The title of this post is technically incorrect – my Model S is actually 10 1/2 years old. I have lost quite a bit of enthusiasm for both posting and Tesla in general so a significant delay occurred before writing this post.
For newer readers to this blog, I started my electric car journey with the Roadster back in 2009. I ‘upgraded’ to the Model S in 2013 primarily for an extended range and the ability to supercharge. I took the Model S on a cross country trip in 2014 and have enjoyed many long trips using the superchargers primarily within California.
I thought a quick summary of my experiences would be in order including all costs.
Battery Life
The car now has 127,000 miles with just a little over 200 miles of range left. The range has dropped significantly since the car was new. The range is still fine for the majority of driving but is a little limiting for longer trips.
Cost of Ownership
Over the last 10 1/2 years I have spent about $19,000 keeping the car maintained with $7,000 of that in tires. Due to my serious problems with my tires, I got a free extended warranty which covered quite a few items along with a few ‘goodwill’ items.
Straight insurance rates are a little complex when bundled with a second car and home insurance, but simplistically averaging $800 a year for a total of $8000.
Since all charging occurs at home with a long paid for solar system combined with free supercharging, no energy costs are included, which is unrealistic for the majority of owners.
Purchase price including tax was $101,000 for a total of approximately $128,000 ($101,000 + $19,000 + $80000) in expenses.
The current resale value from a quick look online is around $20,000, reducing the costs to $108,000 resulting in a cost of ownership to be about 85 cents / mile ($108,000/127,000 miles).
Battery
I am a bit worried about what to do if the battery completely fails. I have heard a variety of quotes for replacement costs of batteries that range start at $14,000 with a remanufactured pack from Tesla. A company in Arizona will sell you a refurbished one for $5,000 but you have to ship the car there.
Next Car
What will be my next electric car when the time comes? I ironically would ideally like some contradictory features: more range, 4WD or AWD, and a smaller physical car. I also prefer for the next vehicle not to be an early adopter and let someone else work out the kinks of a new car model.
Although initially I was enthusiastic about Tesla, my enthusiasm has waned significantly. I don’t like interacting with service only through an app, and I am not a fan of Elon Musk.
About two months ago I started to have problems charging my car. I would sporadically get a few warnings the most common being “Charge cable not fully secured. Please adjust the connection to improve charging.”
The problems occurred a bit sporadically and started to increase over time. I didn’t document every step of the process in detail over the last two months, but this blog post serves as my general recollection.
Initially I scheduled an appointment in the app to have the car fixed a few weeks later, but at one point I simply could not charge the car at all. I tried charging at home and at a supercharger. I was quite low on the battery and instead of risking another towing challenge, I drove straight to the service center. For some reason, the car would charge at the service center, and low and behold it began charging again at home after a couple of attempts.
The car would continue to struggle to charge and would issue warnings in the app but would eventually charge overnight.
The service center was convinced that I first needed to upgrade the CPU. The car is nine years old and I do understand that technology has changed dramatically. I was not excited to pay the $2250 for an upgrade that I did not really want. Yes, the car was a bit slow to turn on and was not particularly fast to respond, but it was not really a problem. They pretty much told me that they almost could not diagnose my charging issues without this upgrade. I figured well I want to keep this car for another five years or so, I may as well upgrade the CPU.
As has been well reported the world is experiencing a chip shortage, and my appointment was pushed out twice until the local service center could install the new ‘infotainment package’. Calling a CPU upgrade an infotainment package is confusing and misleading. I have no interest in playing games or videos on my screen. I also was not thrilled about losing the AM radio. I no longer listen to AM radio, but my town broadcasts on the AM radio during an emergency and I would lose the ability to easily do that in my car. I’ll have to evacuate with a handheld AM radio or drive an ICE.
The total bill came to be $2926 for the CPU upgrade and the new physical charge port, which was fortunately only $102 in parts. The service took several days as they need to check all the wiring and connections to make sure the car completely works.
A couple of weeks went by and the car was successfully charging. I ‘dared’ to drive a little further and planned on topping off at a supercharger. Much to my surprise I could not! I contacted the Tesla supercharger support so they could note that I could no longer charge on my record.
Luckily I did have enough charge to make it home. To my surprise, I could charge the car at home that same evening.
But a day later, I could no longer charge at home. The car started issuing new warnings and the physical charge port color turned to red.
I scheduled yet another appointment for a couple of weeks later even when the car was technically not drivable beyond a very limited range.
The next diagnoses was that the car needed a new Master Charger. This second service cost a total of $2930. So basically another $6,000 sunk into the car to keep it running. In July I spent another $6,000 for a new drive unit for a total of $12,000 in 2022. Maintaining this older Tesla has been quite expensive this year. I am hoping I am at the end of all the major parts that need replacing. There currently is not another electrical vehicle on the market that particularly interests me. I would like a small vehicle with a very long range, but I’m also intrigued by the capabilities of the Rivians. I will likely wait another five years unless something appears in the market with some intriguing features.
I have mixed reviews about Tesla Service. I find all the folks quite pleasant when you talk to them in person, but the staff does seem to have very high turnover. I dislike only being able to communicate through the app. Many times when you text them through the app they take a long time to get back to you — even several days. If the Service Advisor texts you and you respond immediately, they will typically respond a day later. If you ask more than one question, they often only answer only one question. I suspect the Service Advisors are simply way overworked.
Being able to talk to a Service Advisor on the phone to me is a requirement. Long detailed explanations do not work well over texting particularly with Tesla’s terrible responsiveness. My ICE dealer provides much better service.
Also, Tesla Service no longer emails you the invoice and record of what happened on your car. You need to remember to download it from the app during the service. If you have another service, the older record is gone from the app. I had to request them to email me the older invoice multiple times, as it appears that they can’t send the invoices from their standard email accounts.
The last service appointment took a week to complete and I realized I forgot something in the car as I did not expect such slow service. The car was scheduled to be complete on the Friday after Thanksgiving and I was in the neighborhood so I stopped in, and they informed me I would most likely receive the car in a couple of hours as it was undergoing the final test. I was quite surprised that they did not inform me through the app.
I have found the best way to talk to the Tesla Service Advisors is simply to stop in. Trying to communicate through the app can be quite frustrating. In my limited experience someone will talk to you in a reasonable amount of time if you just show up in person.
It took me a while to decide to upgrade the electronics on my car for a better cell connection. The Tesla is now 9 years old with 114,000 miles. But honestly the car is just fine and the items I am most interested in upgrading are quite small (CarPlay and a physically smaller car), or quite expensive (a giant battery giving around 300+ miles of range).
The 3G capability of the car was getting quite unreliable. About half the time it could not connect at all. At times having the traffic data on the screen is quite useful, and other times being able to find a new place on the map was helpful by name and not by address.
I was also experiencing another problem that I was informed was related to the old electronics. The car would take quite a while to wake up. Since installing the new electronics, the car wakeup time is not instantaneous but it feels faster than before. I never measured the amount of time, so this observation may be inaccurate.
AT&T has decided to completely discontinue the 3G network, and Tesla notified us that we needed to do the upgrade. I finally caved in and had the service done, which must occur at a service center. The final bill was $218.
After 4 1/2 years, I got another warning light that my 12 Volt battery needed replacing.
I have to admit, I love Tesla Roadside service. I scheduled an appointment for a week out. Every few hours I checked the app for an earlier appointment and I eventually got a next day appointment. I think a fair number of customers reschedule appointments, so its pretty easy to get an earlier time slot.
The service person was kind and efficient as always and wore a mask in the open garage. He even checked the wear on my tires. They are holding up after 6,000 miles very nicely at 8.5/32 on all four tires. I am planning to go in for my free rotation at the tire shop regardless.
Although the service was excellent, he couldn’t tell me where the 2nd key fob is. I figure someday it will show up in a pocket somewhere.
On a bit of a whim, I decided to try a different brand of tires, Hankook. This brand runs about 70% of the cost of more conventional brands but are not as high rated in terms of performance or wear.
When driving on the tires, I generally found them to be just fine. I think only in one situation during their lifetime, I thought “gosh these tires are underperforming”, so from a performance point of view they served their purpose just fine.
During this experiment, I meticulously checked the tire pressure monthly and added air as needed and rotated them twice around 6K of mileage. But because of the pandemic and limited ability to travel, probably more driving was done on hilly and curvy roads than normal. These types of road are far more enjoyable than freeway or conventional straight and flat roads. But driving on steep grades and windy roads is hard on tires.
I was hoping the tires would last, but I went to have them rotated again at 16.5K miles, and they were completely worn out. All four tires measured 3/32 and the left rear inside sidewall was at the sketchy dangerous level. Again inside toe issues but at a tolerable level.
The last set of tires on my 19” wheels lasted 23K miles. The rough math is that the $/mile ends up being basically the same for both sets. When I had 21” wheels, the four tire sets averaged 16,400 miles each.
My new set of tires is now the factory Michelin primacy tires with a 45,000 mile warranty. I’ll probably rotate them as frequently but I doubt I’ll keep up with the super regular tire pressure checks. I wonder how long these will last.
TESLA OWNER 