5 Years Of Tesla Ownership

I bought my first Tesla, a Model X, in 2016; it was one of the first 20 thousand Model Xes off the line. We were not as early to Tesla as the original Roadster buyers but ahead of the swarm of Model 3 buyers.

Five years in and I still love to drive it. Each year that I've owned it, I've written an annual report of the adventures we've had and our ownership experience. You can see years 1 through 4 here: 1, 2, 3, 4. 

At the end of year 5, we have just under 43 thousand miles on the vehicle. 

Battery Degradation

Normally, I start these reports by talking about our various road trips for the past year and that fun we've had getting there in our Tesla, but I don't want to bury the lead for this year. The big breakthrough in year 5 is that the battery degradation has leveled off. This is great news! As you can see in the graph below, there was notable degradation in years 1 through 4.  

When new, our 90D had an EPA-rated range of 257 miles. In the first year, it was down to 250 miles. The end of year 2 saw 246 miles. The range was 240 miles at the end of year 3. Year 4 knocked another seven miles off, bringing the range to 233 miles. I was starting to get worried. The range seemed to be dropping 4 to 7 miles each year with no sign of slowing. I knew that battery range degradation is to be expected in the first few years, but the degradation rate should slow after that and I was seeing no signs of slowing since year 4 lost as much range as year 1 (seven miles).  

Year 5, is when we finally had the leveling off that I've been waiting for. As we exit year 5, I'm happy to say the reported range is now 237 miles (up a bit from the end of year 4).  

I'm not sure why more range is now being reported. We have had several over-the-air software upgrades. It's possible that one of them has changed the way the battery is managed or this data is reported. There's also "noise" in the readings from various things like battery-balancing, temperature... 

Another possibility is that with the pandemic, we've cut most of our road trips and I've been working from home for the last ~19 months, so the vehicle is not driven as much as years 1-4. This year+ of light use may have contributed to the reduced degradation too. Whatever the cause, I'm happy to see this leveling at 8% degradation. 

If you're EV shopping, and you plan to keep the EV for 5 plus years, make sure you account for this and buy at least 10% more range than you need to allow for some level of degradation and a worry-free drive.

To the Dunes

Quad on the dunes (via jmaboy)

Now on to the fun stuff. The one notable road trip we did take this year was to the Oregon dunes. Our timing was perfect as a heatwave hit the Portland area, we headed to the coast where it was much cooler. 

The drive was easy, we drove from Portland to Florence, Oregon on a single charge. The Florence hotel we stayed in had a Tesla destination charger. This allowed us to charge up as we strolled on the beach and ate dinner, giving us plenty of charge for our fun the next day. 

The dunes were fun; I can't wait till we can rent a Cyberquad or the like and tool-around on electrically powered sand riders.

On To Another Year

I plan on keeping this Model X until 2025. However, my 2016 vehicle is an Autopilot 1 vehicle and all the Full Self Driving Beta hype is getting my attention and giving me a case of fomo. The refreshed Model Xs have recently been spotted, I might have to go and test drive one soon.