Quote:
Originally Posted by rumatt
Make an appointment and go drive one. The instant torque is really neat.
But I was coming into this with the seemingly impossible goal of finding a car that is (a) fun, and (b) relaxing to commute into NYC in. The Tesla manages to do both. You giggle as it effortlessly glides up to speed at insane rates, the instant torque makes it easy to fill gaps when changing lanes, and the regen braking allows one-pedal driving which is more pleasant and rewarding in traffic than scraping (and pulsing!!) brake rotors. I left thinking, damn the electric motor really is the future of daily transportation.
However, once it sank in how much I'm spending and how many other cars I could have for that money, I did start to wonder. And those cars are much better sports cars... and better screwed together.
I don't buy that maintenance will be cheaper. There's still plenty of stuff to break (think of all the sensors and actuators) and when it does it'll be hella expensive. Some guy cracked his windshield and it was ~$1600 to replace at the dealer - no one else makes them so they're your only choice. And isn't there a regular maintenance/checkup schedule that I fairly expensive at the dealer? They also eat tires if you accelerate hard often. The thing weights 4,000 lbs. I suspect that tire cost alone will balance out any savings from fuel.
And I'm not optimistic about resale. The first run of a hastily produced EV vehicle? With a tired battery? After Tesla and other manufactures have come out with newer tech? This thing is going to be about as easy to sell on eBay as my 4 year old Samsung S6.
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Yeah - I think you're right about potential maintenance/repair costs being on-par and possibly more than a similar German car. And good point on likely resale (again just like a high-tech German car). All things considered, I think I'd prefer to lease one if I ended up deciding it was the right car for me. Don't think that's possible currently though- not a big deal cause I'm not really in the market yet. Still, despite the unknowns, there's got to be some longevity/maintainability benefits by being so simple/solid-state, right? I'm thinking that you'd likely work out all the build quality issues under warranty within the first year. Also with the volume they'll be producing them in and the passion people have for them, there will likely be a ton of DIY support eventually. WIth German cars, there's always been a worry that we've finally reached the point of "un-DIYable" cars. But somehow people figure it out. Check out Rich rebuilds on Youtube as an example.