Our Car

For reference, our car shown below is a 460 HP, 5 passenger sports sedan with 0-60 time of 3.0 seconds. Ordered on December 6, 2019 before it was built, and picked up in Tampa December 16, 2019. The Stealth option (also called sleeper option) is simply a $2,000 upgrade of the rear motor to a performance motor (which as far as I can tell is exactly like the base Long Range AWD rear motor but with a bigger inverter on it to handle the 320 kw sucked out of the battery when you floor the car). That option also gives you the track mode capability and basically it is a performance model, minus the 21" wheels which I didn't want anyway (comes with 18" wheels) and minus the track brakes, the lowered suspension, the spoiler, and the metal brake and accelerator pedals. Key thing is it took the car from 4.4 second 0-60 to 3.0 second 0-60. Was it necessary? Not really. Was it worth it to me? Yes!

A common question I get is "how much will it cost to drive your Tesla?" In 20 years, I will have driven my Model 3 around 280,000 miles. Based on my driving style (the 0-60 in 3.0 second thing) I will have purchased 6 sets of tires for $6k total. I probably will take the car in several times to have my glycol battery coolant checked and everything else checked out for $1000 total, have one brake job done for $400 in parts (probably do that myself…unless needs brake fluid flush). No idea what an AC refill/repair costs but assume one of those. Likely the normal car things like struts and shocks. Expect to still be on original batteries and gears so that just leaves electricity…which is easy as at 4 miles per kWh that comes to 70,000 kWh or $7,000 for electricity (currently 10 cents per kWh and has been dropping slightly every few years). Tack on another $1000 for higher price electricity on road trips. And since my Tesla cost me $30,000 less than a comparable 5 passenger sports sedan (2020 bmw M3 g80) we can pretend they just cost the same if that makes people feel better...all EVs will eventually have a sticker price less than gas cars anyway. A similar gas car will have over $40k in just gas costs over that same 20 years...and from experience a LOT of oil changes, tuneups, hot components rusting out, etc. No comparison.

For more info on the Model 3, click here.