[SunkenCiv]

According to Autolist, 2 of the top 4 reasons people don’t buy electric vehicles have to do with charging the car so I'll explain what my experience has been like to charge my fully electric Tesla Model 3 for the past 3 years + my total charging cost after 75,000 miles and compare it to gas costs.

With my Tesla it’s great because it automatically charges overnight when electricity is at its cheapest (known as "off peak" electricity rate) and when I wake up, my car has enough battery charge to satisfy my daily driving needs. If you drive 50 miles or less during your daily driving you can probably get by with charging on a normal outlet, which on my Long Range Model 3 would regain about 5 miles of range per hour of charge.

However, I drive over 400 miles a week so I needed a 240v NEMA 1450 outlet installed in my garage in order to charge my Tesla Model 3 at a rate of 30 miles per hour which can essentially charge the car from 0-100% in 10 hours.

Unfortunately my breaker box is about the furthest it can possibly be from my garage so I had to hire an electrician to run cable alongside my house, under my yard, and into my garage which cost me $1300 right off the bat before I even got my car but I got a 30% tax credit which made my out of pocket cost $900.

Some is lost along the way due to heat and other factors so the final amount of electricity that makes it into the battery is called "wall to wheels" efficiency and based on TeslaFi (an app used to track Tesla charging stats for owners) it says a 240-volt Tesla Wall Connector can average 94% efficiency.

If we assume 94% wall to wheels efficiency we also have to consider phantom drain which is the electricity lost when an electric vehicle is parked while not plugged in to a charging outlet so for example every day for 8 hours my car is in a parking lot unplugged and it loses some charge over that period.

I average about 2,000 miles per year for traveling on road trips which means 8% of my total miles are when traveling and 92% is from home charging. For home charging, my off-peak electricity rate is $0.07080 per kWh. 92% of the 20,728 kWh has been home charging which means I’ve spent about $1,350 on home charging so far + $54 on Supercharging so after 75,368 miles I’ve spent a total of $1,404 on charging.

To that in perspective, if we consider a popular Tesla competitor from the same year, a 2018 BMW 3 series that averages 28 miles per gallon & also requires premium gasoline (which costs an average of $3.475 a gallon in my county) to drive that BMW the same amount of miles the fuel cost would be about $9,353. That's $8,000 in fuel savings after 3 years.

I plan to keep my Tesla Model 3 for at least 10 years so if I keep this up, after another 7 years the savings could be close to $25,000 which could pay for a solar roof and allow me to charge for free for the rest of time. That's another advantage of an electric vehicle: it can be charged from 100% renewable energy.

0:00 Gas vs Charging
1:59 Home Charging
3:26 Total Electricity Used
4:48 Sponsor (Omaze)
6:05 Travel Charging
8:27 Total Charging Cost
9:40 Conclusion

Tesla vs Gas: TRUE Charging Cost After 75,000 Miles: Tesla Model 3 total charging cost after 75,000 miles & 3 years | April 14, 2021 | Andy Slye | YouTube

[Bryan24]

I’ve spent $1500 on gas for my new Super Crew F-150 for the past year. That is driving about 15,000 miles.

I can drive 500+ miles without refueling and fill up in about 10 minutes at about 500,000 different locations across the US.

[Hot Tabasco]

I plan to keep my Tesla Model 3 for at least 10 years

Who wants to buy a 10 year old Tesla when the battery efficiency will have been quite diminished and you would probably be looking at having to replace them.....at what cost?

[daniel1212]

"To that in perspective, if we consider a popular Tesla competitor from the same year, a 2018 BMW 3 series that averages 28 miles per gallon & also requires premium gasoline (which costs an average of $3.475 a gallon in my county) to drive that BMW the same amount of miles the fuel cost would be about $9,353. That's $8,000 in fuel savings after 3 years. I plan to keep my Tesla Model 3 for at least 10 years so if I keep this up, after another 7 years the savings could be close to $25,000 "

Informative report, however what is left out of the comparison are repair costs and battery degradation and replacement. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35203450/tesla-model-3-battery-capacity-loss-warranty/ reports, "Our long-term Tesla Model 3 has so far lost 7 percent of its capacity over 24,000 miles... a loss of about 22 miles of rated range from the original 310-mile EPA combined figure. This is based on the range data from the nearly 500 times we've charged our car to 90 percent of its capacity or above..We're not too surprised that we're doing worse than average, as fast charging at Tesla's Superchargers is not great for maximizing the battery's life, and we've gotten fully a third of the energy our car has used that way....Our battery's degradation thus far equates to a drop of roughly 2.9 percent in pack capacity every 10,000 miles, which, if it continues at this rate, would put us at 65 percent capacity at 120,000 miles. That's under the 70-percent-capacity retention specified in Tesla's eight-year/120,000-mile battery warranty for the Model 3 Long Range. However, Tesla makes it clear that in the case of a warranty claim, the car won't necessarily get a new battery, but one that at least meets the minimum 70 percent threshold." And i read the cheapest estimate for an out-of-pocket, uncomplicated battery replacement on the Model S should run at about $12,000-$13,000 ... But, "Parts and labor combined, it cost nearly $16,000 to replace this Tesla Model 3’s battery pack....deally, individual modules can be replaced at a somewhat lower cost, instead of replacing the entire battery pack altogether.".