Originally Posted by
roger wiegand
Apparently there are some Model S Tesla's (the expensive one) that have been employed as fleet vehicles for a number of years from now that are hitting the 500-600,000 mile mark and still going strong. The maintenance costs on them have been so low that they are ending up considerably cheaper in terms of lifetime cost of ownership than the $30-50K cars that were bought in parallel with them. Mechanically, electric cars are dramatically simpler to build and maintain. Not so meaningful perhaps for those of us who only drive 10,000 miles a year, but suddenly very interesting for a car-sharing or fleet use scenario where cars rack up 100K+ miles a year. Any decline in the price of batteries or increase in their performance will only make this difference bigger.
A whole lot of my younger colleagues choose not to own a car at all, but rely on things like Zipcar to have a car when they need one (plus, of course Lyft and Uber). I suspect this may be yet another shake-up coming for the auto industry in the next decade or two, the economics may well drive a lot of people away from having personal automobiles and drive the owners of those vehicles towards electrics.
With a range over 300 miles now there's not much cause for range anxiety for everyday driving. Oh, and they go like a bat out of you-know-where.