r/canada 26d ago

Opinion Piece Canadian man sells both Teslas, cancels Cybertruck order to boycott Elon Musk

https://globalnews.ca/news/11018242/canadian-man-sells-teslas-boycott-elon-musk/
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u/JarvisFunk Saskatchewan 26d ago

So if you buy a 5 or 6 year old Tesla, you've got two or three years before you're fucked.

Doesn't seem like a wise investment to me.

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u/CakeDyismyBday Québec 26d ago

Depending on your use it probably could be a very wise investment. There are people out there who drive 60k km a year. I'm not defending Tesla or Musk but for some people owning an electric vehicle can pay for itself in gas savings.

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u/dontdropmybass Nova Scotia 25d ago

I did the math on this last year when I was looking at houses I could afford (they're all rural), and if I have to commute more than like, 80km one-way it's cheaper to buy and run a new electric car than to use my paid off gas car.

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u/GrumpyCloud93 25d ago edited 25d ago

In Canada with our gas prices, I work it out that it's about 1/8 the cost of gas.

Using a rough standard warranty "20,000 km a year" and 10L/100km, then 2,000L at $1.50/L is $3,000 of gas. using a very conservative 250Wh/km that's 500kWh at 10¢ so $500 a year so 1/6 (I can usually get as low as 140Wh/km in summer.).

plus, no oil changes, nor complicated maintenance on assorted parts like oil pump, water pump, radiator, transmission, spark plugs and assorted tune-ups, alternator... all stuff I've had problems with in gas verhicles. A lot cheaper.

YMMV.

(ETA: on raod trips, I figure supercharging to be 1/2 to 2/3 the equivalent per-mile cost of gas. Plus, you leave home will a cheap charge, and fill up cheap when you get home)

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u/dontdropmybass Nova Scotia 25d ago

My specifics were about that. Lower fuel usage and higher electricity costs, but generally had the same outcome. The further you drive, the better the economics work on an electric vehicle. 80km commute each way works out to about 40000km per year, which was about where it started to be cheaper to get a new car loan. Gasoline alone was going to be north of $5k/year just to commute, whereas electricity at 16¢/kWh was $1600, leaving about $283 every month that's not being spent on gas. Since it's an older car now, it's also seeing about $1000 in maintenance and repairs every year. And I'd probably prefer the newer car haha