3 Years of Tesla Model X Ownership

In September of 2016, I bought a Tesla Model X 90D. This has been my daily driver ever since and we've taken it on multiple road trips. It has performed flawlessly. Below, we'll look at road trips, fuel costs, upgrades, and battery degradation during these years of ownership.

3-year-old (2016) Tesla Model X fresh and clean after a wash

Mileage and Road Trips

From our homebase in Portland, OR we've driven to Grants Pass; eastern Oregon; Bend, OR; San Diego, CA; Great Wolf Lodge; the dunes of Florence; Thor's Well; Crater Lake; Oregon Wildlife Safari; Cove Palisades; The Oregon Caves, and many other destinations.

On this 3rd anniversary of ownership, the X has 32,669 miles on the o-meter.

The Model X is a great vehicle for road trips. Around here, the Tesla charging network makes it easy to recharge and the stop time is just right to stretch your legs and grab a snack. Plenty of hotels have chargers, so you can start out each day with a full charge.

Fuel Cost

Can you call electricity a "fuel"? Either way, here's how much it cost us to drive these 32k miles.

About 8,000 of these miles were with free Supercharging. The bulk of the remaining miles were charged up at home in our garage. We have the time-of-use plan with our local utility and we are only charged 4.209¢ per kWh during overnight off-peak hours.

Doing a little math, we've paid $634 for 24,668 miles of travel, or 32,668 miles if you include those fueled by Superchargers. $634 for 3 years of driving is pretty good, but how does that compare to the cost we'd have paid to fuel a gas vehicle?

For the comparison, we'll look at two other Luxury Midsize SUVs from the same year: a 2016 BMW X5 M AWD 4DR and a 2016 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S. These get 14 city /19 hwy and 14/21 MPG respectively. Generously assuming the gas in the tank from the dealership covered the 668 miles, that leaves 32,000 miles worth of gas to buy.

The BWM X5 would burn about 1,940 gallons at a cost of $4,975 to travel 32k miles. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo S is only slightly better, burning 1,830 gallons of gas at a cost of $4,690. 

The Model X cost only 13.5% of the cost of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S to fuel. For the Model X, that's as if we were paying 35¢ per gallon. When's the last time gasoline was 35¢ a gallon? It was around the time that Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and that price wasn't going to last long because the OPEC oil embargo would soon follow.

As I type this, the big news story is "Two Major Saudi Oil Installations Hit by Drone Strike." Gasoline has been a problem for my entire lifetime, I think it's time to move on from this dysfunctional relationship. Electricity prices are far less volatile. No country has ever had their wind turbines as the target of a drone strike. 

Upgrades

One of the best features of any Tesla vehicle is the fact that it receives periodic software updates over-the-air. These updates add functionality and fun to the car. Here are a few of the things they've added during these 3 years:

• Chill Mode
• Easy Entry
• Dog Mode 
• Faster Supercharging
• Battery Preconditioning 
• New Application Launcher
• Atari Games
• Adaptive Suspension Damping Improvements
• Driver Profile Key Linking
• Heated Steering Wheel Improvements  
• Sketchpad Improvements
• Owners Manual Improvements
• UI Improvements
• Map Updates

Owners of newer Teslas might have noticed that I didn't list Navigate On Autopilot or some of the other AP related updates. That's because this was one of the last AP1 cars that Tesla made. I have no sour grapes over missing out on AP2+, I expect continuous innovation from Tesla.

Battery Degradation 

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I had a Nissan Leaf from 2011 until 2018. During those 7 years of ownership, I was greatly disappointed with the battery-life longevity. I wanted to keep the car for 10 years, but, for our needs, the battery range had degraded too much. So, battery degradation was one of my major concerns when I was EV shopping and this was one of the main reasons that I bought a Tesla. Taxi companies like Tesloop and others had bought Teslas and they were putting hundreds of thousands of miles on them each year. From their published data (see the chart below), the vehicles suffered about 10% of range loss over the first 100k miles and then the degradation flatted out and became negligible. So as long as you bought a car with ~10% more range than you needed, you should be fine.

Tesloop Battery Degradation Over 300k Miles

When new, our X had a 257-mile range. How has it held up? Today, it has a range of ~241 miles. That's a 6.3% range loss. In the first year, it lost 2.1% of range; in the second year, it lost an additional 2.2%; and in this third year, it lost 2.0%.

6.3% of Range Loss over 3 years

About the graph above, note that the left axis starts at 200 miles. This zoom-in allows you to see the degradation, but it also makes it look worse than it is. On most days, I'm only charging up to 160 miles, so the maximum range is not a significant factor.

Next year, I'm hoping to see less than 2% and for the degradation to flatten out at 230 miles. We shall see. If you plan on buying an EV and keeping it for a long time, make sure to account for some degradation as it ages.

Wrap Up

3 years of Model X ownership and I have no regrets. It was (is) the most I'd ever spent on a car. In fact, other than a house, it was the most expensive this I've ever purchased; and I'd do it again. Tesla's range, charging network, and fast charging time makes it so this can be your only vehicle. The battery management system smartly keeps the batteries from premature aging, so it should make it to the 10-year mark. I wonder what technomagical features the 2026 Tesla Model X will have.

Older Model X Reviews

You can see my 1-year review here and my 2-year review here.