 So how much does a Tesla Model 3 really cost? Well, I bought my Model 3 in July of 2019. It is currently December of 2019. So after about six, well, almost six months of ownership, it's the end of December right now. I want to talk about what I paid for it, what it actually costs to operate, and what some of the future costs of operating are gonna be. So first we'll start with the bill of sale here so I can tell you the exact price, not some sales gimmick, not some rebate, or whatever, the rebates are separate. These are the out-of-pocket costs of this vehicle. And with all the little fees and total government fees A through F, we came up with a total cost out-of-pocket, not financed or anything, just what you have to pay for the vehicle, $52,951. So that is the total cost to own this vehicle. Now, what vehicle is it exactly? And we'll jump through that real quick. So this is the Tesla Model 3 long range. This is what I have. Mine was black. The current default color is white. Whenever you change change from default, they do go up in price. So 322 mile range, 145 mile an hour top speed, 4.40 to 60 time. Go over here, select color. Like I said, white is default, black is an upsell. It wasn't an upsell when I got it, so mine came in black. I do like the black interior that I have here. I did skip the full self-driving capability, which is a few extra features and other $7,000. So I just have the standard autopilot. And that brings you right now to purchase price of $48,990 right here in December of 2019 with an estimated delivery of five to eight weeks. I did get my car a lot faster than that. And my understanding is generally they deliver them faster than the estimates. And you do buy direct from Tesla on their website, and especially if you're here in Michigan and they don't have dealerships here in Michigan due to a direct sales rule that, whatever, it's stupid. I'm not gonna argue about that right now, but yes, our automotive lobby to stop Tesla from having dealerships here. Let's go to how I know the energy costs of this vehicle. What did it cost me to operate the last 10,000 miles in several months of ownership of this? Well, I bought a box called the juice box and it allows me to get all the stats I like. And we have this first stat we need is how much does DTE charge per kilowatt hour? Well, 0.069 when charging off peak. So you throw that number in here. And we can see like on December 19th, I spent $3.41 charging $1.17 there, $1.58 here, et cetera. And let's look at the last couple of months. So I got it towards the end of July and so I didn't spend much in electricity, but for August, we spent $32, $18 in September, 27 October, November was cold and you do spend a little bit more money heating, warming the car, therefore, even if I don't drive as many miles, you spend a little bit more charging it. But so for the month, I spent $44 and this far in December, $33. But those don't mean anything until you talk about it. How many miles I drove, so let's break that down. Now, I put a number in here for superchargers, but I didn't actually pay for them because I have a bunch of free supercharging miles with the car right now. But if I were to have paid for it, it would have cost me about $35 for superchargers when I do roadships. And when I charge it at the office here, $316 at my office since I've got the car. And that brings me to a total of $351. And $9,481 miles in December, and $9,481 miles. And if I were to calculate how much fuel it would have cost, such as coincidence, the gas cost would have been 9, 4, 8, 10. It means I saved about $600 based on a vehicle and this is where we got the fuel calculation from. This is a vehicle, trip distance, fuel efficiency, gas fuel price. That means that was what you would have spent. Now, I'm assuming because my old vehicle, my old vehicle actually, so let's do what my old vehicle got, which was 30 miles to the gallon. So if we were to compare it to my old vehicle, it would have been 790. So let's go ahead and throw that number in there, which my other vehicle is a little bit smaller. I don't think it was quite as roomy as my Model 3, but let's put that in there of 790. And I saved $438 just in 10,000 miles in fuel costs. So that gives you an idea of just how much it is to maintain the Tesla in terms of fuel versus gasoline. You're not just trading costs, it is a more efficient vehicle and it is cheaper to operate on electricity. Now, what about if I had a vehicle that got 65 miles to the gallon? You'd have to get that many miles to the gallon and I know there are certain cars out there that do get some really high mileage, those tiny little smart for two cars. They don't quite get 65, but if you had a vehicle that got that level of gas mileage, that's where you would have kind of a break-even point, but the average car does not get 65 miles per gallon. What about other maintenance costs? Well, I'm right from the car maintenance page from Tesla, there's not really everything besides a cabin filter every two years, and a brake fluid test in six years for service, that's really it. And why am I bringing all this up? Well, I want to give a total cost of ownership. In 10,000 miles on your traditional gasoline engine or diesel vehicle, more expensive actually if you're diesel, you'd have gone through several oil changes to hit that 10,000 mile mark. Those oil changes roughly, depending on where you go, $50, $60 for oil change, I know there are some places that have discounts, but let's just stick that price in there. What about other filters? Well, you still have an air filter on a vehicle that I don't have, so you have to replace that as well. And then in the bigger arching, what about brakes? Yes, brakes, it does have traditional brakes in the Tesla, but they're rarely used because of regen braking. When you let off the accelerator panel, the energy goes back into the battery to slow down the car. It basically puts the motor in reverse and regenerates that energy versus the normal car, just clamps on the brakes and wastes that away as heat. You can do that at a Tesla. It does have traditional brakes in case there's any failure. So you aren't completely, you know, drive by wire here. You can press the brake pedal, but because you don't press them very often, they last roughly 200,000 miles versus a traditional car. You're gonna change several sets of brakes at quite the expense, unless you're doing them yourself, of course. It is expensive to do a brake job on a car, reasonably priced, but compared to a Tesla, which has it every 200,000 miles, you're saving quite a bit of money there. And there's really not anything else to maintain, but someone's gonna point out, but yeah, the big trade-off is that battery. How long is that battery gonna last you, Tom? Batteries in Tesla, these Model 3, the chemical formula that makes that battery seem to be lasting about 350 to 500,000 miles. The cars haven't been around long enough to see a ton of stats, but people who have some really high mileage are reporting degradation of the battery being at roughly 5% at 200,000 miles. 5%, what that means is instead of going 320-something miles at 200,000 miles, my car will only probably get about 15 to 20 miles less of range. So at 200,000 miles, the car will still be as fast, it will still be as efficient, but it's going to lose about 5% of its range as in 15 miles less on a full charge. Not that much versus at about 200,000 miles, you're thinking about transmissions, you're thinking about engine overhauls. I know when I did have a lot of miles in some of my other cars, they lasted 250 without any real engine mechanical problems, but traditionally any gasoline engine car, at some point you start looking at those high mileage cars and go, it's time to trade it in versus a Tesla, you're looking at 250,000, 350,000 miles and going, okay, now it's lost maybe 10% of its range, so it's now 30 miles range at over 300,000 miles. And the battery is replaceable at a cost less than generally a rebuilt motor cost and there's no transmission, so you're kind of foregoing that cost. Now the motors themselves, there's a lot of people I've talked about and there's a lot of the Model S out there and I just seen one turn over a million miles on it. It's amazing how long some of the motors last on the Tesla. There's less moving parts, there's less to go wrong so they generally should last quite a long time in terms of plenty of life on the car. So we're gonna have to wait and see just how many miles you can last on a Tesla, but there's a good chance that electric cars overall will be on the road from the time of purchase a much longer time than a traditional gasoline vehicle. But I wanted to break down those costs, the energy costs and the cost of ownership of the vehicle. It does have a slightly higher initial price at $55,000 and maybe a similar small sedan that's gonna be offset though pretty quickly based on how much you drive over time, the fact that you're gonna save on oil changes, save on filter changes and electricity unless there's a dramatic increase in electricity or you'll save more if there's a dramatic increase in fuel. Fuel prices have been low but we did see some spikes several years ago if they spike up the cost savings actually get greater. I don't really see fuel costs going down way below the 250 a gallon that we pay here in Michigan. They've been pretty steady for a little while but obviously those variables are out there and something else to consider. But overall it is inexpensive on. I'm super happy with the car after 10,000 miles. I have no buyers remorse or regrets. And for those who may be wondering, yes, I couldn't resist. It did have an option to upgrade the speed. So 4.4 seconds is what you can buy the car at. They do have an upgrade to bring it down to about 3.9 seconds and yes, I did buy that upgrade. So it doesn't quite bring it to performance mode but it does add a little bit more speed. That was another update that did cost a few dollars but hey, that's something else I couldn't resist. I mean, I was enticed by it and the car already is pretty fast. The performance on it has been really good and why not tweak it a little bit more? It just puts a smile on my face every time we talk about it and thanks.