People who can’t afford Teslas are using car-sharing networks to pay for them
qz.com
qz.com
One accident (side swipe), two tows (parking in construction zone and blocking a neighbor's driveway respectively), and countless tickets.
Many renters didn't fill it up with gas after their trip ended. They also left my car dirty and left trash in it.
Many of my renters improperly parked my car on the street, resulting in countless tickets (GetAround requires renters to park it in a restriction-free zone for 24 hours, no street cleaning, etc.).
My brakes squeal now, and the maintenance light is on in my car. One of the tires also has a gash in it.
One renter stole my SD card, USB car charger, and windshield mount for my phone (I hadn't kept tabs on them so I couldn't narrow it down who the culprit was).
Going into it, I was pretty optimistic about it, but after getting towed twice, I'm feeling pretty sour about it. Their customer support was pretty terrible, too -- they took days to respond at times.
I did FlightCar for a year, and their customer service was a bit better, and their renters took nicer care of my car.
I guess I'm in the minority.
Lesson learned.
EDIT: After thinking some more it is all boils down to how much the owner cares about it. For example I really care a lot about my car but the rental comapany doesn't really care much about any specific car that they own.
I just know a mistake I make in an Airbnb might mean breaking someones things that have sentimental/personal value whereas a corporate-owned hotel obviously doesn't have that at all.
Even if 1 in 10 people mistreat a car, if it's rented out a lot, that adds up to a lot of damage.
People just don't read.
Why would people treat a rental from you any better
than one from Hertz?
I'm surprised the car got towed or ticketed, whether it was rented from Hertz or GetAround.
That's why credit cards are a good business even though they give so much free points and the like to their customers.
They bank on the average person's lack of responsibility.
The first tow cost $500, the second one $700 for the renter (2x more expensive than towing in even NY), but that's a separate issue.
Be aware though that there are risks to using them since they don't have the best record on privacy/security. They had a formal process where they were leaking drivers license data via email to third parties that I helped make them aware of and they fixed. Still, the fact they even put that policy into place makes me want to share it.
If I were leasing my car, it would've gone over in a few months.
You get rekt on costs if you go over the mileage limit.
(Or more realistically, one rented full time should be enough to pay for two cars)
It's not a bad way to squeeze some value out of a car that has basically bottomed out in trade in value already: my 07 BMW is already trading in at about the same price as a similar Honda.
The goal of my experiment is to earn ~1x the trade in value renting it before selling it.
With every rental comes mileage and wear and tear on the vehicle, devaluing it. Not to mention the fact that it is being used as a rental requires disclosure upon sale, permanently devaluing the car below comparable vehicles.
> Not to mention the fact that it is being used as a rental requires disclosure upon sale
Only in some states is this disclosure required.
[1] https://electrek.co/2016/09/13/tesla-model-s-value-retention...
[2] https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf
If you can't afford the car without others paying for it, you probably shouldn't sign for the loan. Hell, you shouldn't be able to get one in the first place.
> What happens if the price of oil goes way down, causing the
> value of Teslas to drop dramatically?
what does that even mean?!? It implies that there is not a lack of oil but the oil age will be coming to an end anyway. I think what he's actually trying to say is "we're running out of oil, but I can't say that".
I think he also said that "there'll always be a trickle of oil being produced at $1000/barrel" but maybe that was at another time.
It's precisely analogous: the age of oil will be "over" long before we run out of oil. That's how resource economics work.
I agree that the the price of oil is more likely to increase. It's common sense: The oil companies prefer to develop the cheapest (simplest, most accessible) fields first, so every time a field empties they replace its output with oil from a more expensive field, or not if the new field seems too expensive at the current price level.
But that doesn't that indebted car owners are safe. Oil producers can't cut production all that much (geology doesn't work that way) so the price can certainly drop in the short term. A few years later it'll have increased again, but in the meantime the bank might have impounded the car.
I can think of bigger risks. But anyway, that's the connection, tenuous as it may be.
When everybody agrees, someone is not thinking. So it was in 2014. And with houses in 2008. And .com stock in 1999.
There are any number of low-but-not-zero-probability events that can cause the price of oil to start rising very quickly. Including the collapse of the House of Saud.
If there's a downturn and a loaned car can't be sold privately, then the car is simply repossessed and auctioned off. These things are all contractual, and in a properly setup system the company shouldn't make any losses over all their loans, regardless of a few pettering out.
If you buy a car and rent it, that's suspiciously like simply running a business and many businesses run using loans both short term and long.
Teslas are a rich man's car.
I'm waiting for the day it becomes a poor/middle class vechicle.
I know I won't buy a used one until they open up the parts supply, and open up the operating system. I don't see that day coming. I really wanted one a year ago. I figured they must have a few that have been wrecked. I wanted to put one back on the road, with a salvage title. I found it's practically impossible.
As to holding their value, yes--they are commanding high prices, even used. They are a rich man's novelty. If a rich man can get deal on a used car, why not pay bite. It's a small demographic sector of society. It's a niche market right now.
My hope is in the future all electric vechicle manufactures are required to open up their software, so guys like myself can buy in the secondary market, tweak, and get these used electric cars back on the road, in a cost effective way.
(Dissabled the AI if you think if the Tesla, or federal government fears guys, like myself, will tinkering with it. I can live without the AI. I do want a cheap, used, electric vechicle.)
(I have exactly the wrong use pattern for an electric car: my petrol car sits unused for most of the week, but every now and again I drive it several hundred miles.)
(I had read it like some sort of regulatory agency or independent association)
The Chevy Bolt is no looker, but it seems to be less of a compromise than the Leaf. It look much more roomy inside and gets Tesla-like range at 240 miles per charge.
Obviously, everyone here is waiting on the Tesla 3, but the problem is that the federal $7,500 tax credit is limited by quantity by manufacturer. Tesla will most likely run out before Chevy does, which might give Chevy the advantage here. It does look like the 3 will come in around $3,000 less than the Bolt, which is going to be quite the advantage for Tesla's customers who have pre-ordered. Right now it looks like non-pre-orders will not be able to get the tax credit.
Tiny size? Just the other day I fit a chest freezer I bought at CostCo inside it. That's not TINY. In fact, I was remarking that, while it does look small, it's just because the average US car is huge. In fact, it's likely to be bigger then what most people drive in Europe.
Agreed that the wheels are small. The car is heavy and tire lifetime is not the greatest as a result.
The Bolt is much smaller than the Leaf.
I'd get a Volt if I were worried about range today. It is an electric car, albeit one with a generator.
How do you account for the implied risk that Tesla doesn't exist in 8 years? That's a long ways away, and there's no guarantee they make it.
Or you could short their stock as a hedge, and buy some options to cover the upside risk.
Or you could buy the car using a title-backed no-recourse loan, pushing this risk onto the lender.
Or you could lease the car rather than buy it.
That is the warranty period so I don't think you'll have any trouble:
https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty
> the 85 kWh Model S, our most popular model by far, now has an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on both the battery pack and drive unit. There is also no limit on the number of owners during the warranty period.
NVM I found the 7 year leasing program.
After a down payment of ~16,000 pound, you get to a monthly payment of 622 GBP for 71 months for a Tesla Model S 60 (not D). http://imgur.com/a/1Asgz
This isn't "affordable" by any means, and this is the most basic Model S, without AWD, autopilot or any other upgrade package.
The autopilot option changes the monthly payments in almost negligible way though.
The fuel only cost for a car that gets 25 mpg (which is not great fuel efficiency) is currently at around 12 cents per mile assuming $3/gal gas. Maintenance may be lower with an electric car but, in the case of Tesla, it's a luxury car brand with expensive sole-source parts and there's the big question about battery costs over time.
A lot of the cars are resold at prices that are very close to a new listing, this isn't that different than many other high end cars with limited production (although these tend to be at higher price brackets than the model S).
As far as the cost per mile goes the fuel costs are not the biggest factor.
Insurance cost, cost of financing/ROI loss and the devaluation of the vehicle are considerably more important when calculating the per mile costs of owning a car.
And, from the IRS site, see no indication that they do: https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/standard-...
In other words, the operating costs for a Tesla do not make up for the premium price of the vehicle. You're buying a luxury car, not paying upfront for operational expense. When they release the 3, things will be different.
Whether or not something like Turo qualifies as "rental" is going to be state-specific and based on the wording of the relevant legislation.
Or to put it another way people who want and buy Teslas are not necessarily the same people who want, or like other cars.
In a perverse way, one of the things that propels the brand forward is the difficulty to get one. Once something is forbidden, it automatically become desired. In a funny way I'd like to imagine, we'd discover one day Musk is paying all these state dealership lobbies ot lobby against direct Tesla sales.
Let alone the really guci brands like say Bristol where if you are not the right sort of chap you can't buy
As for fanboy-ism, I just described how I saw the market. I am certainly not camping under Musks' window. But many consider him the equivalent of some technological messiah, whether you like, or I like or anyone else.
A sibling comment compared it to Apple, that's a good analogy. It doesn't matter how fast or cool Dell or Microsoft is, those people want an Apple and will not buy anything else. I think Tesla is the same way.
So so besides the one-line zinger, how would you describe the fact that people who can't afford this product and go out of their way to just to drive it.
Just as a worthless set of anecdotes, the Apple and Tesla fanboy groups have a pretty large overlap, based on people that I know who own a Model S.
So what are you arguing against? That these fanboys don't exist? I think we are talking about the same thing...
I was saying there are irrational fanboys that will not buy anything else, and then you chime in "Oh, that's a worthless observation! There are lots of irrational fanboys"?
Yeah, I think we are. Rereading my comment, it was poorly worded...
My point was that the irrational fanboy-ism that's sometimes associated with Apple and Tesla is, in my experience, exhibited by the same people. So the Apple analogy is a good one, possibly because they're the same group of people (?).
That's a much smaller market than those in SV think. Most people around me haven't even heard of the company. I'm sure that's unfathomable to some of the people on these boards.
The money is in mass-market, and Tesla knows it.
I think you're wrong here. Tesla makes electric cars that actually look like fossil fueled versions of the cars that they make. The Roadster looks like a regular sports car, the Model S looks like a full size luxury car. Part of my problem with the BMW i series is that the two cars look like spaceships or cars from a 1960s illustration of "the future". They call a ton of attention to themselves and I think they look ridiculous.
I think the real competition is making an electric car that looks/feels like the fossil fueled cars that many people in the world are used to driving. Right now, it seems like Tesla is winning that battle, though the Chevy volt is definitely on the right track.
Even if Tesla was technically inferior, and looks like a gas guzzling car, it would still sell better than competitors.
> though the Chevy volt is definitely on the right track.
Technically they are. If you look at features only they did the right thing. But Volts are not flying off the shelves so to speak. Unfortunately I think association with the Chevy brand is probably a part of the reason. I think they should have spun off a subsidiary company with a new name, and marketed the company itself just as much as the car. This is a bit like how car companies have luxury brands and regular, so it would be electric cars vs regular, basically a 3rd thing.