When the 60's rock band Vanilla Fudge bassist Pete Bremy bought his 2019 Tesla Model 3, he wasn't sure if he was going to love it or hate it. Bremy had never owned an electric vehicle and while he was open to the idea of it, he really didn't know what to expect.
However, after four years of ownership and more than 100,000 miles on the odometer, Bremy has found he much prefers electric drive over the rumble of the big V8s he owned over the years and says he'll never go back to internal combustion.
I'm a friend of Pete's and when I heard that he passed the 100,000-mile milestone I asked him if he wanted to offer his thoughts on ownership and his overall electric vehicle experience. He agreed and we set up an in-person interview which I recorded.
One of the most intriguing things we discussed was the overall cost of fueling and maintaining the Model 3. Bremy has spent a total of less than $7,500 for the electricity to charge his car and for all maintenance and repairs to date.
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That's a total running cost of about $0.075 per mile, which is incredibly low. As a quick comparison, it would cost much more in fuel alone to drive a comparable combustion sports sedan 100,000 miles - and that's without factoring in any maintenance or repairs.
Take a look at the graph below to see Bremy's fuel and maintenance costs
Pete has the TeslaFi app so he has records of all of his charging sessions and he told me that 75% of his total charging is at home using the Tesla mobile connector that came with the vehicle. Tesla no longer includes the mobile connector as standard equipment with its vehicles as it did for many years. Customers who want the Tesla mobile connector now must order it from the Tesla shop and it costs $230.
Pete also lowered the charge rate of his car down to 24 amps, since he found that was fast enough to always have his car charged to the 80% daily-charging limit he set up while charging overnight at home. He figures the lower charging AC rate (24 amps as opposed to the 32 amps the mobile connector can deliver) is probably better for long battery life. However, lower AC charging rates haven't been proven to make a significant difference in the rate of battery degradation.
The other 25% of his charging was done at Tesla Superchargers when Pete was doing his frequent trips from New Jersey to New Hampshire and North Carolina, and the one time he drove it to Florida.
Check out the video interview I had with Pete, and feel free to leave your questions in the comment section below and Pete and I will answer what we can.
Bremy, a well-known bassist for the rock band Vanilla Fudge, admits to being a motorhead who loved big V8 engines. However, after owning a Model 3, he's changed his tune.
Source: State Of Charge