I Daily Drove a Tesla… Here’s What It REALLY Costs

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Driveway Engineer. I am J R. Today is a video that you probably did not ever expect to see on this channel, but nevertheless, here we are. We are coming to you live from my 2020 Tesla Model 3 Performance.

[00:00:18]Uh I wanted to touch on this. There's a lot of misconceptions about EVs and people politicize the thing and, you know, turn it into a right-wing, left-wing kind of deal. And I'm kind of hoping to change people's attitudes or at least enlighten people a little bit.

[00:00:35]And the point's not really the self-driving, which does work great, and I use it frequently.

[00:00:41]Um the point is to just kind of make you consider how good these can be and that maybe one of these could be your next daily driver.

[00:00:49]Um so for us, this is our third EV.

[00:00:55]The first one being a Chevy Bolt, and the second one being a Volkswagen ID.4.

[00:00:59]Those were company cars for Mrs. Engineer. Uh she's a nurse, and she visits people in their homes and takes care of their wounds when their wounds are such that they require a professional, but not quite so bad that they require hospitalization. So, um she either has company cars or she gets paid mileage.

[00:01:19]And she drives about 150 to 200 mi a day, 5 days a week. So, she has she takes the patients she wants. She doesn't take the ones she doesn't want.

[00:01:32]Um she, you know, they tell them what area they're in. If they're in her area, she wants to see them, she does.

[00:01:38]So, she gets paid either 55 or 75 cents a mile depending on whether it's a Medicare or uh auto insurance patient.

[00:01:51]Um which like more than covers the payment of this car and the insurance and the charging and actually leaves us like $90 a week in our pockets.

[00:02:03]Um and of course that doesn't cover the depreciation of the car. But this car is rated at a 300-mi range. I think it's like 303 or something like that brand new.

[00:02:14]Uh currently it has 91% battery life.

[00:02:17]It's at 61 thousand miles. Uh we bought it used from Carvana.

[00:02:22]And we got a $4,500 tax credit on it, which expired in September.

[00:02:28]Um nevertheless, I feel like we got a good deal on the car. It is quite fast.

[00:02:34]And I'm really happy to have it.

[00:02:38]The self-drive just messed up because I'm filming and it doesn't like it.

[00:02:41]Um So, yeah. I mean, I'm talking to you about a few things, you know, a few points that I hear all the time. Like I drive further than most people, just myself. I live 35 mi from work, so it's 70 mi a day for me every day.

[00:03:00]And the Jeep that at 16 mi a gallon, that cost me about 16 mi a gallon, 75 mi a day, that's like 4 gallons of fuel, we'll say at currently 375 a gallon, cost me, you know, close to 15 bucks a day to go back and forth to work.

[00:03:20]This cost about $5 a day to charge, and we charge it from 20% to 80%. That's the range that we try to keep the battery in on the daily, right? If you charge it up to 100, it's okay to charge the battery to 100% if you're going to immediately use it.

[00:03:38]Um it doesn't kill them, it doesn't wreck it, it doesn't do anything, right?

[00:03:43]What you don't want to do is charge it to 100% and then leave the car sit for 5 days.

[00:03:48]Um also, if you're charging to 100%, it takes longer to go from 80 to 100 than it does from 20 to 80. So, if you're at a pay charger, you're you're paying by time, it's kilowatts an hour, so you want to get in and out as soon as possible.

[00:04:06]Nevertheless, I can show you guys the charge stats for this car.

[00:04:10]Um Mrs. Engineer charges it on the road.

[00:04:13]Monday is a very long day for her. She charges it at a Tesla Supercharger every Monday.

[00:04:18]Um and then sometimes on Fridays.

[00:04:20]Sometimes Fridays also a longer day for her.

[00:04:23]But see, it just navigated around that guy who's way past the stop sign just fine.

[00:04:28]Um So, a Tesla Supercharger stop takes if you're at 20% to 80%, it takes less than 15 minutes. It's not a big deal.

[00:04:40]Uh you know, people I fill my gas tank in 37 seconds.

[00:04:45]You can, but, you know, most of the time I drive further than most people, and I would only have to charge this car every other day. So, um she's paying about $130 a month in home charging and supercharging fees to run this car.

[00:05:05]Um and then getting paid back in mileage like 600 bucks a week. So, there the other upside, there's no maintenance, there's no oil changes, you know, she was doing oil changes in the Jeep like maybe every 3 to 4 weeks, right?

[00:05:25]She's piling miles on the Jeep. That engine's going to wear out eventually.

[00:05:30]So, you know, all of that is downsides.

[00:05:35]The it's just very cheap to run.

[00:05:39]It's got more than enough It's a very comfortable, nice car.

[00:05:42]I I genuinely like this car. And I will tell you, and mine's not even the fastest because the newer ones are faster, but this is 100% the fastest street registered car I've ever driven in my life. And I've had a Shelby GT500, uh Terminator Cobra, you know, so on and so forth, Daryl, the turbocharged C10.

[00:06:10]Um lots of very fast cars in my life, and and this one would absolutely smoke them all. So, it's a very fast car. It's a fun car to drive. I don't know why people think that, you know, there's no soul and it's not fun and it it absolutely is that. Uh hold on a second here.

[00:06:38]Let's slow us down here before we go to jail.

[00:06:41]Um that was, you know, not slow, not boring. That was over a G of forward acceleration. This thing does a quarter mile in 10 and 1/2 seconds and zero to 60 in under 3. So, I'm not saying that you need to run out and sell your F350 and buy a Tesla. I'm saying that if you need a car to go to work and you're in the 15 to $25,000 used range, then this can absolutely be that for you. Um it's a good-looking car, too.

[00:07:16]I think.

[00:07:17]I have 18-in wheels on mine from the stock 20s, which increased the range a little, but also made it ride a lot better. Like it rode with the factory 20s on it, it was pretty pretty rough, but uh the other thing is battery replacement.

[00:07:34]People, you're going to need a $25,000 battery. Inevitably, that'll be a comment down below. Uh a battery for this car, exactly this car, if I do nothing and just have it installed, is $8,600.

[00:07:48]Um that's I stay on my couch, they let me know when it's done, give me a new battery with warranty.

[00:07:54]Also, this has a 8-year, 100,000-mi battery life warranty on it. Anyway, if it drops below 75% life, Tesla will replace it free of charge for me under warranty.

[00:08:08]Um battery life's just not a thing. You can have the pack repaired, you can buy a pack on eBay. Actually helped a friend of mine change a battery pack uh cuz he owns a shop, he was curious about it.

[00:08:20]It was like 20 bolts and a couple of connectors that undo themselves. It was pretty straightforward.

[00:08:27]And incredibly easy to do.

[00:08:29]Um I mean, we didn't know what we were doing. It was a little bit of programming, 3 and 1/2 hours. 3 and 1/2 hours from the time that we pushed that thing in with a forklift to driving it out under its own power.

[00:08:41]So, much easier than [laughter] an engine swap.

[00:08:45]And uh a lot cleaner, too. We didn't get all greasy and and dirty and gross. So, again, I'm not saying that, you know, you should go sell your F350 and buy a Tesla.

[00:08:59]I'm just saying that for most people, they will probably work.

[00:09:02]And if you're shopping for a new car to drive back and forth, especially something that you're just going to pile miles onto like this, >> [clears throat] >> this car will have 100,000 mi on it within 2 years.

[00:09:16]>> [clears throat] >> We bought it at 52, it's already at 60.

[00:09:19]Um 62. So, we'll hit 100,000 mi on this in no time flat.

[00:09:26]And it's definitely going to pay us back, even without the mileage, but just simply the cost of running this versus running the Jeep, it's so much cheaper. Like when I on the weekends, like I had I blew a head or I wrecked a head gasket in my K20 on the 454. I dropped a nut and had to pull a head and wrecked that gasket, needed another one. The nearest one was 45 mi away.

[00:09:50]I absolutely hopped in this because it cost nothing for me to run it over there.

[00:09:55]And uh you know, took it round trip, whereas if I would have taken my truck, my RAM, that would have been, you know, a $40 trip in diesel.

[00:10:03]And if I took the Jeep, it would have been, you know, a $25 trip in gasoline.

[00:10:07]So, um and it drove me. So, that was pretty nice, too. It's pretty nice to sit back and make a video while your car drives you.

[00:10:17]So, I'm just saying like I've owned these for a while. I've kind of kept quiet about it cuz I I don't know how many people want to hear about it or like people politicize the thing and and they make it seem like, you know, everything doesn't have to be politics.

[00:10:31]Some things can just be good or bad, and sometimes can just be good or bad for you. Obviously, if you're a hotshot truck driver and all you ever do is haul campers and you never leave your driveway if you're going less than 1,000 mi, hauling less than 10,000 lb, a Tesla Model 3 is not for you, right? And that's fair, and I understand that. But it also, if you're just going to work, leave your big truck at home. You know, what I wouldn't do is buy a cheap EV that if it doesn't meet your daily if the range doesn't meet 60% of your daily need, don't buy it.

[00:11:06]Like for me, like currently, anything less than 250 mi of range will not work for Mrs. Engineer. Um so, that leaves out like your cheaper Bolts and stuff like that.

[00:11:18]Because she then she really would have to stop and charge and be miserable. But otherwise, it's a very nice car, very quiet car, well-made, well put together.

[00:11:29]And uh I enjoy having it, and I enjoy driving it.

[00:11:33]And I wish I had another one. Like I would absolutely buy a Cybertruck if they weren't so damn expensive.

[00:11:40]Like if I could get a Cybertruck for 20 grand, I'd be driving one right now. Not because I want to haul [ __ ] with it, but because I'm 6'5" and I'm 300 lb, and it's easy for me to get in and out of, and it has more than enough range, and it's comfortable, and it'll drive me to and from work.

[00:11:54]Um and I don't give a [ __ ] about Elon Musk or Donald Trump or Joe Biden or the green new scam or whatever the [ __ ] Reddit rabbit hole 4chan [ __ ] you're on about. Like these things work, and they work just fine for me. Um and they can probably work just fine for you.

[00:12:12]Like I charge this in my There's no special charger in my driveway. There's a 50-A plug that I installed when I had my welder down there. It's the same 50-A plug that you would have if you had a washer or dryer.

[00:12:25]Um and then we Tesla has a mobile charger.

[00:12:29]We plug it in. She comes home, she parks it in there. It's on a schedule. It does its thing.

[00:12:33]It's charging at night while we're sleeping. We don't really think about it. Um you know, yeah, if you live in an apartment and you you only have to do public charging, then then it may not make sense for you. But like inevitably in the comments, everybody I will find every single person who's in the 1% of people who lives 300 mi from the nearest power pole and only ever tows the USS Nimitz.

[00:12:57]Uh I like the car. If you have any questions about the car, if you're genuinely curious about the car, I've taken a bunch of people for rides in it, and they're blown away by how fast it is.

[00:13:07]Um just because I want people to see, you know, I think it's dumb like I think the extended range electric vehicles like the Scout and all I think they're dumb.

[00:13:17]I think they're only to assuage people's conscience, people who just have too much anxiety.

[00:13:23]Once you own an EV and you can charge it in your driveway, like range anxiety goes away. We never have it. I drive this thing anywhere I want to go all the time.

[00:13:33]I mean, hundreds of miles.

[00:13:36]And the same people who tell me they can't have an EV because of range tell me, "Oh my god, you went all the way to Mount Pleasant?" And it's, you know, 45 mi away.

[00:13:44]Like make up your mind, man. Either you never leave your zip code or you need a zillion miles of range.

[00:13:51]Anyway, uh I'm curious what you guys think about this video. It's been rambling.

[00:13:57]But uh whatever. I'm This is why I'm making it on an off day, just to see what you guys think, and uh see how you feel, see if you have any questions, and uh we'll go from there on it. So, thanks for watching. We'll see you guys next time on The Driveway Engineer.