The spreadsheet seems light on maintenance numbers. The car is sold in year 8 but hasn't been serviced in several years previous (seems odd). Most people correct for this come the residual. Also, the tires on this car wear out quickly. 120k miles would see at least 6x sets of tires in the back (some are going in under 10k miles), and likely 4 in the front (20x$400=8,000). Also, the Battery is expensive and shoudl be replaced around 100K most likely ($8,000+). These costs would be substantial in total, but the author also forgets Insurance. We've seen Tesla re-design the underbody most likely for insurance rather than pure safety reasons. This is likely ($15-20K) of omitted cost. Lastly, brakes are typically replaced @ 30K miles and on a car of this caliber would be ($4,000) over this timeframe. That is another $40,000 out of pocket on the back of a napkin. It could be more or less, but the spreadsheet shows <$4,000 which seems off by an order of magnitude.
Tesla offers the option to purchase 4y of maintenance for $1900, which I included in the model, vs. $600/yr. The options are nearly economical neutral, but I plan to do at least the 1st 4y option. Maintenance also includes brake pad replacement.
I did not include tires or insurance - either for the Tesla or for the other vehicles (Ody, BMW, Volvo). I also didn't include the financial value of safety (though Travis attempted to on the cash flow model), HOV lane access, cargo space, etc.
On the battery, based on the research I've read from existing EV owners, and from my experience as an EV owner for 3y, I'm expecting around 85% of my battery to be available in 8-10y. If a battery swap option is available, I plan to do it around year 15 or so (i.e., ~2030).
Why didn't you include tires or insurance? Tires for a Tesla (especially with the larger-wheel packages) will be enormously more expensive than those for an Odyssey, and the car will wear them out much more quickly.
On a low maintenance gasoline engine (i.e. not VW/Audi), consumables like tires, brake pads+rotors, dampers, wheel bearings, ball joints, and so on outweigh the ICE specific costs like oil filter and change, spark plugs, serpentine belts, timing belts, and water pumps by a decent margin, doubly so if the engine has a well engineered timing chain system and thus doesn't require an involved timing-belt service.
Plus, an electric car still has plenty of moving powertrain parts like water pumps and valves that could fail, and we don't know if that will happen yet.
Tesla are at a huge advantage in this department, though, because they've accustomed their clients to being tracked at all times and their cars are all serviced at Tesla-owned service centers. That means that if any failure patterns become evident, Tesla can summon their owners to have the issue fixed proactively before it becomes a problem. I love this model and do think it adds a lot of value to the Tesla, but whether or not they can sustain such a program at scale remains to be seen.
Tesla brakes last practically forever because they're almost never used. Regenerative braking is used for normal driving and the mechanical brakes are just there for hard braking, emergencies, and possibly at very low speeds. So I think you can take that back out of your numbers. Leaving out insurance seems really bizarre though.
