A Tesla Model S’ Maintenance Cost After Traveling 300,000 Miles Was Low, But It Could Have Been Way Cheaper
The fact that electric cars have lower maintenance costs than their gas-powered counterparts is pretty much common knowledge. Recently, however, Tesloop, an EV taxi service, actually gave exact figures to bolster this claim, proving that the Tesla Model S is ridiculously cheap to maintain, even after it breaches the 300,000-mile barrier.
The Model S is not a cheap car by any means, but once the vehicle is acquired, keeping it on the road is actually pretty affordable. According to a Clean Technica report, Tesloop’s first vehicle, a Model S unit from 2015, had been consistently traveling 17,000 miles a month since it entered service. During that entire time, the EV only needed $10,492 worth of maintenance, and that’s after the car met some unfortunate circumstances along the way.
From the $10,492 that Tesloop spent on the vehicle, only $6,900 was really intended for scheduled maintenance. The firm ended up paying an extra $3,500 after the car drove into deep water, significantly damaging its headlights. Without that extra expense, the maintenance cost for Tesloop’s 300,000-mile Model S would have been a lot cheaper.
Of course, the Tesla’s free use of its Superchargers helped greatly in reducing the costs of running the Model S. Without this incentive, Tesloop’s 300,000-mile EV would have incurred a total of $12,872 in fuel (power) cost, considering that charging the car would cost around 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to a Motor Trend report.
Overall, the Tesla Model S’ maintenance costs after it breached the 300,000-mile barrier remains almost negligible compared to gas-powered vehicles of the same class. A Mercedes-Benz S-Class car with the same mileage, for example, would have incurred roughly $52,000 in maintenance and $36,000 in fuel. Also, a Lincoln Town Car would have cost approximately $28,000 in maintenance and $42,000 in fuel for traveling the same distance, at least according to Tesloop’s estimates.
That is not all, however, as the Tesla Model S also spent a pretty short amount of time away from the road during its routine maintenance and its unforeseen headlight repair. According to the EV taxi firm, a Mercedes-Benz S-Class would have stayed 112 days in the shop for its maintenance and the Lincoln Town Car would have needed around 100 days to complete its maintenance over 300,000 miles. The Model S, on the other hand, was only out of service for 12 days.
Overall, the benefits of Tesla vehicles and other capable EVs are starting to emerge in earnest. As the auto industry continues to embrace the green car trend, the time when drivers spent loads of cash in order to maintain a gas-guzzling, environment-polluting vehicle would soon be over.
[Featured Image by Tesla]
