{"id":4641,"date":"2016-02-14T19:07:51","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T09:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/?p=4641"},"modified":"2017-03-06T19:57:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T09:57:11","slug":"a-close-look-at-teslas-model-3-potential-cost-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/features\/a-close-look-at-teslas-model-3-potential-cost-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Close Look at Tesla&#8217;s Model 3 Potential Cost in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tesla&#8217;s Model 3 is supposed to be the &#8220;trickle-down&#8221; version of the awesome Model S we all want but can&#8217;t afford. With the Model 3&#8217;s reveal just a few weeks away on March 31st, I thought I&#8217;d explore some of the financial aspects pre-reveal, so I can decide whether or not to put a $1,000 deposit down, or wait for someone else to make an electric car I can afford.<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Model 3 reservations ($1000 down) will be accepted in Tesla stores on March 31 and online April 1<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/697678962588188672\">February 11, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>We know that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoguide.com\/auto-news\/2016\/02\/you-can-reserve-a-tesla-model-3-for-1000-starting-next-month.html\">Model 3 will start at US$35,000 in the USA<\/a>, before any government incentives. Tesla are nice guys and do pretty much a straight USD-AUD currency conversion on their cars, unlike other manufacturers who love to slap on an extra 10 or 20% just because we&#8217;re Australian. Anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>USD$1 is worth around AUD$1.40 lately, so at current pricing, you&#8217;re looking at the Model 3 having a price of $49,000. There&#8217;s always a little fluctuation buffer, let&#8217;s say 2% &#8211; which would bring the price bang on $50,000 (or a classic $49,990).<\/p>\n<p>Each state in Australia adds stamp duty to the sale of a new car &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/extranet.sro.vic.gov.au\/SRO\/SROCalcs.nsf\/mvehduty?OpenForm\" target=\"_blank\">in Victoria you can use this calculator<\/a> to work out the price. On a $50,000 car, the stamp duty is $1600.<\/p>\n<p>In Australia we pay GST on cars, which is 10% (at the moment &#8211; cunts up in Canberra might up this in the next year or so). 10% of $50,000 is $5,000.<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s registration, which in Victoria, changes depending where you live, which for me is $660.50.<\/p>\n<p>You also probably want the <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.teslamotors.com\/products\/high-power-wall-connector\" target=\"_blank\">Tesla Wall Connector<\/a> installed, so you can charge your car at home, faster than the 10A from a standard power socket. This is worth AU$900 but is free with the Model S. Dunno if they&#8217;ll continue that with the Model 3, but let&#8217;s assume they do. Tesla doesn&#8217;t include installation, the price of which will vary depending on your house. For me, I&#8217;m gonna guess is around $300-ish. Should just be a matter of adding a new circuit to the switchboard and running some wire through the roof into my garage &#8211; I&#8217;ve got 3 phase power too so shouldn&#8217;t be a problem load wise to achieve 40A.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$50,000 base<\/li>\n<li>$1,600 stamp duty<\/li>\n<li>$5,000 GST<\/li>\n<li>$660.50 rego<\/li>\n<li>$300 home charger install<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Total drive away price: $57,560<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If we expect a Model 3 to cost at least $57,560, we can start to compare it to other cars in regards to operating costs because even though the sticker price is high, the running costs are lower.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The big cost saving is the lack of a petrol burning engine. I drive ~30,000km\/yr and my current car (2014 Toyota Corolla) uses around 7L\/100km. Right now at my local servo E10 fuel goes for $1.07. If the price of fuel continues to hover at around $1.10\/L (which it looks like it will for the near future), that&#8217;s $2310\/yr.<\/p>\n<p>The Tesla&#8217;s fuel is electricity, which is cheap, but not free. I guess that the base model battery will have 60kWh of capacity (as per the Chevy Bolt), which is good for around 300km. I pay 15.76c\/kWh (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.simplyenergy.com.au\/home\/compare-energy-rates\/\">after discounts<\/a>) for electricity right now. So to buy 60kWh of energy will cost $9.45 for a full &#8220;tank&#8221; (~300km). Only $945\/yr to go 30,000km.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve got solar panels (like me), you&#8217;ll save money too of course, by charging when the sun is shining. To work out exactly how much you&#8217;d save is an exercise in futility. What I pay for power is calculated in 30 min intervals. So if in that 30min I generate 1.8kW and use 1kW, I&#8217;m credited for the 800W I exported. If I generate 1.5kW and use 2.5kW, I pay for the 1kW I used. On a sunny day, I&#8217;ll get around 30kWh of generated power &#8211; that&#8217;s the entire day. Enough for half a battery charge on a 60kW Tesla. Chances are most days you aren&#8217;t running the battery down to 0%. My average daily usage is ~85km, which would use about a third of the battery &#8211; 20kWh, which is less than I generate a day. However, if I&#8217;m out all day and come home at night, there&#8217;s no sun, so I&#8217;m sucking down electricity at grid rates (offset by the piddly 5c\/kWh feed in tariff). But yeah, solar power &amp; electric cars &#8211; the cost saving is almost impossible to estimate, so I won&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summarising fuel costs:<br \/>\nPetrol: 30,000km @ 7.7c\/km (7L\/100km consumption, $1.10\/L) = $2310\/yr<br \/>\nElectricity: 30,000km @ 3.15c\/km (30kWh\/100km consumption, 15.76c\/kWh) = $945\/yr<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>==<\/p>\n<p>The other cost of owning a car is maintenance. I drive around 30,000km\/year, which is 150,000km over 5 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teslamotors.com\/en_AU\/support\/service-plans\">Here&#8217;s Tesla&#8217;s service rates for the Model S, which I assume would be the same, or hopefully cheaper for the Model 3<\/a>. You can see it&#8217;s pretty pricey, so I&#8217;d skip the 20,000km service which is a piece of piss to do myself for under $50 if I can source the cabin air filter from somewhere and the 40,000km service can be done at any mechanic for $300 and do the other stuff myself for $50. It&#8217;s just changing brake fluid and servicing the AC which any competent mechanic can do.<\/p>\n<p>20,000km &#8211; $50<br \/>\n40,000km &#8211; $350<br \/>\n60,000km &#8211; $50<br \/>\n80,000km &#8211; $975<br \/>\n100,000km &#8211; $50<br \/>\n120,000km &#8211; $350<br \/>\n140,000km &#8211; $50<br \/>\nTotal: $1,875<\/p>\n<p>The Corolla, over 5 years of ownership, will need the following services. Prices after the initial 60,000km are taken from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lubemobile.com.au\/log-book-servicing.html\">Lube Mobile&#8217;s website<\/a>. No doubt, if I took it to a Toyota dealer, it&#8217;d cost even more.<\/p>\n<p>10,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\n20,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\n30,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\n40,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\n50,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\n60,000km &#8211; $140<br \/>\nend of fixed price service period<br \/>\n70,000km &#8211; $214<br \/>\n80,000km &#8211; $762<br \/>\n90,000km &#8211; $272<br \/>\n100,000km &#8211; $514<br \/>\n110,000km &#8211; $214<br \/>\n120,000km &#8211; $388<br \/>\n130,000km &#8211; $214<br \/>\n140,000km &#8211; $214<br \/>\n150,000km &#8211; $272<br \/>\nTotal: $3904<\/p>\n<p>So while the Tesla is cheaper, it&#8217;s not that much cheaper than the Toyota to make a big difference. On maintenance I&#8217;d save $1203 over the 5 years of ownership. Shame really, as that&#8217;s one of the things I was looking forward to most &#8211; no servicing! At least I can get away with taking it to the mechanic for 40,000km instead of every 10,000km.<\/p>\n<p>To summarise the total running costs:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nTesla<br \/>\n30,000km @ 3.15c\/km (30kWh\/100km consumption, 15.76c\/kWh) = $945\/yr<br \/>\nServicing over 5yrs\/150,000km ($1875) &#8211; $375\/y<br \/>\nTotal yearly cost for Tesla &#8211; $1320\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>vs.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nCorolla<br \/>\n30,000km @ 7.7c\/km (7L\/100km consumption, $1.10\/L) = $2310\/yr<br \/>\nServicing over 5yrs\/150,00km ($3904) &#8211; $780\/yr<br \/>\nTotal yearly cost for Corolla &#8211; $3090\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Model 3 only has a ~$1770\/yr advantage over the Corolla in terms of running costs. Over 5 years of owning the car, that&#8217;s just $8,850. Considering the Corolla costs $22,990 new (who&#8217;s the goose paying RRP?), adding on cost savings of $9,000 makes the Tesla &#8220;worth&#8221; $31,990.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, the Model 3 will likely be way nicer, even in base model form, than the Corolla. And the convenience of an EV for day to day driving will be great &#8211; always leaving the house with a full tank and less maintenance. But can I afford a $60,000 car when my current one is absolutely fine? For $60,000 that&#8217;s really the domain of a Mercedes A250, BMW 318i, Lexus IS200 or countless other entry level prestige cars I&#8217;d normally not give a rats arse about because I can&#8217;t justify the extra cost over a more conventional Toyota, Mazda, Kia or Hyundai. But a Tesla, man, I could treat myself and go against every cheapskate bone in my body.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s ultimately what the Model 3 will come down to &#8211; a really nice car that costs more than I can justify. If you&#8217;re in the market for a $60-$70k car anyways (which isn&#8217;t that uncommon &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/business\/australians-buy-more-mercs-than-fords-as-luxury-car-sales-surge-20160108-gm1vc6.html\">Mercedes Benz sold more passenger cars than Ford in 2015<\/a>!), the Tesla Model 3 is another car for the list that&#8217;ll be hard to look past.<\/p>\n[optin-cat id=5772]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tesla&#8217;s Model 3 is supposed to be the &#8220;trickle-down&#8221; version of the awesome Model S we all want&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"reckoner_social_message":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7604,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions\/7604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reckoner.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}