No Tesla forum area?

[kalibre46]

Hi all,

Well I just pushed the button on a Model S P85D and thought I'd come along and introduce myself to the Tesla forum area on PH, given that all my previous marques have been represented on here in some shape or form. However, it seems to me that there is no Tesla area, just the general EV threads. Is that correct or have I missed it? Must be quite a few owners out there I would have thought?

[gangzoom]

Congratulations, I sadly cannot order a Tesla for at least another 12 months due to no 'get out' clause on my Nissan Leaf PCP deal.

Sadly many 'petrolheads' still have an irrational hatred of EVs, I've come to the conclusions some will never expect there is life after the internal combustion engine...

How do you plan to keep your self occupied whilst waiting for the P85D?? Cannot wait to see what UK owners think when the RHD versions finally arrive, just becareful where you take it to be dynoed

http://youtu.be/LqFWvAplIKc

[Phunk]

I think a general EV area is fine.

I have a Leaf which is the most popular EV and don't see a requirement for a Leaf area.

[Carparticus]

kalibre46 said:

.. However, it seems to me that there is no Tesla area, just the general EV threads. Is that correct or have I missed it? Must be quite a few owners out there I would have thought? ..

PH is still 99% petrolheads rather than people into electron usage. If you've not already had a look, it maybe worth checking out the more specific EV sites like the huge USA based Tesla owners forum, and the UK based SpeakEV forum with a Tesla subsection :-


www.teslamotorsclub.com

www.speakEV.com

Edited by Carparticus on Tuesday 26th May 08:02

[Jonsv8]

Keeping the tesla stuff together in a thread as there's no forum area..

I'm looking to order one and just seen the first thing the P85D configuration engine does is make you spend £3,800 on wheels (no option not to). Great on the company car scheme where you have to buy the options yourself over the term of the lease... so that's an extra £100 a month thank you very much.

Anyone know what their company car policy says about claiming mileage? Petrol hybrids are catered for on my scheme but no mention of pure electric and I'm going to have fun supplying a VAT receipt so the company can claim it back as they do with petrol/diesel.

[pboyall]

I think Tesla's website may be wrong about the wheels - it's worth asking them as I vaguely recall someone mentioning it was a mistake as they had temporarily run out of one type of wheel or something.

Are you on cash allowance? I'd check with HMRC directly but see no reason why the standard 45p/25p per mile rate would not apply.

[c2mike]

Congrats on ordering a Tesla. I've had my S85 for 6 weeks and very impressed so far.

[DSLiverpool]

gangzoom said:

I sadly cannot order a Tesla for at least another 12 months due to no 'get out' clause on my Nissan Leaf PCP deal

Crikey you saved up for the Tesla in 9 weeks! if you realised you could save up that quickly why get a Leaf on a 2 year deal ?

[gangzoom]

DSLiverpool said:

Crikey you saved up for the Tesla in 9 weeks! if you realised you could save up that quickly why get a Leaf on a 2 year deal ?

I was already saving up for a M5 whilst running the 335i, original plan was to swap the 335i for a M5/XJR in 2017ish. I was looking at the P85 Tesla for a while before getting the Leaf. BUT I wasn't quite ready to commit that much money on something so new. I wasn't looking out for Leaf deals, but when they popped up on my radar, and I did the sums, it became a no-brainer. Swapping the 335i for a Leaf on a 0% deal not only reduced my A to B transport costs by 2/3, it also released equity from the 335i which I've now chucked into a Santander 1-2-3 account (I've named it T' 'Fund").

I have to say getting rid of the 335i for a Leaf has probably been the best financial/car buying decision I've made ever. I could rarely use the full power of the 335i, and most of driving is spent stuck in city centre traffic, so the Leaf is so much nicer to drive in those situations. At the same time instead of spending £600-700 month on repair/mods/fuel/depreciation etc cost on the 335i, I'm spending less than 1/3 of that on the Leaf. I honestly have no interest in buying a performance petrol car every again!!

Spending £55k+ on a Tesla is a stupid waste of money, but its less stupid than spending £55K on a M5 or a XJR etc. The most sensible financial decision will be to buy a used P85 in 2 years time, just as my Leaf PCP contract expires. Given the number Tesla S been sold in the UK, how quickly Tesla are updating the range, used values should offer a half decent saving over the new price.

The only reason I'm contemplating buying a new Tesla soon rather than later is simply because the reviews are simply amazing, and as the saying goes 'Life is too short'...BUT realistically 22 months isn't THAT long time to wait (Not that I'm counting down the months), who knows by than a used P85D might fall into my budget

Edited by gangzoom on Saturday 23 May 13:08

[LordFlathead]

^^ That's great logic but I must be looking in the wrong place for a used Tesla; all the cars I've found have been very close to the new asking price. Do you have any examples of 2 year old cars?

[gangzoom]

LordFlathead said:

^^ That's great logic but I must be looking in the wrong place for a used Tesla; all the cars I've found have been very close to the new asking price. Do you have any examples of 2 year old cars?

Well given they have only been in the UK for about 1 year there wouldn't be any 2 year old ones yet.

If you live in the US you can already buy a used Tesla from Tesla, all with a 4 year warranty, 50,000 mile warranty...Must better than the 1 year warranty you get with 'Approved' BMW/Audi/Merc

http://www.teslamotors.com/Models/preowned

What used models there are in the UK have deprecated by a similar amount already:

2014 P85 for £65K with decent amount of options, from memory these things were £80K+ before options. Don't forget unlike other brands, Tesla don't do discounts off the list price, so you know this was a 'true' £80K+ car just 12 months ago!!

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2015...

Worst comes to the worst, I'll just have to order a brand new 70D, rather than a used P85.

[LordFlathead]

Ah that might be why I'm unable to find a two year old model

My understanding is if you buy a P85D you get free Supercharging for life - is this transferable to the new owner or only valid to the original purchaser? That has to be one of the biggest incentives about buying one in the first place.

[Jonsv8]

LordFlathead said:

Ah that might be why I'm unable to find a two year old model

My understanding is if you buy a P85D you get free Supercharging for life - is this transferable to the new owner or only valid to the original purchaser? That has to be one of the biggest incentives about buying one in the first place.

No idea about transferable but a lot of the charging points I've looked at are free or a token £10 a year registration fee, not just tesla

[gangzoom]

LordFlathead said:

Ah that might be why I'm unable to find a two year old model

My understanding is if you buy a P85D you get free Supercharging for life - is this transferable to the new owner or only valid to the original purchaser? That has to be one of the biggest incentives about buying one in the first place.

Pretty sure the supercharging feature is linked to the car not the owner.

BUT I do feel sorry for early adopters of EVs. Even the humble Leaf cost £28K back in 2011, I picked up my updated one for £200/month, with no deposit and 0% interest.

Most of the Tesla's delivered to the UK pre-sep/oct 2014 have already been superseded, as the 'autopilot' software update coming through needs to have the appropriate hardware, which were installed on cars build after sep 2014. So actually I wouldn't be interested in buying that P85+ £65K in that auto-trader advert even if was priced at £45K in 12-18 months time....If I'm going to spend £40-50K, I want it to be at-least half relevant interms of software/hardware developments.

I think the next few generation of EVs will be like iPhones, with each new revision offering much more than before....Until the technology matures (Quite happy with my iPhone 5), but we are a long long way from that yet. The problem is unlike a iPhone, these things are pretty damn expensive, so it's hard to know when best to jump on-board fully. I'm happy with spending £200/month on a Leaf whilst things settle down a bit....£1000/month on a Tesla though...humm sadly I'm not rich enough to see that as disposable income .

Edited by gangzoom on Sunday 24th May 17:16

[LordFlathead]

You make some great points. I've just started a new job and now commute 40 miles per day. The Leaf makes perfect sense for me (the Zoe looks good too). I'm currently commuting in my Jaguar XJ 2.7TD which gives me an astonishing 50mpg @ 60mph but is still costing me around £25 per week or £100 pm. I would like to think that if I can get established at work they will fit a 32amp charge point in which case my charge will be zero cost and I will ask for a company car allowance (I will keep the Jag for personal use). Given that I can buy a Zoe/Leaf for not a lot more it is a no brainer especially when the company are funding it. I already have decided to get the wife one too as it suits her usage.

I would love a P85D but even with favourable "man maths" it does not work. I also have a classic Porsche 928GT and a Renault Espace with a Jet Viper engine in to insure, and when asking about "other cars" it gets a tad tricky!

Please keep updating your status as it provides a great insight to those of us that are sitting on the fence

[Jonsv8]

Shhhhh don't tell i8 owners this. How they'd live a 3.2s to 60 time.

The technology/features are changing fairly fast but you'd wait forever if you thought about it too much

[DSLiverpool]

My mate ordered his P85 in the USA delivered from Holland I think RHD - saved 20% ish

[gangzoom]

Jonsv8 said:

Shhhhh don't tell i8 owners this. How they'd live a 3.2s to 60 time.

The technology/features are changing fairly fast but you'd wait forever if you thought about it too much

I thought 0-60 in under 5 in my old 335i was fast, it's crazy all the acceleration these EVs offer...It wouldn't be long before even the standard EVs start offering 5-6 second acceleration time....But given the general standard of diving, not sure if that's a good thing

Looking at my gadget buying history I just realised I've never bought the first gen of any technology product. I waited for the 'click wheel' iPod, the iPhone 3G etc. Even my Leaf is technically the 'updated' compared to the original...So an auto-pilot hardware enabled Tesla S would fit in perfectly with my tech buying history

[gangzoom]

LordFlathead said:

I've just started a new job and now commute 40 miles per day.

I persume that's 40 miles in total, the Leaf will manage that easly. Assuming 4.6 miles per kW/h that's 43 kW/h a week, charging at home on normal rates (13p kW/h) that's £5.5 a week, if you switch to E7 rates (6p kW/h over night and 15p kW/h) that's under £3 per week for the Leaf but other electricity costs will go up.

I spent the last 18 months doing 70-80 miles a day, as you've pointed out even at 50mpg from the Civic it's not a small sum of money. I knew about the Leaf back than but didn't think it had the range (no work charger). Recently took the Leaf on the same commute to sort out some left over paper work...managed 74 miles with 15% charge to spare....So if I had made the change 18 months earlier is would have saved me £2000 in fuel costs alone. But the Civic was acutally very cheap already, we bought it as a pre-reg for £13k and when I sold it 90k and 7 years later still got £4.5k for it

[oop north]

Toying with getting a tesla- but have a 320 miles in a day journey I do once a month to see if I can make withiut making the day any longer than it already is at 3.5 hours each way with no stops - Preston to Cheltenham and Preston again. Even an 85 won't manage that without a charge (and a 70 is 80 odd mikes shirt) and I'm not sure I can make it work without supercharging at warrington in both directions. Seems a bit ridiculous to get one and then have to use wife's car to do my longest journey