Welcome to another Tesla Tuesday!
It has been 8 months since the last post in this series, but that’s certainly a case of “no news is good news.” We continue to love the car and pile on the miles. And, knock on wood, we still have a grand total of 0 service visits. No recalls, no warranty service. Nothing. The only service money I’ve spent on the car are one set of tires, a few sets of wiper blades, and windshield washer fluid.
Since we announced our plans to move to Minnesota, I’ve gotten some questions about what we’ll do with the car. The current plan is that we’ll still be driving it. While there are certainly fewer Teslas in Minnesota than Washington, it’s still a great car. I would imagine there are fewer superchargers, but the only time I care about those is when I go on road trips. The number of chargers within 100 miles of my house is pretty irrelevant. And yes, the car is fantastic in the cold weather. (In November of last year, Tesla accounted for 31.2% of all sales in Norway.)
All that being said, I expect to be over 100,000 miles by that point. If you remember my original math, that was my predicted “break even” cost point versus the Ford Escape we would have purchased instead. In reality, we’re on track to hit that point sooner since gas is more expensive than I planned for. So if we get that far before selling or having a major problem, that’s a win in my book. How long will the car last? I don’t know. Maintenance costs are very low but the battery does degrade. We’re currently around 85% of our original capacity. For daily driving, it makes no difference but on a long road trip this could translate into an extra charging stop. I think that 85% number is a bit below average but it’s still well within normal bounds and the packs are warrantied up to 120k.
Trading for a refreshed Model Y is tempting though. The list of small new features has piled up over the years and I wonder if we should take advantage of the strong used Tesla market in this area before we move. But that brings in questions about higher sales tax and registration costs here too.
Another big disincentive to sell is that Tesla recently discontinued the inclusion of “Autopilot” on their new cars in an apparent effort to get more people to pay $99/month to subscribe to Full Self-Driving. I LOVE the Autopilot feature on our car and I would guess that at least half the miles I drive are with that feature enabled. I use it just about any time that I have cruise control enabled. The main differences between FSD and Autopilot is that FSD will change lanes on the highway, stop at intersections, make exits/turns to follow your path, etc. Autopilot is more like a cruise control that adds “stay on this road until I tell you differently” and it works all the time on any road or pretty much any weather condition. We’ll see if that decision sticks or not. A lot probably depends on which number is bigger: 1) the additional revenue from people adding FSD or 2) the loss in sales revenue from people who won’t buy the car without that feature.
So for now, there are no changes to the plan. We love the car and I’m happy with the way the cost numbers are working out.