First, welcome to the forum....
I am not sure which SUV you were looking at... but I will challenge you on it costing the same... but then again I have a Honda Pilot...
I looked at some real world info on electricity use... found one that gave info on 15K miles of driving a Tesla... a quick calculation at 12cents per KWH gives total 'fuel' cost of $761... My pilot gets about 20 mpg and has much more cargo room than a Tesla... so fuel is about $1677 @ 2.20 per gallon (both are cheaper here in Texas).... from the blog I found...
To cover 15,243 miles, I used 5,074 kWh of electricity, for an average of 333 watt-hours per mile. That's a bit better than the car's EPA-rated efficiency of 350 Wh/mi, and converts to precisely 3 miles per kWh.
So, for about 15K miles it cost $916 more in fuel... convert that to 100K miles I would be paying $6100 extra for fuel... throw in a few oil changes and some other filters and that will still be less than $10K extra total spend for service for 100,000 miles... assume tires are about the same, but that could be off...
If you were not looking at a $90K SUV option then they are not essentially the same...
I am not saying that you do not like your car or your purchase, but only that your claim seems bogus to me... BTW, I paid $35K for my Pilot so I have a long way to go to get to your total spend... mine is not as nice as yours, but pretty nice... and I can tow my boat!!!
BTW, we have taken a number of long distance trips (and will be doing another next month) that we could not do easily in a Tesla... with my DW and I we have actually driven from Daytona Beach to Houston with only stopping for gas and a quick stretch every few hours... that is about 1,000 miles...
Thanks for the welcome!
I only made this claim for my situation in my location at the time (Summer 2012). I never claimed nor guaranteed it applies for everyone at any location. I considered at a Honda/Toyota/Chrysler minivan, and only briefly considered a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm going to try to keep a friendly, non-defensive tone, but for fun, I'll entertain your challenge to show I'm not spewing garbage to artificially make a "bogus" point. I actually had detailed spreadsheets that I tweaked and agonized over for months before making the decision.
For me, these were the variables:
$4.00/gal for gas (Conservative because at the time, it was $4.50 in the Bay Area and was above $4 since 2010. Fluctuates a lot -- had to pick a number.)
Electricity at home is $0.10/kWh (Conservative because it's only $0.08/kWh at work, and a small percentage would be free at public stations and Superchargers)
Annual mileage is 22,000 miles (Conservative because we're closer to 25,000 for most years)
Vehicle ownership is 10 years (Conservative for us. At the time, our newest car was 10 years old, the oldest was 12 years old. We eventually kept these cars until they were 12 and 14 years old. Would've been older if it weren't for the new electric cars replacing them)
So, taking these conservative estimates:
22,000 miles x 10 years = 220,000 miles
220,000 miles / 3.5 miles per kWh = 62,857 kWh
62,857 kWh x 10 cents per kWh =
$6,287 in fuel cost over ten years
And taking your MPG experience from your Pilot:
22,000 miles x 10 years = 220,000 miles
220,000 miles / 20 miles per gallon = 11,000 gallons
11,000 gallons x $4 per gallon =
$44,000 in fuel cost over ten years
Difference in fuel cost would be: $44,000 - $6,287 =
$37,713 difference
According to Honda's website, base MSRP for all Pilot trim levels with no other options ranges from $30,745 to $47,220 (I don't know what year your car is, but your $35K fits in this range). Tesla Model S at introduction was $57,500 for the 40kWh, $10k more for the 60kWh, and another $10k more for the 85kWh -- No other options selected.
The cost of ownership of the Pilot + fuel would be in the range of
$74,745 to $91,220
The cost of ownership of the Model S + fuel would be in the range of
$63,787 to $83,787
These are rough, but conservative numbers. I admit that I didn't count things like oil changes, smog check, and other maintenance cost for the Pilot. I also didn't count things like the difference in sales tax at the time of purchase of the more expensive Tesla.
And what's even more compelling for my situation is that I haven't counted the incentives for the Tesla. Financially, it's $7,500 Federal tax credit, $2,500 California state rebate (check), and $500 PG&E clean energy Rebate. Also, single-occupancy HOV access means daily bridge toll savings of 50% ($2.50 per day) and time savings which is hard to put a price on. Subtract these, and you can see that at a high-level, in my use-case, the price of the highest-capacity battery Tesla approaches the cost of the lowest-priced Pilot.
A very important point is that the price of gas really fluctuates a lot, so I didn't have any delusions that this was ever going to be a real-world accurate projection of the price difference 10 years into the future. All other variables have held pretty true. I think gas prices have dropped a bit, but even so, it's not super-dramatic. I checked the history on Texas' average gas prices and it was around $3.50 from late-2010 to 2014. I think I would've come to similar (albeit slightly less favorable) conclusion had I done the math while living in Texas in 2012.
One more thing... I don't think you're purposely trying to mislead about the Pilot having "much more cargo room" than the Tesla Model S without any qualifications. I assume you're just making a blind assumption because the Tesla looks like a sleek sedan. In reality, it's more nuanced than that and it's worth explaining.
According to
Honda's website, the Pilot claims 16.5 cu ft or 18.5 cu ft with all 3 rows of seats up (8-passengers). With 2 rows of seats up (4-passengers), that increases to 46.8 cu ft or 55.9 cu ft.. If you fold down the second row (2-passengers) this further increases to 83.9 cu ft or 109.0 cu ft.. I'm not sure why they give two numbers for each of these, do you know??
According to
Tesla's website, Model S has 31.6 cu ft with all seats up (5-passenger). This is split between the trunk and frunk. If you fold the rear seats (2-passenger), the cargo volume increases to 58.1 cu ft. Mine has a more spacious frunk because I have the early RWD model with a larger frunk. I also have to qualify this claim because if you opt for the 3rd row child seats on the Model S, you lose cargo capacity in the rear footwell at all times. And if you deploy the 3rd row seats (7-passenger, two of which are kids), you essentially lose all of the rear cargo room, leaving only the frunk at about 5 cu ft.
My point is that it's not cut-and-dry that the Pilot has more cargo space. And isn't it amazing? The fact that cargo space of a sleek full-size sedan with Cd 0.24 is even worthwhile to compare to a full size SUV is a testament to how the electric drivetrain allows for more efficient design and packaging.
