The Reasons I Didn't Get A Tesla

so why didn't I get a Tesla [Music] so I own a 2022 Chevrolet bolt EV and I've been making quite a few videos about it recently and comments on my more recent videos asked why I didn't get a Tesla especially since Tesla just dropped their prices and this 2023 so there's a new tax credit for EVS and so the Tesla's not that much more so I figured I'd decide to make a video why I have a bolt instead of a Tesla Model 3. first thing I got to do is acknowledge what Tesla's good at Tesla has an amazingly reliable supercharger Network that is far better than the CCS Network on any charging Network that my car can plug into I was able to take a road trip to Denver Colorado in a Tesla Model 3 and got to experience it firsthand and the entire trip I only experienced one Tesla Supercharger that was broken but there were seven others at the at that stop that we were able to to use and of course we just grabbed one of the other ones plugged in the car charged up no need to get into an app or anything the charger recognized the car and the charging speeds were great Tesla also has a much better integrated navigation system that can tell you the Chargers along your route just plugging it into the screen Tesla also has a better native app that can give you real time information that Chevrolet can't do with the my Chevrolet app the my Chevrolet app takes forever to update it seems and so monitoring my charge session on that's not super great but I have a bolt and there are reasons that I have a bolt so let's look into what those reasons are I've got my notes out here so I can follow along and do this in a few less takes the first reason that I have a bolt as opposed to a Tesla is of course going to be cost there are arguments now that Tesla just lowered the price on the model 3. I've got the the Tesla Model 3 starting right now if you just got a white one with the stock wheels at 43 990. uh but this car is a 1lt Chevrolet bolt EV it is specced out with the driver confidence package and the comfort and convenience package the comfort and convenience package was the one that I wanted because that had the heated seats and the heated leather wrapped steering wheel and to get that on a 2022 model I had to have the driver confidence package also and a brand new 2023 model of this bolt specked out exactly this way is 28 985 that's a difference of fourteen thousand dollars that is not almost the same price and people will argue that this new EV tax credit that's around in 2023 will bring the Tesla down to pretty close to that price well that same tax credit right now would also do the same thing to the bolt it would bring it down another as much as seventy five hundred dollars if you had enough tax liability to cover that the other argument is going to be well the the Tesla's going to have more equipment on it at that price it's going to have adaptive cruise control which would be nice this car doesn't have adaptive cruise control the Tesla has a has a front I don't have a front I open my hood I've got an electric motor down there but those arguments on price right now are if I bought the car right now in mid to late January of 2023. I bought this car in the middle of August in 2022. the tax credits didn't figure into it and at the time the model 3 was 48 000 fifty dollars that's almost twenty thousand dollars more than what a 2023 bolt is and this car was about a thousand dollars cheaper than that 2023 specs out so now we're talking a twenty one thousand dollar price difference so price was a big big big decision maker reason number two was availability in summer of 2022 if I was on the Tesla website I was looking in a model 3 especially a standard Range model 3 rear-wheel drive only single motor was going to take three to six months from when you ordered it to be delivered I was able to go down to my local Chevrolet dealership here in Burleson Texas find this car on the lot it had arrived off of the truck the day before test drive it with nine miles on it and the next day I owned it so this car was available the Tesla wasn't so that would be reason number two reason number three yes the Tesla had more equipment but a lot of the more equipment that the Tesla had was equipment I either didn't need or didn't like yeah it would be nice to have a huge panoramic sunroof and yes with the roof All Glass I thought I'd get a lot of glare and in the model 3 I did not they did a very good job with that but I don't need that um the adaptive cruise control would be nice but on that particular road trip that I was on in that car more than half of the road trip was on U.S highways going through small towns in north Texas up into the Panhandle and then Crossing from there through New Mexico into Colorado every time you went through a small town there'd be flashing yellow lights the car would be on autopilot with the adaptive cruise control turned on it would see those flashing lights and think they were red lights and the car would break harder the regenerative braking would kick on hard I've come to find out that that's called Phantom breaking I didn't like the Phantom braking I didn't too much care for the cruise control it it still required input from me into the steering wheel and this car you know requires a hundred percent input from me from the steering wheel but it's so easy to drive it doesn't bother me on long trips I also thought that the one pedal drive setting on the Tesla Model 3 that I was in was a little too sudden a little little too jerky for me now that was in the settings that the owner had it in and those settings could be adjusted and it would be better but to get into them I'd have to navigate the screen for one pedal drive in this car all I have to do is push that button right there and my one pedal drive is turned on when I was first considering a long range EV we went to a Tesla showroom in Fort Worth and I was able to try sitting down in a model 3 and in a model Y and I will freely admit the model y was easier to get into than the model 3 was for me now I'm over 50 years old I'm over six foot tall and I'm over 250 pounds my knees don't like bending to get in took that model 3 on a road trip and the fact of the matter is bolt is a lot easier for me to get in and to get out the model y would have been easier for me to get into and out of than a model 3 would have been comparable to the bolt but that model y was up around 58 000 around when I purchased this car now after the price drop it's still 52.9 which is considerably more than this now that is an all-wheel drive car with a lot more acceleration and a lot more equipment but I'm fine with this the other thing is the build quality Tesla had a reputation for build quality issues and the particular one that I was in was a 2019 model 3 with over 120 000 miles there was stuff falling off of it now granted that's a long mileage car but that was the type of Tesla Model 3 that was comparable in price to this when I purchased it for the 28 to 30 thousand dollars I would have to have a model 3 that was two or three years old with over 120 000 miles on it to get it under 30 it would have to have had a salvaged title that was the only way that that it could compare price wise but one argument I cannot compete with is the Tesla Supercharger network is way better we still can come back to that for instance the the trip that I took to with that Tesla in Denver I could not follow that route with this bolt there's not enough CCS charging there's none on Highway 287 between Fort Worth and Amarillo and that's way too many miles for this car to pull off in one charge when Rachel and I took our road trip to Tennessee back in September we originally planned on taking interstates 30 and 40 on the way there and taking Interstate 20 on the way back and just kind of go through a loop but between Birmingham Alabama and Dallas Texas there were no CCS fast charging stations at that time so the routes open up a lot more but the fact of the matter is in calendar years of 2021 and 2022 Rachel and I went on a grand total of six road trips that added up to 11 days on the road all but one of them were done in an internal combustion engine vehicle so if we take it up to an even dozen Days on the Road over the last two years so that it works out to six days driving on road trips over the course of a year that's less than two percent of the time that I'm driving this car the other 98 percent of the time I'm charging at home and while I'm sleeping it doesn't matter if this is a Tesla Model 3 a Hyundai ioniq 5 a Porsche ticon or a Chevy bolt it's going to be charged in the morning when I wake up it's that two percent of the time two percent of that of that my time during the year just wasn't worth an extra 14 to 20 grand more money it's January our last road trip was in sept Timber and our next road trip coming up is in March that's a little sneak preview in a couple of months we're going to have a inside a Texas road trip with the bolt so they're spread out so far that if that's some extra minutes or even a couple of extra hours each day where we're not driving down the road to rest works out well for us and we don't feel like it's a waste of our time it allows us to Road Trip the way that we do that plus the car is comfortable we like the way it looks Rachel really likes sitting in it as a passenger so that is why I have a Chevy bolt instead of a Tesla Model 3. are my arguments going to make sense to you they don't have to because you're a different person than me you may have different needs you may have different wants a bolt might not work for you and a Tesla might be a better choice or you might just be better off with an internal combustion engine car but at least this video you can understand what my thinking was thanks for watching we'll have some more EV content coming up

Channel: Spinner EV

Views: 32,787

Keywords: ev, electric vehicle, electric, vehicle, chevy, chevrolet, bolt, euv, bolt ev, range, control, tesla, model 3, m3, model, comparison, model y, my

Id: q0X4-P8eIT4

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 28 2023