The headlights got a bit skinnier.

Glad I didn't wait up for that reveal lol

Lights ... since more are produced in China, they went squinty eyes.

I think Tesla is one of the few companies that offer 96 month terms.

A coworker of mine makes 60 to 65k a yr max, and traded his rav4 hybrid for a model y SMH... ppl making 6 figures drive toyota/Honda minivans, maybe telsa should make a minivan :toot:

I find salary deceiving; family money makes 60-65 go a long way.

Yeah, I think there's a lot to what you guys are saying.

How much you're willing to spend on a purchase doesn't scale even near directly with how much disposable income you have, because being able to "afford" a purchase has more to do with cashflow than the balance sheet or income statement.

Financing kind of works like gearing: you can do a lot with a tiny Honda mill by running really short gearing. 96 month terms is like swapping out your final drive from 3.18 to a 4.77:1. Got a lot more torque but you'll run out of steam eventually. But that's not today's problem! Also, this is just part of the total pool of disposable income: if you spend more on the car, you "just" spend less on other things. Maybe you forgo a trip or two. Maybe you spend less on gadgets; you don't upgrade your phone so often. Maybe you delay buying that 2nd home. Maybe you save a little less. People find ways to shuffle their financial priorities around and stretch for things they feel they need (not commenting on whether they should; it's a personal choice).

Then there's straight up a reset of expectations. Until EVs were a thing, I could not fathom spending more than $30k on a car. That's just a number [adjusted for inflation] that I grew up with: the standard of living within my family was such that that was a reasonable price to pay for a car. Even when income scaled up, standard of living remained fairly flat: maybe grew 1.2x.

But now they say an EV is not "just another car". They want you to think it's a whole other thing. I think that's why it seems like every EV looks like this crazy spaceship thing: they want to reset your expectations so that you don't measure its value with the same eyes that you used to. They even help you rationalize the price delta by saying stuff like "ok but you save on gas? ok but you save so much on unknown maintenance, and ok you're saving all these trees and global warming and shit. look, you can even play games on it and watch Netflix!!" They help you explain it all away so you're comfortable with breaking your own rules.

Mission accomplished: people are now spending 2x or more what they would even dream of paying for a car because it's not "a car", it's something else now.

Rivian actually had me go in for a user study, where I wound up having a long chat with a UX guy about how they should build their configurator. Essentially to influence people into spending a lot more than they would've.

Deliberately showing images of conquering post-apocalyptic terrain and suggesting thoughts of imagined danger to your family by presenting options of emergency repair, first-aid, and off-road recovery options, followed immediately after with a $2000 option for Reinforced Underbody Shield which now you OF COURSE will click YES to. :D

Pretty cool stuff.

Isn't that why BMW charge you subscription for heated seats or radio now. Extra $150 a month is a lot but for only a low low price of a coffee you can afford $5 a day. :troll::troll::troll::lawl: profit

You just described the entirety of Jeep's marketing.

Jeep is amazing, no matter how little any guy or girl around you knows about cars... they know they want a Jeep if they're going off-road.

I've lost count how many times some automotive neophyte has told me they don't care about cars but they want a Jeep if there's anything resembling dirt around them or even if they just want to project that image.

Really ? I don’t think that applies to Asians. Although they wouldn’t usually go off roading anyways.

Common hobs get with the times, look at your China cousins

https://youtube.com/shorts/i3GomeKQr...cprRP945gGCHd3

:accepted:

Everyone offers 96 month term... but the thing about seeing people that are not suppose to be in 50K car being in a tesla model 3 is largely due to the ownership cost of a Tesla.

As Badhobz pointed out many times...
- for people who drives a decent amount (20K per year, or lets say $300 in gas every month or higher, which is not too crazy as our base Elantra and take $90 to fill up lolol, so if you run thru a tank every 10 days... ).
- for people who can charge at home overnight everyday
- not even counting the oil changes and whatnot

It is defintely cheaper to run a $55K out the door tesla VS 40K out the door mid trim Camry driving for 5 years upto 100,000KM (lol though I will argue a 100,000KM Camry is probably worth a bit more than a 100,000KM Model 3?)

(a pure gas Camry SE Upgrade that still has cloth seats is $40,997 out the door on Toyota.ca), this is the 2nd trim in the line up (SE, SE Upgrade, LE, XSE, XLE).....

So yea....

Camry cloth seats payments + insurance + gas
VS
Tesla payment + insurance + home charging electric bill

Guess which one is more expensive? At least when we did the spread sheet, it was cheaper to run the Model 3 for 5 years, Or it was close enough that my wife was like... I like the Model 3 better than the Camry.. so there lolol...

**Now if you were budgeting for a base corolla which is still $28,632 out the door mind you, then ya, you shouldn't be looking at a Model 3.

**2 big caveats, 1st you must be driving a decent amount (ie, not 1 tank of gas per month) + 2nd you must be able to charge at home

Save more money if you charge at someone else's home.

yea got drive more than 20k a yr for model 3 to be cheaper

What if battery fails right out of warranty? That's a big big repair bill.

How about other repairs when car is over 100k km like brakes, suspension, etc? M3 is probably more expensive than camry. I'd assume model 3 brakes will take a while to wear out due to brake regen but never count idiots out, seen so many m3 drivers hitting brakes on the highway SMH...

^ great points

Battery failing out of warranty is a 20K write off 100% (but when is the last time you heard Tesla battery failing?), and the battery is 8 years, 160,000KM. How many people our age actually have owned a vehicle from new to more than 160,000KM?

I would say Camry will catch up if you are driving both vehicles to the ground, no question about that.

Suspension... oh yea the infamous front control arm on the Model 3 ($1100 per corner lolol)

But strictly looking at the 5 year 100K ownership in my use case, it is hard to justify the Camry. The trick is to get out of it before the problems catches up with you lolol.

Yes, a camry is the better choice for my parents, but as someone like me who doesn't drives till the wheels fall off, I would have moved onto something else before the Camry's lower long term maintenance catches up to the Tesla ownership costs...

Edit - OMG, I am drinking the Tesla coolaid, if I had to do it all over again with my knowledge now though, defn no Tesla for me... the amount of constant small problems.... fooook... should have just waited out the $57K Ioniq 5 ... damn it... hahaha

Very this.

I cringe every time I have to charge at home. 135 kWh x 35c/kWh adds up. Glad to charge for free at work :D.

Just over 11,000KM on my Tesla since Feb.

0 Change in lifestyle, year over year VS 2022 elec bill, my monthly avg has gone up between $25 to $40... so... about $1 to $2 a day?

You forgot that the Camry doesn't drive itself

hahahaha, let's not compare the feature sets, as everyone prioritize different things, there are many things that camry does that the Tesla can not.

The argument was why is someone with limited financing means not buying a $40K car VS a $55K tesla (or in this instance, now that they are under $50K as Trollface pointed out, fook I overpaid 5K for 6 month of earlier ownership lol).

I would say it has to be a perfect storm of circumstances, but I will also argue a $55K Tesla ownership cost (or any $55K EV for that matter) is very different from a traditional $55K car ownership cost...

Yeah it doesn’t drive itself into a wall or oncoming traffic. Trolololol

If you want the cheapest car that’s reliable just drive what taxi drive. Period.

There’s Priuses out there with a 1.5 million km on the Odo. Battery packs are 3k each according to the taxi drivers I talk to.

Until you learn that the ioniq/ev series are plagued by fast charging issues lol. But if you only drive A to B within the city and can change from home it won't matter.

100%

Tesla is a pure city vehicle, the furtherest I would go is probably Whistler lolol...

I took my Prius Prime to banff for that exact reason and left the Tesla at home lolol, also why I could leave on a whim for a 13 hour drive to get our puppy Corgi...

no way I will have an all EV fleet, because my road trip cars will always be a gas car no matter what, I cant deal with the stress of range anxiety and waiting to charge, no matter how fast it is...

Even to my own clients, I only strike up the conversation for an EV as their 2nd vehicle in the family... If your family is an one-car for everything... then look no further for a RAV4/CRV/Tucson... unless you are one of us.... then it will be the wagon life....

I, for one, don't buy cars based on a 5 yr cycle. I'm probably just too poor. My first new car I owned for 12 yrs and had 230k+ on it and I only sold it cuz covid happened and having only a coupe in the house was not practical after selling the Versa with a ticking time bomb transmission for great covid market money.

I was ordering takeout last week and I noticed an option to put it on a payment plan.

What is the world coming to. We're financing meals now?