Tesla is a very popular company that makes all electric cars. One criticism the company faces is that its cars are too expensive. Tesla is working on a cheaper model but that’s not expected to hit the market until next year at the very least. A Tesla Model S can cost customers nearly $100,000 so most of them would no doubt want to save up somewhere else. A Model S owner claims to have driven his electric car free for 18 months. He’s taking into account all costs related to maintenance and fuel, electricity in the Tesla’s case, his calculations show all of that didn’t cost him a penny.
The owner, who goes by LeonardV on Tesla Motors official forum, purchased the Model S in California back in September 2013 at the $96,000 list price. He then got a $7,500 Federal tax credit and $2,500 California rebate since it was a new electric car. This effectively brought down the purchase price to $86,000.
His Model S now has 53,000 miles on the dial and the owner believes it can be sold for $77,000. That’s a depreciation of $9,000 from the price after incentives. $2,400 is added to the cost though through the 2 percent APR on the car’s loan during the ownership period.
He didn’t have to pay for charging since the garage he parked his Model S at offered charging for free. On longer trips he used Tesla’s free Supercharger fast charging stations.
The car did visit a Tesla service center for free tire rotations and warranty repairs but the owner claims to have paid nothing for servicing over the years. This might not adhere to Tesla’s service recommendations and obviously relies on how the car is driven.
This leads the owner to conclude that he has been able to drive his Model S free for 18 months, according to his estimates, he would have spent $9,300 on fuel and $2,200 on maintenance if he were driving a car with an internal combustion engine instead over the same period of time and over the same distance.
Obviously not everybody is going to have this result with their Tesla car. If anything LeonardV’s claims show that if an electric car owner can be smart about it, they can end up saving quite a bit of money.
Filed in . Read more about Electric Cars, Model S and Tesla. Source: venturebeat