- A viewer wrote in asking me if a Tesla Model Three could handle a 200 mile per day commute. Which is crazy but I thought that would be a fun little experiment to see if it can really take it on. (techno music) So in order to look at this problem, there's a couple different ways and angles that you need to approach it from. So, I put together a little slide show here to kind of break this down for you. The first thing I wanted to look at was the actual commute and whether or not the car could physically make it on a 200 mile per day commute. So looking at the math of the commute itself, you're starting out at 200 miles of distance to cover which is an enormous amount every single day.

Some of you may do that and I wish you the best at finding new jobs because that is insane to me. Looking at the car, it gets about 280 miles on a charge. This is 90% of the actual 310 range for the Model Three Long Range Edition. And looking at this math it works out pretty easily. You've got 80 miles of range left at the end of the day, nothing to worry about, right? Well, we all know that things like temperature, the traffic conditions, road conditions, how fast you're driving, all of those things play a role, plus while you're actually at work your car's gonna be losing some or sometimes potentially a lot of energy just sitting there.

So we can't really count on those numbers. Let's redo it here with a more real world, more conservative estimate. This time we're looking at our 200 mile commute. That doesn't change. But I'm gonna put it at 80% of the 90% of range if that makes sense so instead of the 280 which you may expect or hope to get but we all know from real world testings, never really comes out to be true, you get about 224 miles of range and when you do that math you're at 24 miles left at the end of the day whoo, that is too close for comfort for me personally. In fact, your car may even recommend you stop and charge which is pretty inconvenient considering you're already spending so much time on the road so you will likely want to charge while you're at work.

Even if that's a 110 volt outlet, just a regular wall outlet but if you can find a Tesla Destination Charger or a Supercharger or any of the other options I think it'd be really good for you just to have that added bonus. I mean if you need to pick up the kids or stop by the grocery store or do whatever you got to do, you're not gonna want to be skating on such thin ice there with only 24 miles of range at the end of your day. So, make sure to do that while your there.

Now, let's look at the savings side of it. 'Cause this is the other angle that I want to talk about. First is like physically can it do it? Now, what would it actually mean for your wallet and again hopefully your commute shortens up a bit 'cause that, I couldn't see that being sustainable personally. So, the cost side of this breaks down a little bit better for you.

First we're looking at about 2,500 miles per month because I'm throwing in the 200 miles per day and then some added trips here and there. We're gonna round it out at 2,500 miles per month which is a lot, it's almost double of what the average consumer has here in the United States. Now gas in San Diego, and I know that's the area that you were looking at as well, comes out to be about $280 per month on average. Sometimes it's more than that and with rising gas prices this could easily be more than that and this is with a 30 miles per gallon regular gas car is what I used for comparison here.

Now you also mentioned, in your letter, that you're getting solar on your home so what I did is I looked at what I'm paying for the energy I use for my Tesla based on a 25 year span and the full cost of the solar system I got. And then multiplied that times two for you to try to just be conservative. That comes to about 50 bucks a month. So all in all you're saving $230 every single month on gas by doing this.

So you are in a great position there. Plus you'll have less road noise, if you get autopilot it'll be one of those things that will actually reduce stress from not having to be entirely intently focused all the time, you can kind of sit back and relax and just be more passive. Now if you advertise that out across 12 months, you're looking at a decent amount of savings. So first off you're saving $2,760 in fuel. 2,500 in the California state rebate. If you get it before the end of 2018 you get the $7,500 Federal Tax Credit assuming you qualify for all of that money there. Then you'll be looking at a one year savings or first year savings of $12,760. If you expand that out to a five year plan you're looking at about $23,800 in savings.

The rebates only come in the first year then after that we're only looking at fuel. And this doesn't even take into account things like reduced maintenance costs, or any of that kind of stuff. This is really just looking at the main item for you which is gonna be fuel here. So if you look at a five year true cost of ownership, and we're just taking this one category into effect here, you're looking at a purchase price of around $54,000, then taxes and fees in California of about 6,000 coming out to a total of about $60,000 which is effectively what I paid for my car. Minus your five year savings of 23,800 giving you a true cost of ownership of $36,200. A really great savings and great price on a fantastic vehicle for you.

And this is where electric cars really shine. Now you will have some challenges with charging like I said whenever you get to your office you're gonna want to plug in and just add in whatever extra energy you can while you're there or at least not lose any energy so that way your car will be ready to go when it's time to make that trek home. But you're gonna save so much money because you drive so much and this is one of the greatest benefits of owning an electric car. I personally don't get to partake in that because my home is only about seven miles or so from my studio here so it's really not one of those things but with you driving so much you're gonna have reduced stress from less road noise, reduces stress from the actual autopilot system if you're driving on freeways which I assume you are, if you're going 100 miles each way, and you're gonna be saving a lot of money.

So this is gonna be, I think, the perfect commuter car for you. Let me know what you think after you've had it for a little while, I'm really curious kind of how you're feeling about it, how the pocketbook looks, and how these numbers stack up for you. These are just estimates. This is my back of the napkin type math and I hope that was helpful for you. So thank you guys fr joining me yet again and don't forget when you free the data, your mind will follow. I'll see you back here in the next one.

(upbeat music) .

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://ourmodel3.com/can-tesla-model-3-handle-a-200-mile-commute-lets-free-the-data/

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