As of right now, the most mature EVs are Teslas. They've established themselves as the gold standard of EVs. If anything, their main hurdle is still convincing consumers to buy EVs instead of ICE cars.
* Convincing the public to spend 50-70K on a car
* Convincing the public to buy an EV
* Convincing the public that Tesla can be trusted for long term repair costs/reliability
Right now Tesla is squarely in the luxury vehicle market, competing against Lexus/BMW/Mercedes, rather than against Mazda/Honda/Kia, and it's a new automaker, so we don't have good long term reliability or serviceability data, nor do we have good info on how long the batteries will last, or what costs someone buying a 10 year old model Y will face.
These questions will resolve themselves with time, but whether they will all resolve in Tesla's favor is another matter.
The Model 3 SR+ starts at $39k. For a while, the Model 3 SR was available by special order for only $35K [1] but it did not include autopilot (Autosteer+TACC) and other things.
For $39K it's actually a tremendous value. If you plan on keeping it for more than 5 years. It will actually beat a comparable Accord/Camry Hybrid in terms of TCO.
"Calculating insurance, maintenance, repairs, taxes, fees, financing, depreciation and cost of electricity, we get the true cost of ownership for the Tesla Model 3 which is $25,209."
2020 Tesla Model 3 SR Plus: $25,209
2020 Toyota Camry Hybrid : $36,571
As for reliability. There are already plenty of really high mileage Teslas out in the wild. Like this guy who put 800,000+ miles on his 2014 Model S: https://twitter.com/gem8mingen
Sources:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_-_t29bciw
https://www.wheelsjoint.com/toyota-camry-vs-tesla-model-3-co...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/25/tesla-model-3-vs-honda-...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/27/tesla-model-3-vs-toyota...
Rear drive standard range model 3 starts at 40K. There is simply no universe in which this is either affordable or a bargain. This is entry-level luxury car pricing. If you are buying an out of warranty used Tesla for 20K, say 5 years old, then your TCO is going to be far higher than if you buy a 5 year old out of warranty Camry or Toyota. It is also foolish to include temporary government subsidies when determining the long term viability of a company. Those will all go away shortly at which point your TCO will also go up, and used car buyers do not benefit from these subsidies.
And the Camry is the more expensive sedan, with the cheaper Corolla outselling it regularly.
That's kindof the point. If you want Toyota style volumes, be prepared to have Toyota-style reliability, repair costs, parts eco-system, independent mechanics, and selling prices.
The weighted average retail price for new Toyota cars sold is 34K, and 2/3 of cars purchased each year are used cars. The weighted average selling prices of Teslas is ~60K, nearly double the price of Toyotas. And remember that Toyota is a premium brand due to their legendary reliability. Let me know the lifetime service costs of a Tesla and then we can compare that to the Toyota. Include battery replacement costs in that figure and get back me to me with a real TCO.
For Tesla, there are real question marks about out of warranty cost of ownership and battery replacement costs for purchasing used Teslas. For example, I've never paid more than 13K for a car, always have it serviced at independent mechanics I have a relationship with, and I have always kept my car for at least 7 years, with relatively cheap maintenace cost -- the biggest repair ticket item I ever needed to pay was a clutch replacement. So I am not willing to eat 5-7K in depreciation+maintenance per annum that Tesla buyers will pay. I've only ever suffered at most 1.5K per annum in depreciation+maintenance over the life of cars I've purchased. So don't talk to me about the great deal of paying 40K for a tesla that will lose 20K in depreciation over 5 years. I don't care how much cheaper electricity is than fuel, there is no universe in which this is a cost effective form of car ownership for the majority of the public (2/3 of car sales are used car sales).
I buy reliable used cars that are 5-7 years old that are easy to service. So do other cost-conscious purchasers. For this demographic, there are too many question marks for me to dip into the EV market now, but wait 10-20 years for more reliability data to come out and to see if a cost-competitive third party aftermarket springs up for Teslas that has replacement parts and service costs comparable to what you can get with a good local mechanic working on Toyotas or Hondas, as well as battery replacement costs that are less than the price of the car when the battery dies -- unless the plan is to sell disposable cars, at which point the value proposition is even worse for cost-sensitive purchasers, and Tesla will have a hard time competing if their intention is to sell disposable cars for a higher price than cars that can be maintained for 30 years.
Even if you round up $39K to 40K. It's still a far cry from your initial $50k assumption. $10K is not even close to being a rounding error and makes it seem like you're reaching.
You also made quite a bit of other assumptions here. You should actually fact check some of your claims. You can do the math yourself. Numbers don't lie.
If you can somehow show that the articles and data is wrong. I genuinely would love to see how. Because I put a high value on facts/data vs opinion and that will be news to me.
Tesla 3's ASP was ~60K in 2018 https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/tesla-model-3-average-s...
That was the latest data I could find and I decided to give them a break. You will find in analysts calls a number of 50K is a common estimate.
> Numbers don't lie.
Agreed
> Agreed
So... Do you have that calculation handy where a Camry/Accord cost less to own after 5 years? I would love to see it, so we can compare notes.
(The other posted also talked about ASP of Toyotas, so his comparison was fair btw.)
I've been joking to my wife for years now that we should get a Tesla eventually. Over that time, I've seen her going from "what's up with these EVs anyway?", through "that's a really expensive car", to "sure, but if anything breaks, IIRC the closest shop that can repair it is in Norway".
Both of these have been happening for years now. You can even look up parts/diagrams and order directly from Tesla if you provide your VIN here: http://epc.tesla.com/
Maybe these are not obvious to non-owners. But it's silly to assume things where you have incomplete/false information.
You can talk to actual owners here: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/. I lurked around and asked questions to owners for years there. When I was researching if owning a Tesla is even viable. I own 2 now and never looked back.
Also on your reply above. There are already 10 year old Model S's out there.
My old neighbor just sold his Toyota 4Runner and got a 2012 Model S with 75K miles for $25K that still runs like new. He has it for almost two years now with ZERO maintenance/issues and spends $15-20 a month on electricity.
Apple worked hard to make an iPhone a different product segment to a smart phone the App Store, iMessage and an ecosystem of Apple-compatible services and products. As a result of you want to buy an iPhone you need to pay the premium Apple is asking.
Tesla have the supercharger network and brand name recognition. Neither of them would allow them to completely own the EV market.