Hacker News Reader

Comment by tyrust | Hacker News Reader

Neat.

>During the first 300,000 miles the total combined maintenance and fuel costs of the Tesla Model S were $10,492, with a total of 12 days in the shop. Had this been an Mercedes S class, the scheduled routine maintenance and fuel would have been $86,000 ($52,000 maintenance and $36,000* fuel) with 112 days of servicing, or for a Lincoln Town Car $70k,000 ($28,000 maintenance and $42,000 fuel) with around 100 days of servicing.

Not sure why they mention the fuel cost of these cars without citing the electricity cost of the Tesla. It does make the numbers bigger.

View on HN

> The electric drivetrain, when coupled with a vast supercharging network...

I took that to mean that the car exclusively refueled on Superchargers, so the fuel cost was $0. That is a legitimate apples-to-apples comparison to the ICE vehicles.

Exclusively refuelled using proprietary infrastructure currently provided by the car's manufacturer is not an apples-to-apples comparison to anything.

I don't think that's apples-to-apples -- you have to go out of your way to always use a supercharger, so you'd have to account for the value of the time lost in traveling to a supercharger station compared to doing all the same journeys and using nearby gas stations. (Refueling at a supercharger is slower too, so that's extra fillup time.)

Alternatively you could use the electricity cost of recharging it at home, plus the cost of the occasional missed journeys that are out of range from not always being full. (Say, book their cost at what you'd pay for an Uber for those legs.)

(I don't know if charging a Tesla at home overnight is enough to get to 100% -- anyone know?)

This is a comparison of the vehicle for their business, which is a "city mobility service". I imagine any business like this is either going to have on-site fuel, or an agreement with a fuel depot with good rates, and drivers would stop by that location on the way home anyway, so this is probably comparable for this type of service use.

> I don't think that's apples-to-apples -- you have to go out of your way to always use a supercharger

For average person - yes, Tesloop, however, is Culver City - based, also known as home to the Culver City Supercharger, so there's a bit of a hometown advantage for them.

In fact, Tesla's recent penalty fee for hogging a supercharger spot long after the vehicle has finished charging is related to Tesla owners' complaints (on TMC, Twitter and Facebook groups) about Tesloop vehicles parked overnight in Culver City supercharger spots.

Okay, but then the comparison should be marked as a TCO comparison just for Culver City, which is, for that reason, atypical.

The other thing is this is just a data point for one car. If the results were for a dozen cars or more it would be useful. Imagine if Backblaze gave failure rate based on 1 HDD.

Supercharger cost is $0? Apparently only for the first 400kWh per annum for models S and X, which Tesla says is good for about 1000 miles [1].

Electricity is not free, even if Tesla is subsidizing it.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharging

All older S and X have free unlimited supercharging, and new ones do as well if brought via a referral.

True but the more relevant question for someone making a decision today is how the economics change if you include the cost of electricity.

It is very misleading - I would call it deceptive - for the article to say "total combined maintenance and fuel costs of the Tesla Model S..." [my emphasis] when the fuel costs are covered by Tesla, especially as this is a loss-leader that you can no longer take advantage of.

> Not sure why they mention the fuel cost of these cars without citing the electricity cost of the Tesla. It does make the numbers bigger.

The article didn't break the fuel number out for the Tesla, but it does state it is included in the total.

It says that, but the math doesn't leave any room for fuel.

> During the first 300,000 miles the total combined maintenance and fuel costs of the Tesla Model S were $10,492, with a total of 12 days in the shop. Of these costs, $6,900 was scheduled maintenance and $3500 was headlight damage due to driving through deep water.

I guess maybe they're including fuel costs in "scheduled maintenance"?

My God, those must be some special headlights.

They cost more than any car I've ever owned.

The headlights in my 2003 Acura CL were $1000 apiece in parts alone (in 2006).

Unfortunately, most new luxury-ish cars come with fancy LED headlight units which cost several thousand dollars to replace. It's no longer a bulb replacement, but essentially replacing a computer attached to digitally directed LED arrays with sensors and gyroscopes to assess lighting conditions and leveling.

That sounds.... Really complex. What problem is being solved?

Self-leveling and washing are required by law for lights beyond a certain brightness. Older tech halogen headlights aren't as bright and don't require the fancy actuators and wipers. Brighter lights, of any source, require both.

So the problem being solved is "I'd really like to see oncoming traffic go blind and crash as I pass by"? Use dimmer lights.

The problem being solved there is being able to see further in the dark.

Full dynamic LED headlights are actually a pretty cool innovation. They're brighter, they can illuminate corners, and they can avoid blinding opposing traffic by selectively deactivating or dimming parts of the light field. (I don't know if the Model S specifically has that latter feature though, but it's one of the big selling points of the technology.)

Keep in mind that these are high-end luxury cars we're talking about. Folks don't buy a new Mercedes to get halogen headlights. They know it's expensive and are okay with that.

Including time spent refueling (charging for Tesla) would make the comparison more fair.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com