I've been trying to figure out what to do long term with my car. I love it. It's my dream car. 3 years ago it was a pipe dream to own one. Now I find myself wondering if I should hunker down and make the changes to it that will allow me to love it for years or sell it while it has some warranty and potentially upgrade.
My car is an early build which means I don't get some of the creature comforts like folding mirrors and parking sensors. Some of the components on my car are also very early revision parts that have since been replaced by newer versions, sometimes twice. The upside is the early cars came with a lot of standard equipment that is now optional. So that's held the price of the used cars up because as Tesla ups the price on the new cars or breaks off standard equipment into option packages, it becomes more enticing to purchase a used car.
I paid $52,000 for the car and I owe about $40,000 on it. So I'm pretty comfortable there but the stock trader in me says that the car is going to lose a lot of value as the Model 3's start trickling out and so if I'm going to sell it, now is the time as it still has 5,000 miles of warranty.
Beepi guaranteed $50,000 for the car. With the IL taxes I paid ($1500) that works out to having paid $3,500 for the 10 months I've owned it, or $350 a month for those that are bad at math.
The problem is that to get a new facelifted Model S is a significant bump up in price. For me not to drop in range I'd need to get a 90D. That's $90,000 for a cheap one. Optioned out it's $100,000. That means putting down a lot of money and paying probably double what I pay now. And what am I really getting for that? A facelift car, Autopilot, better seats and that's about it. Because I already own a Model S, it's impossible not to consider that the cost to upgrade is just for those missing features. So essentially I'm paying $60,000 difference for Auto-Pilot, LED headlights, the new bumper, new seats and some other stupid stuff.
Is that worth it? No. No it's not. That seems like a really foolish way to spend money. I briefly considered and basically the instant I ran the math I decided against that.
But then tonight, this... https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...for-700-mnth-on-the-new-24-month-lease.75855/
Now my gears are turning. I don't want a P90D either. The 90D is faster than the old P85 (which is as fast as an M5) and it gets better range than the P90D. So theoretically it would be even cheaper. Taking the $10,000 proceeds from the sale of my car and applying it towards the lease, I'd theoretically end up with a similar payment as right now for a demo car that's improved over mine in many ways. The difference in how I can claim the lease on my business taxes would also be an added benefit. Currently I can only take actually mileage which some months isn't very much even though it accounts for 80% of my driving. On a lease I could write off 80% of that payment.
Am I nuts? Should I just keep my car? I'm going to see what kind of numbers the dealer can work up tomorrow either way.
My car is an early build which means I don't get some of the creature comforts like folding mirrors and parking sensors. Some of the components on my car are also very early revision parts that have since been replaced by newer versions, sometimes twice. The upside is the early cars came with a lot of standard equipment that is now optional. So that's held the price of the used cars up because as Tesla ups the price on the new cars or breaks off standard equipment into option packages, it becomes more enticing to purchase a used car.
I paid $52,000 for the car and I owe about $40,000 on it. So I'm pretty comfortable there but the stock trader in me says that the car is going to lose a lot of value as the Model 3's start trickling out and so if I'm going to sell it, now is the time as it still has 5,000 miles of warranty.
Beepi guaranteed $50,000 for the car. With the IL taxes I paid ($1500) that works out to having paid $3,500 for the 10 months I've owned it, or $350 a month for those that are bad at math.
The problem is that to get a new facelifted Model S is a significant bump up in price. For me not to drop in range I'd need to get a 90D. That's $90,000 for a cheap one. Optioned out it's $100,000. That means putting down a lot of money and paying probably double what I pay now. And what am I really getting for that? A facelift car, Autopilot, better seats and that's about it. Because I already own a Model S, it's impossible not to consider that the cost to upgrade is just for those missing features. So essentially I'm paying $60,000 difference for Auto-Pilot, LED headlights, the new bumper, new seats and some other stupid stuff.
Is that worth it? No. No it's not. That seems like a really foolish way to spend money. I briefly considered and basically the instant I ran the math I decided against that.
But then tonight, this... https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...for-700-mnth-on-the-new-24-month-lease.75855/
Now my gears are turning. I don't want a P90D either. The 90D is faster than the old P85 (which is as fast as an M5) and it gets better range than the P90D. So theoretically it would be even cheaper. Taking the $10,000 proceeds from the sale of my car and applying it towards the lease, I'd theoretically end up with a similar payment as right now for a demo car that's improved over mine in many ways. The difference in how I can claim the lease on my business taxes would also be an added benefit. Currently I can only take actually mileage which some months isn't very much even though it accounts for 80% of my driving. On a lease I could write off 80% of that payment.
Am I nuts? Should I just keep my car? I'm going to see what kind of numbers the dealer can work up tomorrow either way.