Tesla Model 3 - Help please?

[NorthDave]

The other challenge is I regularly drive (there and back twice a year) from Manchester to Hull, over night ferry and then down to near Geneva. Does anyone use one of these and regularly do trips like that?

Normally I do "home" in the alps to Zeebrugge in about 8.5 hours, stopping twice for a toilet break and fuel. Maximum stop time of about 20 minutes.

I can't work out how inconvenient the charging would be on a journey like that? At the end of the day if I need to change the way I travel and incorporate an overnight then I guess that is not too much of a problem.

Very interested to hear from anyone who has done a trip like the above. I can see the rest of my travel wouldn't be a problem.

Also - whilst I am at it - I dont understand the pricing model either. A full spec'ed Model 3 Performance with all the bits comes to £60k but the website says £50k after savings. Do I just pay £50k then? I suspect they are rolling a fuel saving in to that figure or something? If I buy through my company can it reclaim the VAT?

Edited by NorthDave on Friday 11th October 12:19

[oop north]

NorthDave said:

Also - whilst I am at it - I dont understand the pricing model either. A full spec'ed Model 3 Performance with all the bits comes to £60k but the website says £50k after savings. Do I just pay £50k then? I suspect they are rolling a fuel saving in to that figure or something? If I buy through my company can it reclaim the VAT?

Edited by NorthDave on Friday 11th October 12:19

This is one of the things that irritates me about Tesla - it is very difficult to work out what the actual list price is - there are two deductions rolled in (1) the govt grant of £3500 and (2) assumed fuel and (if you have ticked the congestion charge box) savings on congestion charge (actually not sure if that is still on there). If you look for the outright purchase cost (or not finance) you should be able to find the price you will pay.

You cannot reclaim the VAT on a car purchase unless it’s 100% for business use with no private use whatsoever. If you do contract hire you can reclaim half the VAT on the hire payments.

[Heres Johnny]

NorthDave said:

The other challenge is I regularly drive (there and back twice a year) from Manchester to Hull, over night ferry and then down to near Geneva. Does anyone use one of these and regularly do trips like that?

Normally I do "home" in the alps to Zeebrugge in about 8.5 hours, stopping twice for a toilet break and fuel. Maximum stop time of about 20 minutes.

I can't work out how inconvenient the charging would be on a journey like that? At the end of the day if I need to change the way I travel and incorporate an overnight then I guess that is not too much of a problem.

Very interested to hear from anyone who has done a trip like the above. I can see the rest of my travel wouldn't be a problem.

Also - whilst I am at it - I dont understand the pricing model either. A full spec'ed Model 3 Performance with all the bits comes to £60k but the website says £50k after savings. Do I just pay £50k then? I suspect they are rolling a fuel saving in to that figure or something? If I buy through my company can it reclaim the VAT?

Edited by NorthDave on Friday 11th October 12:19

I did Bern to Reims in about 7 hours, from memory I stopped twice for maybe 30 mins a time charging from fairly low to about 70% which is the quickest window if that helps? It was summer so the efficiency was relatively good

A betterrouteplanner website is useful to guage those types of trips

[MrBig]

Heres Johnny said:

There is no kw per mike figure because it varies in weather, short or long trips, where you drive, how fast you drive etc etc. The car also uses electricity when sitting there doing nothing. in summer you should be as low as 250w/m and in winter 300 odd, maybe as high as 330. Ie between 3 and 4 miles per kWh. Public charging tends to be much more expensive than home charging so your costs will vary more through how you charge. You also need to knock 20% off the range to get a working figure, Tesla don’t recommend regularly charging above 90% and you’d not want to routinely arrive somewhere with less than 10%, it doesn’t take much for that last 10% to disappear, a diversion, held up behind a problem, missing a turning etc

I don’t understand your 25k private miles fully expensed comment as that seems a contradiction.

Sorry, maybe not worded well. Company car with a fuel card for private use. 27k a year with maybe 500-1000 business miles, rest is private.

[Dave Hedgehog]

NorthDave said:

Also - whilst I am at it - I dont understand the pricing model either. A full spec'ed Model 3 Performance with all the bits comes to £60k but the website says £50k after savings. Do I just pay £50k then? I suspect they are rolling a fuel saving in to that figure or something? If I buy through my company can it reclaim the VAT?

Edited by NorthDave on Friday 11th October 12:19

Marketing bull

They mean the cost of the car over 5 years after fuel savings if you drive something stupid like an AMG

and dont spec full self driving, its at best in alpha atm and not worth £100

[SWoll]

Dave Hedgehog said:

NorthDave said:

Also - whilst I am at it - I dont understand the pricing model either. A full spec'ed Model 3 Performance with all the bits comes to £60k but the website says £50k after savings. Do I just pay £50k then? I suspect they are rolling a fuel saving in to that figure or something? If I buy through my company can it reclaim the VAT?

Edited by NorthDave on Friday 11th October 12:19

Marketing bull

They mean the cost of the car over 5 years after fuel savings if you drive something stupid like an AMG

It's 4 years and 50k miles compared to a car that does 34mpg (so not really in stupid territory).

The mileage is obviously well above average for the UK (more like 8k miles I believe) but when you look at the Model 3 Performance for example, cars with similar performance aren't achieving 34mpg (more like a realistic average of 24mpg for the C63, RS4, M3 etc.)

Still ridiculous that they show it so prominently on the website though.

[ZesPak]

NorthDave said:

The other challenge is I regularly drive (there and back twice a year) from Manchester to Hull, over night ferry and then down to near Geneva. Does anyone use one of these and regularly do trips like that?

Normally I do "home" in the alps to Zeebrugge in about 8.5 hours, stopping twice for a toilet break and fuel. Maximum stop time of about 20 minutes.

Another shout for betterrouteplanner here.

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

A route like that will take a number of stops, I wouldn't mind it a couple of times a year but not every other month tbh.

[JJMatrixx]

Dave Hedgehog said:

I test drove a standard range+ bluewater, i enjoyed it so much I bought a performance , hopefully musk will enable RWD drift mode in them

I am avg 300wh / mi in my M3Perf on 20" rims

however I do not hypermile it, running at 80+ i mean 70 on mways and using the power pedal frequently

i reckon 250 should be possible hypermiling and running at 50 on mways, even more achievable in the single engined car on 18"s


sign up for one of the EV power companies so you can charge at 5p / kWh overnight

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Thursday 10th October 16:11

I'm with Bulb - think it's c.7p. What EV power companies do you recommend?

Also, motorway I get c.350w/m, think I average slightly over 400w/m. Heavy footed Performance model driver though.

[Dave Hedgehog]

JJMatrixx said:

I'm with Bulb - think it's c.7p. What EV power companies do you recommend?

Also, motorway I get c.350w/m, think I average slightly over 400w/m. Heavy footed Performance model driver though.

i have gone with octopus, i only need to charge twice a week

https://octopus.energy/go/

[Emeye]

If you want to try out a Tesla on a long journey to see how you get on, Enterprise are renting the Tesla S out at a reasonable price. I hired a 75Done this weekend to go Manchester to Cheltenham and back. I had to use the Superchargers Keele and then Hopwood park services on the way back.

Feels like they need more Superchargers.

At first I wasn’t sure about it, as I was keeping my speed down to the limit to help range and using the fickle auto pilot, but after the journey back driving as normal, I came back wanting one.

If it could read the variable speed cameras on the smartphone motorways autopilot would be awesome.

[JJMatrixx]

Dave Hedgehog said:

JJMatrixx said:

I'm with Bulb - think it's c.7p. What EV power companies do you recommend?

Also, motorway I get c.350w/m, think I average slightly over 400w/m. Heavy footed Performance model driver though.

i have gone with octopus, i only need to charge twice a week

https://octopus.energy/go/

Peak rate and standing charges are wild so this will work out way more expensive for me overall.