TL;DR: Tesla has substantially higher tire maintenance costs compared to other cars in its class, or even compared to the RAV4 Hybrid.

Tire-related maintenance and replacement costs for Tesla vehicles are so much more than with a conventional vehicle the same size, it negates much of the cost savings the Tesla’s low-maintenance powertrain design offers.

This ends up as a wash, all those (cheap) oil-changes may add up to some costs by 100,000 miles, but the amount of wear-and-tear on a Tesla’s tires more than makes up for the cost and then some.

Tesla’s Model Y has a 100,000-mile maintenance cost estimate between $8,250 for base trims and $15,000 for the performance trim. This does not include repairs. By comparison, a Toyota Highlander in the Car Talk fleet had a 100,000-mile maintenance and repair cost of $14,029. A Honda Accord had a 100,000-mile maintenance and repair cost of $7,684. If there is a cost advantage to Tesla with regard to maintenance and repair, we cannot find it.

  • skip0110@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Yes, then factor in higher insurance, higher depreciation, and the one time costs to install a home charger, and anything saved on fuel quickly evaporates.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.worldOPM
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      9 months ago

      and the one time costs to install a home charger,

      My home has my breaker box inside of the garage. So my home charger should be very cheap to install. Under $1k is what I expect.

      But a good friend of mine has a breaker box on the other side of the house compared to his garage. It’d be a lot of fishing wires through the drywall to install a new 220V line… I think some people were talking $3k or so for installation costs.

      One cool thing about PHEVs is that 110V is more than enough to get ~50 mi of charge per night (4mi / hour charge * 12 == 48mi or so of charge). L2 chargers are still nice so that you can get a faster charge if you make multiple trips in a day (ex: go to the grocery store, come back, charge a bit, go to Church or something, I dunno…). So I think L2 still is worthwhile. But its not needed on PHEV. After all, if you ever run out of electricity, just fill up at a gas station.