- Okay, next I wanna talk about something that,
you know, I kinda want to...
I feel like I wanna join these guys sometimes.
I wanna hang out, I wanna talk,
maybe it'll happen in the future.
Right now, we're not there but Edmunds.com,
who I have a lot of respect for,
recently posted a video where they were asking the question,
do you really need all that electric range?
And they were comparing the Chevy Bolt,
the Nissan Leaf 2018 40 kilowatt hour version,
and the Tesla Model 3.
So, this is just a round table discussion
and they're just talking about it,
and they had some good points.
Some of them, some of the points were that you really don't,
you really don't need much more than say 150 miles,
which is what the Nissan Leaf Second Gen currently is at,
and that, you know, beyond that,
long-range travel just really is difficult and so,
you know, we shouldn't be thinking of EVs like that.
You should still have a gas car
if you wanna go on a road trip,
and I just, I disagree with that.
I think long-range travel in EVs is totally possible
given the supercharger network,
and, you know, many other new networks
that are coming online,
as well as cars like the Tesla Model Three
with over 300 miles of range.
But, you know, the way they were looking at it,
the way they were breaking it down was essentially
making a case for the Chevy Bolt and the Nissan Leaf
because they're cheaper than the Model Three,
and they have enough range
and I guess I agree in some sense.
If your sole purpose in getting an EV
is to have a nice commuter car that's really efficient
and saves you a lot of money,
is gonna last a long time, I get it.
I was actually in the boat of looking to buy a Nissan Leaf
before I bought my Tesla.
Completely happy with the decision I went with,
but I just wanted to bring some data to that discussion
because I think that they missed a few points,
or maybe I just wanted to add some thoughts on it.
And one was the actual cost per mile,
and let me make sure you guys can see this.
So, I pulled in some data here as, you know, I kind of do,
and what I found was that if you look at the cost per mile
of these EVs, the Chevy Bolt,
the Nissan Leaf 2018 40 kilowatt hour version,
not the 60 kilowatt hour version,
which I don't think is officially released.
Let me sort this for you.
And then the Tesla Model Three Standard,
and then the Tesla Model Three Long Range.
Actually, let me sort these.
So, from lowest to highest,
the Tesla Model Three Long Range,
which has a cost of 44,000 dollars, right,
it's the 35,000 dollar base model
plus the 9000 dollar upgrade to the long range battery,
with a range of 310 miles you're at 142 dollars per mile.
So, that is actually the cheapest option here.
It is the most economical of these vehicles.
The Chevy Bolt comes in at a retail of 37,000,
the Tesla Model Three Standard at 35,000
when we'll see that, maybe next year sometime,
and then the Nissan Leaf.
It is the cheapest one overall,
however, it is the most expensive
if you break it down on cost per mile
and now you could probably argue like,
hey, I chose these metrics 'cause it makes Tesla look better
and whatever and all I care about is that monthly payment.
And I think that's fair that if your only focus is
is it a functional car that will get me to work and back
and save on gas and save on maintenance
and be safe and convenient and just generally a good car,
I think the Nissan Leaf 2018 is actually a great option.
I do think, I do recommend it, right.
It looks better, I think.
I haven't driven it but I got to see it up close
at one of their events and it's cool, I think it's fine.
So, I'm not dissing on the Nissan Leaf,
I'm not dissing on the Chevy Bolt,
all I'm saying that is if you're looking at
what you get for your dollar,
the Tesla Model Three Long Range is the best option.
This is also why if you are waiting
on your Tesla Model Three
or maybe you're waiting on that Standard battery,
I encourage you to get the Long Range.
If you can get the Long Range
before the tax credit runs out in the US,
then that also will help with this.
So, I just wanted to do some really simple math here
and bring that to this discussion.
I think it was an important discussion that they had.
I would've loved to have been part of it
because I think there's some factors like this
that maybe they didn't consider,
and maybe that's because
I'm just so deep into kinda the data behind it
and that's just generally how I look at things.
So, to answer the question though,
how much range do you really need,
I think it depends on your situation,
what you're gonna use it for.
And also, the thing to consider is charging.
Now I did a recent analysis on that here,
where you can see that the Model Three charging costs.
Now, I looked at my rates in California and these do...
And I have other tools I'm gonna show you
to make it local for you guys,
that at home I was getting 22 cents,
or this would be the cost if didn't have solar.
A public network, I checked three of the largest ones
that are available here in Southern California.
They were 25 to 60 cents per kilowatt hour.
The Tesla Supercharger, it was 20 cents, now it's 26 cents,
and then there's some free options,
Volta, it's a company that has a startup
where they do free charging
and they show you an ad on this big screen
while you're waiting.
Kinda cool, kinda crazy, I kinda like it.
But anyways, so that's 0,
but, again, it's very difficult and very,
you know, those things are packed and always in use,
so it's hard to find them and use them.
And then if you add solar,
my cost was around nine cents per kilowatt hour.
So, when you think about charging,
whether it be a Model Three or any other EV,
these are kind of your options here, right.
These are kind of the different ways.
So, home-charging is gonna be your best bet.
It's gonna be the most convenient
and generally the cheapest.
If you can get solar, then that's,
it'll offset the cost and make it even cheaper,
and also it'll make it even more economical to get solar.
And then you have your Superchargers if you have a Tesla,
or you have public networks if not.
So I think, like, there are many, many options
and so when you are looking at an EV,
thinking about how much range you need,
these also come into play, right.
If you have a home charger,
then you don't necessarily need a ton of range,
'cause every day you're gonna be totally topped up,
ready to go.
If you don't have a home charger,
and you're having to charge with a wall outlet
or only public options,
then it may be a little bit more difficult.
So you may wanna opt for an EV with longer range,
like the Tesla Model Three Standard, the Chevy Bolt,
or the Tesla Model Three Long Range.
So, those are like, your charging situation plays a factor,
I think, in how much range you actually need.
So, it's something that each individual
is gonna have to answer for themselves
and that's kinda why I'm trying to
provide some sense here and some data
and some thoughts behind this.
So, I have a few tools for you to help figure this out.
So, they're all in teslanomics.co
and I'll just kinda walk you through them here.
Let me kinda zoom in
so you can see them a little bit better.
So, the first one that I made is called the
Monthly Charging Cost Calculator.
So you choose your state and I'm in California,
and then you choose your driving style.
I'm gonna leave it as fast/aggressive,
'cause this plays into the efficiency of the vehicle.
And then you have the miles driven,
so 800 is about what I drive,
I think most people drive about 1300 a month,
so you can punch that in, hit refresh, hit enter,
whatever you gotta do
and then it'll give you your estimated monthly cost.
Now, this is using the average price in that state
and so I'm also using some kind of forecast
and stuff like that and so this data may vary depending on
if you have a different plan at your local,
your actual energy company and some like here in San Diego,
they actually offer different rates for EVs,
so there's a lot of nuances here
but this is just to give you a general idea
of how much you'll pay in your charging costs
and you can then compare that on this next tool that I built
to what gas would cost to go that same distance.
Now you may already know, right,
you can just look at your budget and your data
and see how much money you're actually saving
but if you're unsure about that,
I kind of built it in here in this other tool
which is the Fuel Savings Calculator.
Now, this one, again, you choose your state,
you choose your driving style,
I have a misspelling there I'll have to go fix,
how many miles per month, the percent of Supercharger use.
Most people don't use Superchargers at all
because they're either packed, you have to pay for them,
all these kind of things, but so,
I put it at about 15 percent assuming a lot of folks
with Model Threes will want to do this from time to time,
and your current miles per gallon,
so I defaulted that to 30, which is kind of high
compared to the national average,
and then you can see essentially each different state
what you're looking at in terms of your monthly savings.
Here you're saving about 100 bucks,
over a year almost 12,000 bucks, it's a 64% savings.
So this is using the latest gas prices from GasBuddy
and energy rates from the EI...
Sorry, the Energy Information Administration.
So I'm trying to just simplify it for you, right,
so you don't have to even do that, you just,
I'm pulling the data from the Standards
and it's gonna be a little different, right,
for each individual depending on where you live,
but in general you can see here.
So, other states like Nevada, you'll be saving 76%,
so maybe you wanna move to Nevada, I don't know.
So anyways, so that's the second one,
is the Fuel Savings Calculator.
And then the last one I wanted to
bring up here was the Supercharger rates.
So if you're curious about a road trip,
you can use this, this tool here, to kind of plan that out.
Now this is a little bit crazy but the way it works is
every state here is listed with the Supercharger rates
and the Supercharger rates do vary, they're different tiers
and some do it by time versus by amount,
but I tried to normalize that out
to give you just an average and general sense of it
and so on this if you wanted to you could say,
okay, I'm gonna travel 2700 miles.
My starting charge is 270 miles worth of range
and I'm gonna go from California.
I'm gonna hold command on my Mac
and I'm gonna drive all the way through, let's see,
I'm gonna go to Illinois,
then I'm gonna go over here.
Is that Indiana, oh man,
and then I think that's maybe Ohio, then Pennsylvania
and I'm gonna land in New York.
So if I wanted to drive,
so the way this kind of tool works is
if I wanted to drive from California
all the way across to New York,
and if this amount of miles was correct,
I'd pay about close to 200 dollars,
and the effective rate would be 20 cents per kilowatt hour.
So this tool kind of just normalizes that out
so you can kind of plan those things and have fun
so, again, back to the discussion around
how much range do you need, that's why I build these tools,
'cause I think that that is an important discussion
and you need data and tools like this
to help make that decision.
So, there you have it,
I'll put links to all these in the description.
You can also find them all on my website at teslanomics.co.
So I hope that helps you guys
and I hope you're able to kind of make that decision.
Again, I do think that the Tesla Model Three Long Range
is the best choice.
Not only is it the longest, the best price per mile,
but just, I mean,
I'll go like a week without having to charge.
I like very, it kind of just,
not only eliminates range anxiety,
it's like I don't even think about it hardly at all so.
There you go, hope that helps you guys in deciding
what car is best for you.