuperCharger problem, the car and charger came from the same company. In contrast, the CCS-1 chargers and EVs are from different vendors leaving the driver to figure out why it is broke. Last month, my wife was stranded at a CCS-1 charger in +90 F heat ... and she was not happy. So she used the BMW i3-REx motorcycle engine to get home. My recommendation is: Tesla - best turn-key solution for those who are not interested in diving into the technical EV details. non-Tesla - best solution for those willing to master the technical EV details. GOOD LUCK! Bob Wilson
I have a Model 3 and I expect that it will be a great car for 20 years. There are lots of Teslas that have hundreds of thousands of miles on them. The lifetime of the battery is pretty well understand. It drops about 5% in the first year or 2 and then very little after that. The terrible battery lives that some early cars had were, generally, because of poor battery temperature management.
