TESLA Model 3 TRUE Cost of Ownership Compared with a Honda Civic & BMW 3 Series

so the Tesla Model 3 is upon us and it's already being heralded by many as the most important car in decades but whether you're one of the nearly half a million people who have already given Tesla a $1000 deposit or someone who is just wondering if it makes financial sense this video is for you at $35,000 the model 3 is the most affordable Tesla to date and with its 220 mile range 126 MPGe and 0 the 60 time of 5.5 seconds it's proving to be quite the little Evie that could very enticing indeed but the primary question remains what is the true cost of owning a Tesla Model 3 while the question is simple the answer is not the devil is always in the details and so we will take a look at a couple of other popular gas powered cars for comparison and look at total cost of ownership over five years we will also explain the ugly truth about MPGe and tell you what we think is a better measurement and if you're counting on the $7,500 federal tax credit we'll talk about why you may not even qualify for it lastly we will provide you with some cost calculators to help you reach an educated conclusion based on your specific situation because where you live and how you drive really does affect your bottom line so let's get some assumptions out of the way for perspective we will pit the model 3 head-to-head with a comparably equipped Honda Civic and a BMW 330i all at MSRP we will be buying all three cars in cash eliminating financing costs from the equation as well as omitting sales tax and insurance costs we will sell each vehicle for its estimated resale value after five years this will help us understand just how much each car would cost to own over that period we will show the Tesla both with and without the current tax credit of $7,500 as this tax credit will likely not be available for many model 3 owners will assume 15,000 miles driven per year half highway half around town we will look at gas and electricity prices for California and Texas with a five percent increase to both every year in California we will use three dollars and 25 cents per gallon of gas at 20 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity in Texas we will use two dollars and fifty cents per gallon of gas at ten cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity since the model 3 has no resale history depreciation for the Tesla Model 3 will be based on an average of the Honda and Beamer which also happens to be very close to the Model S which we do have numbers for repair and maintenance cost are based on edmunds.com for the Honda and BMW and from Tesla comm for the model 3 the Tesla will have an additional cost of $1,500 for a home charger installation now it's time for the good stuff so let's just jump right in initial cost on the low end we have the Honda which will cost twenty six seven and on the high end the Beamer will set you back nearly forty four nine the Tesla lens right in the middle at thirty five thousand or if you're lucky 27500 after tax credits while we're on the subject let's talk tax incentives the US federal government currently offers a $7,500 tax credit for anyone buying an electric vehicle but there are some things to be aware of for one this is a tax credit that means that it gets deducted directly off of what you owe the IRS you owe eight thousand guess what with the tax credit you now owe five hundred so the tax credit is very good for now which brings us to point number two the tax credit is only good for the first two hundred thousand EVs any single car maker produces Tesla is already at about one hundred and forty thousand cars produced so less than sixty thousand Tesla owners are likely to get the credit so make sure to research what incentives are available in your locale but even without the tax credit $35,000 seems to be a solid price point now let's jump forward to the one-year mark and see how much each car has cost us so far let's start with depreciation the BMW has already lost almost 29 percent of its value the Civic 22 percent and the Tesla is right in between at 25 percent the first year is always the worst for new cars and since that doesn't really matter until you go to sell let's move on to the other categories in the first year the beamers maintenance is included and as expected the Civic bear makes a dent in our wallet at just 155 dollars the Tesla comes in at the most with 475 dollars which is made up mostly of extraneous services such as key fob battery and wiper blade replacements now for fuel in California the 330 I will cost you nearly $2,000 the Honda 1350 and a mere 700 dollars for the Tesla remember when we talked about mpg eat earlier the industry standard term of MPGe can be misleading to the average consumer if your current car gets 30 miles per gallon and the Tesla Model 3 has an MPG rating of 126 you might be lulled into thinking that your driving cost will be reduced by 75% sadly this isn't the case here's why the epa equates 33.7 kilowatt hours to one gallon of gasoline because both have roughly the same amount of energy however this speaks little to the actual cost of the two a better approach is to use the cost equivalent mpg which factors in how much electricity you can buy for the price of one gallon of gasoline and how far you can drive with that electricity for example the model 3 can drive 4 point 4 miles per kilowatt hour so if gas costs 3 dollars and 25 cents per gallon and electricity cost 20 cents per kilowatt hour you can buy 16 kilowatt hours for the price of 1 gallon of gasoline so for your 3 dollars and 25 cents you can drive 27 miles in the 330i 37 miles in the Civic and 70 miles in the model 3 that's more than twice the distance not quite the 126 miles per gallon equivalent you might have been expecting but still better than anything with an internal combustion engine in year 2 you'll notice the rates of depreciation for all three vehicles have significantly dropped to about 10 percent fuel costs are similar and the Tesla surprisingly is still the most expensive to maintain year 3 looks pretty similar as well the depreciation rates continue to drop for all three cars and now the BMW maintenance costs start to kick in placing it highest in the bunch surprisingly in year four Edmunds predicts maintenance costs of nearly $2,900 for the BMW and over $1100 for the Civic whereas the Tesla keep steady at a mere 850 dollars now we've reached the end of our five-year 75 thousand mile journey and it's time to tally up the scores [Music] we bought our Civic for twenty sixty seven and after five years it's lost 51 percent of its value and is now worth thirteen one the Civic has cost us nearly seventy five hundred dollars in fuel and thirty seven hundred dollars in maintenance once we sold it for its residual value we are left with nearly nineteen hundred dollars so our Civic has cost us nearly twenty five thousand dollars to operate for five years or five thousand dollars a year the BMW 330i we bought for forty four nine has depreciated in value by a whopping 63% leaving a value of sixteen thousand six hundred ouch the BMW was also the most expensive in terms of fuel at nearly eleven thousand dollars and maintenance of sixty-five hundred so if we sold our BMW we would still be in the hole eight hundred dollars meaning the total cost of owning it would be nearly forty six thousand dollars for five years or about nine thousand dollars per year last but not least let's see how our model three fared it costs us thirty five thousand dollars up front and has depreciated by a projected 57 percent leaving us with the residual value of fifteen thousand dollars the model three was the cheapest in terms of fuel requiring only thirty-seven hundred dollars of kilowatt hours and had the second cheapest maintenance cost over the first five years at forty five hundred dollars now if we sell our model three were left with about sixty seven hundred dollars bringing the total cost of ownership to twenty eight thousand dollars or five thousand six hundred dollars per year now this doesn't include the federal tax credit which if factored in would mean the model three is the most affordable car over five years at only twenty-one thousand dollars for forty one hundred dollars per year cheaper even than the Civic so why did we choose the Honda Civic because it represents a very practical financially responsible choice for many buyers and a Tesla by comparison which surely not seem to offer competition but when you really break down the numbers it's shocking to see how close the Tesla and the Honda were in terms of TCO and how much more the BMW 330i was when comparing the model 3 to the 330i which competes more directly in terms of performance luxury and features it's not even close the model 3 appears to provide quite the compelling value and seems to live up to its promise and height if you're lucky enough to be on the waiting list you might be receiving delivery in the coming months and it will be interesting to find out just when model 3s will be readily available for all we chose a 5-year ownership period because data was readily available but the TCO calculations might be even more interesting after the five-year mark a rad year 7 gas cars could need extensive maintenance including replacing of the timing belt water pump spark plugs and possible transmission expenses the model 3 won't require any of this as its electric motor has fewer moving parts and no transmission so it's quite possible that the model 3 only becomes more compelling as time goes on and we know that everyone has different gas prices electricity prices driving needs and desires and so we have provided some calculators in the description below if you would like to see other comparisons please let us know in the comments we could certainly look at Diesel's hybrids plug-in hybrids and other pier electrics if you're interested and if you do get your hands on a Model 3 we'd love to hear about your experiences if you liked this video we would be honored to have your subscription so you can receive more videos like this one we're 2-bit da vinci and remember it's all just energy [Music]

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 1,956,892

Rating: 4.5172462 out of 5

Keywords: real tesla cost, What is The Cost of a Tesla Model 3, model 3 ownership cost, How Much Does a Tesla Model 3 Cost, cost of tesla model 3, model three cost, Tesla Model 3 Cost of Ownership, true cost of owning a tesla, model 3 mpg, tesla model 3 cost estimator, tesla cost of ownership, tesla model 3 cost, model 3 cost of ownership, model 3 price, tesla cost calculator, cost of owning a tesla, tesla calculator, model 3 calculator, model 3 cost, tesla model 3 price, tesla

Id: XR_ub5eL9n0

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/dubsteponmycat]

"Tesla has already produced 140,000 vehicles so less than 60,000 Tesla owners are likely to get the credit"

Just plain wrong. It doesn't just disappear at 200k. Also doesn't account for non-US sales.

[u/WhiskeySauer]

Here's the numbers for total annual cost:

• Honda Civic: $4,962/year

• Tesla Model 3: $4,149/year with subsidies, $5649/year without

• BMW 330i: $9,130/year

Keep in mind these calculations assume you sell the car after 5 years. Thanks to lower operational cost (i.e. not having to pay for gas, oil changes, spark plugs, fuel filters, etc), the total cost of ownership for the Tesla Model 3 would be driven down disproportionately lower over time if you intended to keep the car for longer than 5 years. For anyone who is curious about the disruptive cost improvements of Model 3, this topic was discussed at length at the 2017 CleanTech Revolution Tour. Sony Seba also provided an interesting estimate here.

[u/psinha]

Sorry the title is supposed to be "Model 3" but I must have overlooked it.

[u/bulbrook]

Consider insurance cost and property taxes on the vehicles as well. Tesla is definitely higher than the Civic in both areas. Also having owned reliable vehicles for many years these maintenance costs are very high for a 3 yr old Civic. Other than tire rotations and oil changes you do almost nothing. Maybe an air filter. At the end of the day they are fairly close in TCO and they are fairly close in upfront cost. Moral of the story is buy what you like. I would lean to Tesla for the safety and tech, but both are good choices.

[u/harborhound]

A few mistakes but really nice video overall.

[u/solidnandz]

I guess if you aren’t selling after five years, at what point would you need a new battery, how much will that battery cost and is it worth it to buy a new battery or simply buy a new car?

[u/paulwesterberg]

I only had to pay $370 to get a 50A 14-50 outlet installed in my garage. If you wanted to make it look pretty you can get a Tesla high powered wall charger for $500. It probably costs more in CA since you need permits etc, but $1500 for a charger is definately on the high end of install costs.

[u/johnwayne2413]

They need to do a more realistic 7-8 year ownership comparison. I don't know many people who replace their cars every 5 years.

[u/a-man-]

I stopped watching this after he assumed the recommended retail price for the ice cars. No one ever pays that amount and big discounts are always available.