> In that scenario, the cost of charging your Tesla Model 3 is therefore zero. In the Toyota Camry LE hybrid it’s $0.05 per mile. How long would it take you to make up for the Toyota’s $11,805 up-front price advantage?

> For the average American who drives 1,000 miles per month, $0.05 per mile is $50 per month, or $600 per year. Divide $11,805 with $600 and you get almost 20 years.

Read the whole article.

The headline was the controversial bit. The bit at the end is the "water is wet" news that a more expensive to purchase car is in fact more expensive to purchase. If you've ever added up your fuel costs for a year, this conclusion is self-evident.

You don't need a Seeking Alpha article for that. You only need Tesla's own silly "with gas savings included" price estimator to understand it will take awhile to pay back vs a cheaper car.

Either that or, I don't know, common sense after looking at the gas pump every time you fill up and recognizing that $50 every week or two (or whatever) isn't a huge chunk of change, and likely won't be offset by buying an expensive new EV.

I did read the whole article. The headline is the clickbaity and misleading part. The end of the article is... well, true? The Model 3 is a somewhat-higher-end car. Note that I mentioned the price complaint in my original comment, which is at the end of the article.

> The headline is the clickbaity and misleading part.

It really isn't misleading. They demonstrate that it takes a 20-year service life for Tesla Model 3 owners to recover their expense when compared to Toyota Camry owners of they charged at hime, and demonstrated that the problem would be worse if they used superchargers.

Thus they covered both extreme cases, which bound any real-world example, and showed that the Camry would be cheaper even when compared with Tesla's most favourable scenario.

The headline is "cheaper to fuel", and under the realistic assumption of paying home utility rates it's not. It doesn't pay back fast enough to make up for the price difference, but that's a very different claim.

> The headline is "cheaper to fuel", and under the realistic assumption of paying home utility rates it's not.

Your personal assertion is not correct, and you're trying to force your assertion by ignoring the data presented in the article. You can't simultaneously assert that an article is wrong and ignore everything stated in the article, from data to conclusions drawn from the data.

However, if you really feel strongly about the subject then you're more than welcomed to write a blog post where you write down your personal assertions and try to make your case.

> It doesn't pay back fast enough to make up for the price difference, but that's a very different claim.

That's a secondary claim, which was only made to drive home the fact that Tesla Model 3s are more expensive to own and operate than a Ford Camry even with the unrealistic assumption that Tesla owners benefit from a perpetual source of free energy.

There is no data presented to back the claim that supercharger-only charging is the norm, and I have cited a source to indicate that most consumers are capable of parking next to an electrical hookup. See link in my original comment.

Given the weird assumption that the calculation is based off of, I feel no need to write a full blog post on the subject; that flaw alone means this analysis is off by a factor of 2-3x (2x going by average 13¢/kWh US-wide utility price of electricity, 3x if the consumer lives in an area with demand-smoothing incentives that give lower electricity prices at night).

How is the title incorrect?

"Toyota Camry cheaper to fuel than a Tesla Model 3", only under the unrealistic assumptions I mentioned above.

Because it assumes you only charge at a Supercharger.

Residential electricity is significantly cheaper, and even cheaper if you have solar.

(I pay about 4-5 cents per kwh, not 28 cents as the article assumes.)

My residential power costs just about that $0.28/kWh, though, so maybe the article is somewhat realistic

And that's not even considering the opportunity costs of foregoing investment returns on the $11.8k.

And some people work at places with electric charging ports, so even if you don't have a garage or carport, you may still be able to charge without going to a Tesla charging station.

If my only option for recharging was a Tesla station, I wouldn't buy a Tesla. It takes too long and isn't close to my house, so it's a deal breaker.

Also, the article claims that free electricity would still take X years to clear the premium paid for it, which isn't particularly fair because it's not accounting for other differences in the total cost of ownership there Tesla likely has advantages (e g maintenance).

There's a good chance that a Model 3 is more expensive to own than a Camry, but this article isn't making that claim, yet it kind of tries to shoe horn it in.

I forgot to mention this, when my wife takes my car to work then she charges for free there.

I don't trust these types of analyses on primarily trading/stock based financial sites. Tesla has had so many short positions on it that it is a little ridiculous and it just makes me mistrust the whole financial community a bit regarding Tesla. The headline is extremely click-baity.

The article doesn't even mention which model 3. Or what features are in the Camry vs. the Tesla. Even the cheapest Tesla has a lot of "luxury" features that are rare or don't exist in other cars, which heightens the silliness of including an outright price comparison and really shows the author's biases.

I would be fine if there were a purely fuel cost vs. electricity cost article looking at the efficiency of the two vehicles since comparing their prices, given that they are different size and segment vehicles is absurd.

Then the author throws out a really expensive price for solar panels, which are proven to basically pay for themselves over the long term at current efficiency rates, so, yes, in fact, for the average solar installation, over 10 years, the energy is 'free'. It is increasingly clear to me that the author did very little research and is trying to extrapolate some general trend for his lifestyle and apply it to the vast majority of use cases which is dumb.

IDK, I have read a lot of overly enthusiastic pieces about Tesla and the Model 3 and I have read a lot of hit pieces. This reads more like the typical hit piece I see. The value proposition of the LE Hybrid is certainly interesting, but if you are trying to save the most money, just by a car that costs 15,000 and your fuel costs over 5 years will never catch up to the price of the Camry anyway.

Also at the end the author states sales were basically flat in 2019 providing a number of units sold at: 192,250 yet Tesla sold 360K plus units (the author is only looking at US figures for some reason...., despite the overall performance of Tesla being that they sold more cars in 2019 than in 2017 and 2018 combined.

(p.s. I read the fine print after writing this post.... "Disclosure: I am/we are short TSLA. "). Okay then.

(Full disclosure: I own a Model 3, and don't own any Tesla stock that I am aware of).

FTA, the average American can expect to save a mere $2400 per decade by driving the Camry Hybrid.

I'm not in the car market but think I'll happily pay an extra 240 bucks per year for the opportunity to "fuel" my vehicle with electricity, because that can be generated from renewables or from nuclear, etc. Maybe I live in a sunny part of the world and can charge my car with solar?

Tesla recommends against using superchargers as your only charging source (or at least they used to). I bought my Model 3 without having a place to charge at home and I don't have a problem finding free charging alternatives. I use a supercharger maybe once a month excluding trips.

The headline should be appended to include: for apartment dwellers