Quote:
Originally Posted by Efthreeoh
LOL. I commute 170 miles a day round trip. 25 miles just gets me to cell service  . Then after another 30 miles I deal with Northern Virginia traffic. So I'm well versed in the costs of commuting in a BMW. Granted the E90 M3 is not the ideal commuter; I do have a friend at work, who is a member on the M4 Forum, who daily commutes in his M4. I don't think he has a 25 mile one way commute, but I can't see it being any less than 20. I had another friend I used to work with (he passed away last year) who did daily in a E90 M3 (his track car was a Factory-Five Cobra he built from my sister's 5.0 Mustang), without any mention of the absorbent costs; he definitely had over a 25-mile one way commute. So commuting in a M car is not unheard of. I think your monthly costs are way over estimated (e.g. I come up with $172/month at 1,000 miles per month and gas @ 3.08 and assuming 18 MPG). And based on your ridiculous maintenance plan on the M3... But really if the FJ is the logical choice. Running the FJ 50 miles a day can't be that expensive and not more than the purchase (i.e. not lease) of a $47,000 EV plus running costs.
Again, if you want a car that drives itself in traffic, then you are quite limited. If you want an EV that is semi autonomous then you are even more limited. And there is the concept of negotiating the price down on a used Telsa S from the LA area; I saw at least 20 on Tesla's website.
Good luck with the search. |
Cost of gas in these parts is $3.66 a gallon. My M3 will do just a bit over 200 miles before I need to fill it up which is a weeks worth of driving. That’s where I come up with $234.24 a month.
Also I’m using the proposed maintenance schedule on this forum + the cost of rod bearings every 60k to 75k miles but that’s a whole other discussion and I don’t think we want this thread to go 100 pages long... lol
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=778602
But yes you are correct... commuting in my FJ would be cheaper... really just need to worry about gas at $234.24 a mos (it probably gets even worse mpg than my M3 & I still spoil my FJ with the same 91 octane Shell nectar that my M3 drinks from) + cost of oil every 5k (it’s not picky eaither so I just use Mobil 1 synthetic) + fluids every so often + cooling system refresh around 80k.
Now if I really wanted to save even more $$$ I would lease another short range electric car like a Fiat 500e or Smart EV... (sadly there is no cheap zero down $70 a mos spark EV lease anymore)
However I’ve grown tired of sitting in traffic... I know 1st world problems... but I am willing to spend up to around the monthly cost of daily driving my M3 for driving assistance.
I did consider the Leaf as well with Nissan’s pro-pilot which would probably be close to even to the FJ’s running costs, but I don’t just want another short/ moderate range EV.
Btw I don’t think you can negotiate on any of the CPO’d Tesla prices from the website... so with Autopilot the cheapest one was around $55k and you don’t get the $7500 fed rebate + $450 socal edison rebate. So an early release Model 3 with all the upgrades will still be cheaper... but I would need to keep it 10 years for it to be equivalent to the running cost on the M3. On the other hand one can wait for the shorter range Model 3 and order it bare bones + autopilot however that will likely not be able to take advantage of the $7500 tax credit by the time that rolls out. Also what is the likelihood of a Model 3 going 10 years without any expensive out of warranty repairs needed.
I dunno... I think I’m convincing myself to just get the Clarity PHEV... after all the incentives it comes out to $25k and it has level 2 autonomy which is just fine in traffic + enough EV range for me not to drop by any gas stations.