If you read any articles on September vehicle sales in the automotive, financial, or general press, they all have two themes. One is that hurricanes artificially boosted demand for vehicles a year ago — this is a one-month impact. The other is that people are moving from cars to SUVs — this has been going on for years.
After seeing Elon Musk’s reply to Ryan McCaffrey’s offer to help educate new owners during the big delivery push for the end of Q3, I headed over to the Tampa delivery center on Sunday, September 23rd.
There are 8 major items in the Edmunds True Cost to Own figures: Depreciation, Taxes & Fees, Financing, Fuel, Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, and a possible Tax Credit. For this article, I’m only going to focus on how fuel costs compare between gas cars and electric vehicles (EVs). The other categories should not have much variation. I’ve owned electric cars for the last 7 years, and although they have fewer repairs than my gas cars, the few repairs that have been required have been more expensive.
If you have been waiting to get a deal on a Tesla Model 3, today is the day to call or go to your local service sales center and get a deal.
Editor’s note: Paul Fosse is the kind gentleman who eagerly drove his brand new Tesla Model 3 from Tampa to Sarasota, Florida, to let me test drive it. I later found out he was a software engineer and today realized he could provide great context and insight into software and hardware matters related to Tesla, Waymo, and others. His debut article is below, covering the insane Tesla Autopilot news coming out of Tesla’s quarterly conference call. Enjoy!
