Tesla vs Gas: TRUE Charging Cost After 75,000 Miles

Tesla Model 3 total charging cost after 75,000 miles & 3 years

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0:00 Gas vs Charging
1:59 Home Charging
3:26 Total Electricity Used
4:48 Sponsor (Omaze)
6:05 Travel Charging
8:27 Total Charging Cost
9:40 Conclusion

According to Autolist, 2 of the top 4 reasons people don’t buy electric vehicles have to do with charging the car so I'll explain what my experience has been like to charge my fully electric Tesla Model 3 for the past 3 years + my total charging cost after 75,000 miles and compare it to gas costs. With my Tesla it’s great because it automatically charges overnight when electricity is at its cheapest (known as “off peak” electricity rate) and when I wake up, my car has enough battery charge to satisfy my daily driving needs. If you drive 50 miles or less during your daily driving you can probably get by with charging on a normal outlet, which on my Long Range Model 3 would regain about 5 miles of range per hour of charge. However, I drive over 400 miles a week so I needed a 240v NEMA 1450 outlet installed in my garage in order to charge my Tesla Model 3 at a rate of 30 miles per hour which can essentially charge the car from 0-100% in 10 hours. Unfortunately my breaker box is about the furthest it can possibly be from my garage so I had to hire an electrician to run cable alongside my house, under my yard, and into my garage which cost me $1300 right off the bat before I even got my car but I got a 30% tax credit which made my out of pocket cost $900. Some is lost along the way due to heat and other factors so the final amount of electricity that makes it into the battery is called “wall to wheels” efficiency and based on TeslaFi (an app used to track Tesla charging stats for owners) it says a 240-volt Tesla Wall Connector can average 94% efficiency. If we assume 94% wall to wheels efficiency we also have to consider phantom drain which is the electricity lost when an electric vehicle is parked while not plugged in to a charging outlet so for example every day for 8 hours my car is in a parking lot unplugged and it loses some charge over that period. I average about 2,000 miles per year for traveling on road trips which means 8% of my total miles are when traveling and 92% is from home charging. For home charging, my off-peak electricity rate is $0.07080 per kWh. 92% of the 20,728 kWh has been home charging which means I’ve spent about $1,350 on home charging so far + $54 on Supercharging so after 75,368 miles I’ve spent a total of $1,404 on charging. To that in perspective, if we consider a popular Tesla competitor from the same year, a 2018 BMW 3 series that averages 28 miles per gallon & also requires premium gasoline (which costs an average of $3.475 a gallon in my county) to drive that BMW the same amount of miles the fuel cost would be about $9,353. That's $8,000 in fuel savings after 3 years. I plan to keep my Tesla Model 3 for at least 10 years so if I keep this up, after another 7 years the savings could be close to $25,000 which could pay for a solar roof and allow me to charge for free for the rest of time. That's another advantage of an electric vehicle: it can be charged from 100% renewable energy.

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[lilwhitec]

Omg I started laughing so hard when he said that you could get a 240v charging station installed at your home for 100 dollars or less, you can't get a electrician to even show up to your house for 100 dollars

[mysteriousplankton]

Does this mean that if millions of people start charging their cars at night, it will eventually become a new peak period?

[PopsMdub]

Love how he says charging at hotels and other people's homes is free. Here's an idea though. I'll buy one and have my friend buy one. We'll charge overnight at each other's houses so it will be free for both of us! Damn, I knew it could work, just wasn't thinking about it right. Thanks for making me see the light.

[franciscoarmendariz]

I have a question for science people about carbon vs. lithium.
To my knowledge carbon monoxide from our cars turns into carbon dioxide when it mixes with O2. CO2 is recycled by trees, hence O2. Lithium is not recyclable. It's dumped possible underground. shouldn't technology be more on helping the process of changing CO2 to O2 and keep levels in the air even?

[kalehallman]

My concern is once the majority of vehicles on the road are electric, charging costs will increase exponentially.

[kith]

"California Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Cars Amid Power Grid Strain, " Now this was during a heat wave but is an indicator of things to come.

[ivptab]

When everybody gets an electric car, I like to see him do another video on how much it cost....then. Electricity still comes primarily from traditional fuels, something he conveniently left out.

[rjvanloon]

Let me point you to Germany, where some towns did away with all their diesel-powered busses for publiuc transport. Such a bus does about 190 miles on a full tank. They were replaced with electric busses. After a year they moved all the electric busses to a storage facililty and bought diesel-powered ones again. The reason is that on a full charge they only did about half that distance. That is, if the weather was good. But in winter they did maybe 1/3rd and it's not really feasible to have them sitting on a charger during the day for hours at a time. Also, the hilly regions brought down their range even more.
On top of that, intensive use means a lot more maintenance.
Your tesla looks nice, but you do a very limited amount of miles a week. Oh, and after 10 years with your tesla you may be looking at having to replace your battery, whcih basically will be as much as buying a new car.

[RocketRod]

In Australia they’re formulating a tax on EVs to offset the loss in revenue from fuel taxes 😬 Its coming mate 👍

[HypocriticYT]

Electric costs will double to pay for the same Taxes that fuel has. Government will Not let you drive without paying up.

[__documents]

The cost for the Tesla model 3 right now is closer to 50-60K, including taxes, shipping, charger, tag title etc. Very difficult to justify that up front money now that rebate amounts are shrinking.
You can get a nice 50-55 mpg hybrid for 30k. That's a whopping difference in up front costs that can take many years to recoop! Assuming you keep your EV for at least 5 years.

Also the idea that EV cars are better on the environment is a farce.
The mining, processing, and disposal of spent rare earth metals and the carbon emissions that come from the fossil fuel driven heavy industrial equipment used to mine them and bury spent materials is often left out of the conversation. And what about the environmental impact from the ocean going ships and on land trucking used to transport these materials?

The recycling of these EV batteries is just too costly at this point and it is cheaper to send the dead batteries and/or the remaining useless materials, even after recycling, to countries with little or no environmental standards where they are burned or buried. And that is exactly what is being done. Not very good for your health if you are a person who lives in, say, Thailand or China.

This also makes the US more reliant on China for a very very important part of everyday American life...the freedom to travel.
China who is the largest supplier of these rare earth metals have over 80% global market domination in this industry.
America has all but given up on the mining of rare earth metals and minerals precisely because of the fact that it poisons our environment and ground water. Many rare earth elements reside among mineral deposits with radioactive materials that can and do leach into the water table. NOT GOOD!

And don't get me started on the power generation increase that accompanies the surge (no pun intended) in EV charging. More coal/natural gas burning anyone?
Ask anyone in California about the pitfalls of too much reliance on power station output. Rolling blackouts are becoming more and more of a problem because of electrical energy demand.

My conclusion...
Buying a hybrid with a much smaller battery footprint than an EV is just as smart and environmentally safe as buying an EV but it's a lot cheaper. And...Gas prices will most certainly come back down when we get a decent president again.

I suppose that the answer is complex but the installation of solar power grids to supplement power generation is the best approach at this point. But don't forget that solar panels do not last for ever and they have toxic components that have to be disposed of as well.

[chriswhitehead]

Where does the electricity that you charge your vehicle com from? That is - is it generated from coal/gas powered electrical plant? If so you are still contributing to the greenhouse gas. How much does a battery replacement cost and how is the old battery ecologically taken care of?

[benndoverr]

I'm in California and when you go over "your" electric limit the price jumps up, then again and again as you use more. No bargain in CA.

[kens]

Another problem is if you don't own a house with a garage. You can fill up your gas tank in 5 minutes. A lot faster than going to a charging station and waiting for your 80% charge.

[deathbyvelocity]

Many issues with his comments about this.
So what happens if I go on a long trip that requires the battery to be recharged no less than 6 times? How long will I need ro wait for it to recharge? How often and how many charging stations are there? What happens if and when everyone has a battery powered vehicle. I guess recharging at home, at night won't be the optimal time any longer? What about the congressional hearing that are vetting out that to recharge a Tesla is 50% more than running your air conditioner at your home if you were using 5 AC units?
How much Coal and Oil from the power plants will it take to recharge everyone's battery power cars once we all go to this type of travel? Are we set up right now to go to this? If not, how long will it take to get there so no one is inconvenienced by switching over to battery powered travel?
Just a few of my questions here.

[mediastarguest]

The amount the vehicles cost has to be factored in too.
If a firm were able to build a vehicle that ran on fresh air which meant zero gas, oil or electricity costs but decided to price it at 150, 000 dollars - would it really be more economical than a run of the mill petrol engined car over a period of ten years or 120, 000 miles ?

[Sweetaccord]

You also forgot to mention the cost of replacing the battery. That's half the cost of the car.

[briangillick]

take aways from this video:
1. tesla has great fuel savings
2. andy's got a clean fresh ass

[michaelpistey]

Andy, it may help others to know that charging with the super charger is not recommended on an every day, or regular basis. It degrades the battery.
On the bidet, . I totally 100% agree. We have had one fir some 18 years and it is literally painful to do without.