I started breaking down numbers. The only thing I really can't figure on the Tesla and VW is total cost of ownership because I haven't seen them through to the end like I did the F150. I only lost $7k in value after 5 years of ownership, but I bought it in a low market new and it was in the height of the used car craze that I sold it, so not everything is even though it is a part of the market that statistically does hold its value.
The first numbers are only the cost of fuel to what it is per mile and I will explain where I came up with these numbers. The F150 I saw as high as 23mpg and as low as 15mpg. I did the fuel economy AFE bias computer adjustments on the truck and confirmed that I had them within 0.1mpg of every calculation I did. Average was usually 18-19 MPG so for these purposes I'll use 19mpg as the figure. I don't have earlier data on other cars as accurate as the 3 included because I never heavily tracked it until this truck because of it's rather mediocre fuel economy and high price of fuel during some of its ownership.
The GTI is Stage 1 tuned and has seen as low as 30mpg in the cold and as good as 39mpg on two tanks one with the tune and one without the tune. Because of mods this car has definitely had the most spend on it of the 3, but I don't think that should be figured into this as it was elective and didn't seem to affect economy. It is now required to run premium, but I always ran premium before anyway. I'm mostly in the 34-37mpg range hand calculated every time because the on board computer is always all over the place. I'll use 35mpg for the purposes of this one. Of the 3 vehicles the GTI and the F150 have had the most similar commuting uses and were my typical daily drivers.
The Tesla has only had 3-4 public charging experiences as it's rare that we're not returning home at the end of the day. The actual economy is harder to track here because I'm not inclined to just trust what the car says it's doing because I'm not used to this being accurate on any car that hasn't been adjusted. For the purposes though we're going to say of it's 272 mile rated range that we're only getting 200. I think that kind of adjusts for some cold weather and absorbs at least a tiny bit of the losses from the house to the car when charging. Electricity when including taxes is 14.2 cents per kWh and the usable capacity of the battery is 60kWh. I'll use this calculation assuming dead to full which gives us $8.52 per charge. I'll knock that to an even $9 to help account for the once every 4-5 months this car sees at public charging. Not exactly scientific, but that puts us in the ballpark.
At these straight figures we see:
2017 F150 XLT 5.0 SCrew - 16.3 cents per mile (regular @ $3.09 per gallon)
2018 GTI Autobahn Stage 1 DSG 10.3 cents per mile (premium @ $3.59 per gallon)
2023 Model 3 4.5 cents per mile (at 14.2 cents per kWh)
It gets harder when trying to figure in actual costs because of the market itself. Initial cost for the F150 was $42k. It was sold 5 years later with 42k miles for $35k. The GTI was preowned and was $30k. A new GTI Autobahn is $42k. The Tesla was the most expensive at $47k, though a new one can be had for $36k. This will be the biggest point of contention, but I can't realize a cost on initial purchase until I would sell. Obviously that wouldn't be a good investment now as rental companies have found. Sure I could do that math out, but that wouldn't apply to my scenario and it wouldn't account for how long I owned. It does however cost $200 more per year to put tags on it do to the ROAD tax. That's in all caps for those that don't think we pay fuel tax and that round and round misunderstood argument. I digress. Anyway we'll figure that in across the 6,000 miles a year this car sees for the next one.
The GTI is the needy one of the group for service. It saw the 40k mile service over the last year of ownership to the tune of $822. I'll use that in it's calculation across the 14k miles it has seen in 12 months. Again none of these approaches are really comparable because of the time frames, they're just my actual costs averaged out per mile. It's the best I can do without selling the vehicles to get there. In comparison the F150 never saw anything other than oil changes and tire rotations because I'm not going to figure in the damages to the vehicle. Most of which I paid out of pocket for except for 2 rear ending accidents. Others were parking lot damages that would have barely beat the deductible and I don't know who did them, so I paid out of pocket and did the repairs myself. One was broken trim on the front bumper and another was a broken taillight to the tune of $671.
Anyway, I've rambled enough but hopefully that explains how I got to these stupidly skewed not actually comparable numbers that goes into my actual costs. I've of course removed initial cost estimates because that isn't the full story to end of life of the vehicle and they all were so close in cost new anyway.
2017 F150 XLT 5.0 SCrew 33 cents per mile (fuel and including $7000 loss in value balanced over 42,000 miles)
2018 GTI Autobahn Stage 1 DSG 10.4 cents per mile (fuel including the higher service costs over the other vehicles)
2023 Model 3 RWD 4.9 cents per mile (including the $200 per year road tax fee)
Sorry again for the rambling, but this is the breakdown I've seen across these vehicles. I don't think I could get an appreciably honest number across these vehicles unless I knew for sure what the value would be selling after 5 years of ownership. We all pretty well know the Tesla would take the biggest hit here, but it would still just be an estimated number at this time. I doubt we'll realize that either because I plan in 5 years to keep the GTI, daily the Model 3, and get my wife a new daily as the family vehicle in whatever form that turns out to be.
The first numbers are only the cost of fuel to what it is per mile and I will explain where I came up with these numbers. The F150 I saw as high as 23mpg and as low as 15mpg. I did the fuel economy AFE bias computer adjustments on the truck and confirmed that I had them within 0.1mpg of every calculation I did. Average was usually 18-19 MPG so for these purposes I'll use 19mpg as the figure. I don't have earlier data on other cars as accurate as the 3 included because I never heavily tracked it until this truck because of it's rather mediocre fuel economy and high price of fuel during some of its ownership.
The GTI is Stage 1 tuned and has seen as low as 30mpg in the cold and as good as 39mpg on two tanks one with the tune and one without the tune. Because of mods this car has definitely had the most spend on it of the 3, but I don't think that should be figured into this as it was elective and didn't seem to affect economy. It is now required to run premium, but I always ran premium before anyway. I'm mostly in the 34-37mpg range hand calculated every time because the on board computer is always all over the place. I'll use 35mpg for the purposes of this one. Of the 3 vehicles the GTI and the F150 have had the most similar commuting uses and were my typical daily drivers.
The Tesla has only had 3-4 public charging experiences as it's rare that we're not returning home at the end of the day. The actual economy is harder to track here because I'm not inclined to just trust what the car says it's doing because I'm not used to this being accurate on any car that hasn't been adjusted. For the purposes though we're going to say of it's 272 mile rated range that we're only getting 200. I think that kind of adjusts for some cold weather and absorbs at least a tiny bit of the losses from the house to the car when charging. Electricity when including taxes is 14.2 cents per kWh and the usable capacity of the battery is 60kWh. I'll use this calculation assuming dead to full which gives us $8.52 per charge. I'll knock that to an even $9 to help account for the once every 4-5 months this car sees at public charging. Not exactly scientific, but that puts us in the ballpark.
At these straight figures we see:
2017 F150 XLT 5.0 SCrew - 16.3 cents per mile (regular @ $3.09 per gallon)
2018 GTI Autobahn Stage 1 DSG 10.3 cents per mile (premium @ $3.59 per gallon)
2023 Model 3 4.5 cents per mile (at 14.2 cents per kWh)
It gets harder when trying to figure in actual costs because of the market itself. Initial cost for the F150 was $42k. It was sold 5 years later with 42k miles for $35k. The GTI was preowned and was $30k. A new GTI Autobahn is $42k. The Tesla was the most expensive at $47k, though a new one can be had for $36k. This will be the biggest point of contention, but I can't realize a cost on initial purchase until I would sell. Obviously that wouldn't be a good investment now as rental companies have found. Sure I could do that math out, but that wouldn't apply to my scenario and it wouldn't account for how long I owned. It does however cost $200 more per year to put tags on it do to the ROAD tax. That's in all caps for those that don't think we pay fuel tax and that round and round misunderstood argument. I digress. Anyway we'll figure that in across the 6,000 miles a year this car sees for the next one.
The GTI is the needy one of the group for service. It saw the 40k mile service over the last year of ownership to the tune of $822. I'll use that in it's calculation across the 14k miles it has seen in 12 months. Again none of these approaches are really comparable because of the time frames, they're just my actual costs averaged out per mile. It's the best I can do without selling the vehicles to get there. In comparison the F150 never saw anything other than oil changes and tire rotations because I'm not going to figure in the damages to the vehicle. Most of which I paid out of pocket for except for 2 rear ending accidents. Others were parking lot damages that would have barely beat the deductible and I don't know who did them, so I paid out of pocket and did the repairs myself. One was broken trim on the front bumper and another was a broken taillight to the tune of $671.
Anyway, I've rambled enough but hopefully that explains how I got to these stupidly skewed not actually comparable numbers that goes into my actual costs. I've of course removed initial cost estimates because that isn't the full story to end of life of the vehicle and they all were so close in cost new anyway.
2017 F150 XLT 5.0 SCrew 33 cents per mile (fuel and including $7000 loss in value balanced over 42,000 miles)
2018 GTI Autobahn Stage 1 DSG 10.4 cents per mile (fuel including the higher service costs over the other vehicles)
2023 Model 3 RWD 4.9 cents per mile (including the $200 per year road tax fee)
Sorry again for the rambling, but this is the breakdown I've seen across these vehicles. I don't think I could get an appreciably honest number across these vehicles unless I knew for sure what the value would be selling after 5 years of ownership. We all pretty well know the Tesla would take the biggest hit here, but it would still just be an estimated number at this time. I doubt we'll realize that either because I plan in 5 years to keep the GTI, daily the Model 3, and get my wife a new daily as the family vehicle in whatever form that turns out to be.
