'Normal' SUVs vs Model Y

[Anonymous]

We are in the market for an SUV. Most of the driving will be in town with about 3 to 4 400+ mile cross-country trips each year.

Important Factors:
- Comfort/luxury
- Low maintenance
- Good Mileage
- Legroom

We are the "buy new and drive it to the ground" kind of people. Our current vehicles are 12 (100K miles) and 18 years (200K miles) old.

Would appreciate thoughts on which SUVs y'all considered when looking at the Model Y, which one you ended up with and why. 5 or 7-seater.

Don't care one way or another about EVs, Environment, Elon or Politics. The value proposition is what matters to us.

[Anonymous]

Budget?

[Anonymous]

There just isn’t enough longevity data on Tesla to be able to know if you can drive their cars that long.

What other cars are you considering? The Model Y is not large.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s unlikely that cars they are building now will last 12 years. There are just so many electronic things to break.

[Anonymous]

Tesloop is a shuttle service in ca - some of their teslas are approaching 500k miles and almost all are at 300k+. I personally know a few early adopters with 150-200k on their teslas. All from California. We used to drive 5k miles a year, all city. Now we drive 16k on highways, so we needed a car that could go the distance. To quote Indy, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage”

[Anonymous]

Toyota/Lexus are the most reliable cars long term.

[Anonymous]

In the 7 seater, the back two seats only work from people who are less than 5' tall. My kids can ride there, but no adult can comfortably. Decide if you have people that size who would use those seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s unlikely that cars they are building now will last 12 years. There are just so many electronic things to break.

Tesla has vastly fewer parts than an ice , Tesla has been making cars for 14 years, old man yells at cloud

[Anonymous]

Are you willing to not make those 3-4 drives in one go and stop for at least 30-45 mins to supercharge the Tesla?

[Anonymous]

OP. Thanks for the responses. To answer some of the questions..

- We generally stop at about 3 hours or so to gas up/eat/bathroom break, etc. A bathroom break with gas costs 20-30 minutes. Add in a meal, it's typically an hour. On a trip from the DC area to say, Chicago, we'd have stopped twice - once for a meal (likely in Pittsburg) and once for a bio break/coffee (Toledo, maybe). Varies, of course, but we are not in a rush. Adding another stop just to recharge is not a biggie.

- 7 seater would be nice but not essential. Typical passenger count is 4 (all grown ups), sometimes stretches to 6 or 7. We just have to deal with the extra peeps some other way if not possible with our vehicle.

- Flexible on Budget but don't want to pay premium for a 7 seater. It's $4K extra for tesla's extra 2 seats but based on feedback, it's quite pathetic. ICE SUV's seem to cost a lot more (likely because they are structurally bigger and the last row seats are 'real' 3-seaters).

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]OP. Thanks for the responses. To answer some of the questions..

- We generally stop at about 3 hours or so to gas up/eat/bathroom break, etc. A bathroom break with gas costs 20-30 minutes. Add in a meal, it's typically an hour. On a trip from the DC area to say, Chicago, we'd have stopped twice - once for a meal (likely in Pittsburg) and once for a bio break/coffee (Toledo, maybe). Varies, of course, but we are not in a rush. Adding another stop just to recharge is not a biggie.

- 7 seater would be nice but not essential. Typical passenger count is 4 (all grown ups), sometimes stretches to 6 or 7. We just have to deal with the extra peeps some other way if not possible with our vehicle.

- Flexible on Budget but don't want to pay premium for a 7 seater. It's $4K extra for tesla's extra 2 seats but based on feedback, it's quite pathetic. ICE SUV's seem to cost a lot more (likely because they are structurally bigger and the last row seats are 'real' 3-seaters).[/quote]
If all your passengers are adult sized, don't pay for the 7 seater. It works great for getting extra 10 yos home from a soccer game, but really is only overflow kid seating. It's not even big enough for normal transport of a 10 yo.

[Anonymous]

Not an EV, but have you considered the Toyota Highlander Hybrid? It has two captain's seats in the 2nd row (very comfortable) and a 3rd row bench seat. It is not much longer than an Outback. For a car that large it does fairly well on mileage. Toyotas have a reputation for lasting forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not an EV, but have you considered the Toyota Highlander Hybrid? It has two captain's seats in the 2nd row (very comfortable) and a 3rd row bench seat. It is not much longer than an Outback. For a car that large it does fairly well on mileage. Toyotas have a reputation for lasting forever.

We had not considered hybrids due to concerns about having to maintain two different systems as the vehicle ages. We check this one out.

[Anonymous]

I love my Y, but I couldn't bring myself to get the 7 seater. As soon as I sat back there, I felt claustrophobic. The back seat of the 5 seater is very roomy. We've been a Tesla family for awhile and generally prefer them to gas cars.

If you are stopping for 20 minutes for gas & bathroom, that's the same as a supercharger. My ICE stops tended to be shorter, so that's my only complaint with road trips.