Full Costs Everything Owning An EV? Per State?

[DarinCT]

Tesla stock.

Ha! Fair enough, we did get in early but are not inclined to get in now.

Because my mentors taught me not to buy depreciating assets on payments.

About this...

In more than the majority of circumstances, this rule of thumb makes absolute sense. Paying interest and principal near equal or even greater than the proportional value of the asset is a poor choice. In the case of the CyberTruck, I assert that rule of thumb applies somewhere between not much and not at all.

There's a business use case and there's a personal use case. Let's take the personal use first where the rule of thumb applies more than business. The CyberTruck will depreciate though it won't depreciate due to wear and tear(??head gasket, timing chain, eventual mechanical failure, valve compression, etc??) and decay (@cybertrucktruckguy 's example of salt not trashing the CT is a great example) like a normal vehicle. The cost to carry is also dirt cheap right now. Most fixed assets don't apprecaite in value though Tesla does have improvements that keep its value from depreciating as much comparatively via updates as well. So yea, I agree on the rule of thumb though I don't think applies much at this point in time with this vehicle.

For a business use case though, depreciation as an accounting term (straight-line) vs depreciation as a tax term (MACRS/bonus/section 179) vs efficiency (how much does it cost to do the job) are all issues. [Yes, cost has many different forms, I'm simplifying it to carrying costs because we can't talk TCO for a CT yet.] Depending on your scenario - I can't believe I'm typing these words - leasing a CyberTruck for business may even be the most advantageous approach. I think everyone can agree that leasing is a form of payments and that generally speaking it's a *terrible* idea.

I agree with your mentors in general though there's always the exception to the rule.

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[Lives2TruckAround]

Because my mentors taught me not to buy depreciating assets on payments.

Mentors always say things like that because they always have the money to not have a liability/depreciating asset. For us common folk who are trying to be up and coming, we still have to buy these assets in order to try and profit in the long run. For example: I have to/would like to purchase a CT through my small business because I drive to all my clients houses and if I depreciate it over the next X amount of years it doesn't become a negative asset anymore. (As a super basic example please don't use this as set in stone)

Mentors just tell you what not to do in their opinion and you have to figure out how to do it correctly to make positive. Everybody that is successful if very vague about what to do because their path was never the same as somebody else's path which in turn means your path isn't going to be the same as their's.

I agree with mentors as well in general but again everyone is different.

But this thread kind of side tracked somewhere else.... getting back to the point of the thread....


Does anybody else have any odd payments or license stuff for their state for EVs?

 

[CyberT]

What would be the COMPLETE costs throughout the year or months of owning a CyberTruck?

If anyone can what would be the Dealership costs plus hidden fees, Monthly insurance costs, license plate costs, and anything else anyone can think of per state?

This is just a thread to discuss the different states and what to look out for when you purchase an EV, especially a Cybertruck, and just to help out each other ya know.


Example from myself and feel free to add more for your estimated summary:
Ev License Plate (according to cyberdriveillinois):

• Newly acquired vehicle/first-time issuance - $401 ($150 title fee + $251 registration fee)
• Annual renewal - $251

Tesla Dealership Online Agreement:

• Destination and Doc Fee - $1,200
• Autopilot - $7,000 (at $100 deposit pre-order)
• Cybertruck - $69,900

Illinois Sales Tax:

• 7.25% = $5,575.25

Insurance: Based on multiple youtubers Insurances raised current premiums 33%

• Geico (for my driving record and mutli car dscnt) - $166 /month

Grand total for Illinois Ownership is: $84,242.25 out the door everything added the first month.

Monthly cost for the rest of the year with Teslas 2.49% APR for 72 months with $0 down (just $78,100 because taxes and Ev license plates are due at the time of delivery) =

• $1,169 /Month

Damn.... finishing this for illinois Im gonna have to save to put a big chunk down
?????????

What would it be for your state/Country?

https://www.calculator.net/auto-loa...it=0&ctype=standard&x=106&y=14#autoloanresult

I've found this Auto loan calculator helpful because it will find your states average taxes, registration fees etc.

Over the past year I've been saving and planning for what a realistic monthly payment will be. I have a spreadsheet that tracks my current spending with my 03 Silverado, gas, insurance, maintenance etc... I am not interested to comparing the costs of what a new ICE truck will cost me because I will never go back to dinosaur fueled vehicles. I am only looking towards the future.

Yes, I will be financing roughly $40k over 60 months that will come out to a $700 payment each month. I anticipate $40/ per month in electricity from charging at home (upping data from my model 3 by 25%).

Who knows really how insurance companies will price the CT, my guess is that they will have no idea and increase the premiums to hedge their bets. I saw about a 10% increase from the civic we traded in for the Model 3 with Farmers. Tesla Insurance is about 30% less to cover the Model 3 but unfortunately I will need a seperate policy for my silverado forgoing my multi car discount plus other discounts making it a little cheaper per month to stay with Farmers. This will all change when my wife and I become an all Tesla family. I plan on dumping Farmers asap when I receive my CT.

 

[Lives2TruckAround]

https://www.calculator.net/auto-loa...it=0&ctype=standard&x=106&y=14#autoloanresult

I've found this Auto loan calculator helpful because it will find your states average taxes, registration fees etc.

Over the past year I've been saving and planning for what a realistic monthly payment will be. I have a spreadsheet that tracks my current spending with my 03 Silverado, gas, insurance, maintenance etc... I am not interested to comparing the costs of what a new ICE truck will cost me because I will never go back to dinosaur fueled vehicles. I am only looking towards the future.

Yes, I will be financing roughly $40k over 60 months that will come out to a $700 payment each month. I anticipate $40/ per month in electricity from charging at home (upping data from my model 3 by 25%).

Who knows really how insurance companies will price the CT, my guess is that they will have no idea and increase the premiums to hedge their bets. I saw about a 10% increase from the civic we traded in for the Model 3 with Farmers. Tesla Insurance is about 30% less to cover the Model 3 but unfortunately I will need a seperate policy for my silverado forgoing my multi car discount plus other discounts making it a little cheaper per month to stay with Farmers. This will all change when my wife and I become an all Tesla family. I plan on dumping Farmers asap when I receive my CT.

Yes I agree with al of this.

I have an RV Trailer, Ford escape, Motorcycle, and Pet insurance through Geico and I for sure will lose something there but its the same thing changing from Android to Apple... I was fully integrated with Android and then the 12 Pro Max came out and I had to jump ship so its been a difficult time re-integrating my life into apple products but....... the future is tesla in my eyes so I believe its worth it. I cant wait to have a full Tesla Family

 

[FutureBoy]

Why would you buy a luxury vehicle on payments?

For the same reason that you would buy anything on payments. There are 2 basic reasons that both have to do with opportunity costs.

1. To get access to something earlier than you would be able to using cash. For instance if you have no cash and you get a new job that requires you to commute using a vehicle. The loan gets you a vehicle that enables you to get the job now. Without the loan, you would need to find some other way to make enough cash to get a vehicle. In this case the opportunity will hopefully allow you to make more money than you are going to be paying out in payments, maintenance, depreciation, etc. Be careful with this case but at times this is a very good decision.

2. To give you access to more money that can be put to use in other ways that are better opportunities. Buying a vehicle on a loan will cost you the depreciation, maintenance, etc of the vehicle plus the the interest rate of the loan. But if you are going to be purchasing the vehicle anyway (perhaps for some similar reason as above) , then we can simplify money question to just the interest rate versus the interest rate of other opportunity costs. Assuming you have the cash to pay for the vehicle outright from the get go, getting a loan for a low interest rate will allow you to get the vehicle while also putting your cash to work somewhere that gives a better rate of return. Say you borrow the money for the car at 3% but you put your money to work at 7%. you can come out 4% ahead and over time make some money instead of just paying off the vehicle. Note that in this case you want to be careful with the risks involved. What are the chances that you total your vehicle? Do you have good insurance for that? Also, how safe is the investment you are making with your own cash? Are you buying stocks? Investing in pork bellies? Buying a business? You need to manage the level of risk you are comfortable with on this end.

As a side note, this can also be used to utilize money that you do not have direct access to at the moment. For instance, if you have a bunch of money in an IRA or 401k that you cannot take out directly to pay for the vehicle without a serious tax penalty, you could put that money to creative use in safe investments with a high rate of return as your alternate investment to bring in more money than the payment you are making on your vehicle loan. As long as you are able to make the vehicle payment from your taxed earnings but collect the investment interest on the deferred tax earnings you can come out pretty far ahead.

At interest rates of 2.7%, yes. Do I have some other investment that is getting me much more? Nope. My personal thinking is that the financing allows opportunity like it did with our current model 3. Do I have to pay for that opportunity in interest? Yes. Did anything, good or bad, come up? No, and since we don't need the opportunity anymore, we're paying it off this year.

Sure, there are folks who can plunk down $100K and be done with it, I assert there are more folks like me or those who want a "luxury" vehicle and are simply making it happen however they can. YMMV

This is a good example of thinking about using the loan to to harvest opportunity cost. You mention not having an alternate investment to utilize your money but as long as you are happy with your results you are doing well. If you had found an alternate investment perhaps you would have come out even better. But as you say: YMMV.

 

[DarinCT]

But this thread kind of side tracked somewhere else.... getting back to the point of the thread....


Does anybody else have any odd payments or license stuff for their state for EVs?

Sorry about the off-topic.

I've been intentionally avoiding doing the calculations because some of the numbers are assumptions and the rest are painful to embrace. ??

Total cost of ownerships = [Fixed] + [Fixed-usage] + [Usage-variable]

[Fixed]: Purchase + Financing + Title, registration and other fees + Sales Tax
[Fixed - usage]: Insurance
[Usage-variable]: Maintenance, Electricity, Tire Wear

I live in California and have a reservation for a tri-motor with FSD @ 7K
Data from the above calculator.net (h/t @CyberT ) or from Tesla.com or dmv.ca.gov

[Fixed]
Purchase (77,900)
Sales Tax @ 7.75% (6,037)
Title, registration and other fees (802)
Destination charge(1,500)*
Subtotal: (86239)

[Fixed-usage]
Insurance (1900) This is my tesla 3 annual x 1.33 rounded up. Because I will be using this in a business, I suspect this number is low
Subtotal: (1900)

[Fixed-annual]
Annual financing interest: (2,400)
Registration fees: (802)**
EV road fees: (100)***
Subtotal: (3,302)

[Usage-variable}****
Assuming 30K miles in 2022 (yes, that's a lot but it makes the math easy and I suspect that 2022 will be close to that)
Electricity: 0.0716cents/kWh * (0.32kW/mile) * 30000 miles : (687.36)
Goodyear Wrangler Kevlar MT/R - $1000 for set of 4 warranty for 60,000 @ 30K miles a year: (500)
Maintenance: ???
Subtotal: (1187)

Back of the napkin calculation
Out the door for (86,239)
Then through 2021 to the beginning of 2022 will be another (4489)

At the beginning of 2026, five years after delivery, I'm roughly looking at 108,684 [86,239 + 5*4489] after traveling 150,000 miles.

Gross*gross*gross*rough of 1800/month.

Notes:
I do have plans that may take me 30K or more in 2022 but I doubt I'll go that far the rest of the years. The financing will be gone at some point, maybe earlier than 5 years. The insurance is likely low. This also assumes I get anywhere near 60,000 miles from these tires which is (highly optimistic). The registration fees will dip some but that's insignificant. Maintenance is a question mark.

As always, if you think my assumptions or data are wrong, please point it out and I'll rerun it. Oddly/interestingly, 1800/month doesn't feel like that much for a business but eye-watering for personal use.


*This is pulled from forums, memory, my keester
**This is from dmv.ca.gov This number seems to change based on DMV's perceived value of car.
***Since I'm confident the EV road fee is $100 and it's not in the above (**) listing I added it. I don't think it gets charged for new vehicle registration only subsequently.
**** We don't know the battery pack specs but I'm using the estimated 0.32kWh/mile by @nxt garage

 

[Crissa]

Because my mentors taught me not to buy depreciating assets on payments.

Everything depreciates. If that was their reasoning, it was flawed. Trusting something to gain in value is the real risk.

This is a utility to you, that is the only reason to buy on credit.

-Crissa

 

[Crissa]

Say you borrow the money for the car at 3% but you put your money to work at 7%. you can come out 4% ahead ...

One is 7% compounding a credit, and the other is 3% compounding but a debit. So after the first year (before compounding), they're 10% apart, not 4%.

That only works if you borrow to invest, and that's super-risky, which is why banks don't like giving unsecured loans. Otherwise you owe them money ala Trump.

-Crissa

 

[FutureBoy]

One is 7% compounding a credit, and the other is 3% compounding but a debit. So after the first year (before compounding), they're 10% apart, not 4%.

That only works if you borrow to invest, and that's super-risky, which is why banks don't like giving unsecured loans. Otherwise you owe them money ala Trump.

-Crissa

Good catch on the percentages.

On the risk side of things, the loan for the vehicle is secured by the vehicle. Stop paying and it will get repossessed. For the alternate investment, there are investments that can be fairly stable and also secured just like the vehicle. Yes, you have to manage risk. But basically anywhere you park your money has a certain level of risk. My grandparents lost a lot of money during the Savings and Loan crisis back in the day. They thought they were safe with bank CD's till they found out that their "bank" was a savings and loan, it was bankrupt, and there was no effective federal bailout.

Cost of living keeps going up over time. So even parking your cash under your mattress has some automatic loss. The trick is in finding the level of risk you are comfortable with and then finding investment vehicles that match your risk level with a rate of return you can live with. Out of all the options you have available at that point, choose the one(s) that you feel best meet your needs.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah. Taking the loan for my spouse's Ducati - definitely a luxury brand - was a no brainer. When you count inflation, they're paying us to take the bike off their hands.

Of course, Tesla doesn't have to pay us via $0 down 0% loans to drive their cars. They don't have year+ old inventory sitting around, either.

-Crissa

 

[Quicksilver]

To the OP.

My state has a tax on EV's since we won't be paying fuel tax. Right now that tax is 250 a year. I did not see that in your first post. More and more states are taxing EV's to recoup the fuel tax.
I have not called USAA (I'm retired military) to check on insurance for the CT because they are not in production yet. I have a good driving record (although I'm at the age where some companies charge seniors more). Up until now no insurance company had beaten USAA for auto/home insurance. I will shop my insurance around once I know when I will take delivery of my CT.

 

[Crissa]

My state has a tax on EV's since we won't be paying fuel tax. Right now that tax is 250 a year.

Ugh, that's terrible. In California, I pay ~$160 in state gas tax for my car. I'd have to drive 15500 EV miles in a year just to equal that in gas tax.

-Crissa

 

[Lives2TruckAround]

To the OP.

My state has a tax on EV's since we won't be paying fuel tax. Right now that tax is 250 a year. I did not see that in your first post. More and more states are taxing EV's to recoup the fuel tax.
I have not called USAA (I'm retired military) to check on insurance for the CT because they are not in production yet. I have a good driving record (although I'm at the age where some companies charge seniors more). Up until now no insurance company had beaten USAA for auto/home insurance. I will shop my insurance around once I know when I will take delivery of my CT.

Illinois has $100 tax on EV

 

[DarinCT]

This was from a webinar I heard in December 2020

 

[Crissa]

This was from a webinar I heard in December 2020...

Weirdly some of the states list their annual, the others list the initial registration.

-Crissa