“I think you might be making a mistake”
“Dustin, you didn’t even want a Tesla! I remember you saying you would never have one, that they were terrible and will break, the batteries will fail and cost a fortune to replace making the cars be scrap prematurely, and they just don’t make sense! I always wanted one and you didn’t. But now you got one and I don’t!” my buddy said, gently ribbing me. It was said in good faith and I knew this time would come. Now was the time, and, all that was true. “Well, ….” I began to eat crow as explained my journey as an EV Skeptic up to that point.
The days, weeks and months following my EV purchase, were… strange. I was excited for sure with a lot of really good times, but I also went through waves of frustration, curiosity, worry and even embarrassment. You see, I regard myself as an analytical and smart person that makes decisions largely on evidence, math, statistics and the things like that. I spend a lot of time thinking about how myself and others should live life in an ideal world, spend money, make decisions and the related probabilities and likely outcomes of such decisions. I want us all to get as close to the American Dream as possible via good decisions. I believe I have a good understanding of how cars fit into normal suburban life in Western Colorado. And, as a result of that, I had long ago concluded that EV’s weren’t for me and wouldn’t be good for most people. I was an EV Skeptic. I was skeptical that they would live up to all the promises and hype and I had seen the evidence already confirming I had good reason to be skeptical. When the Tesla Model S came out and in following years, I read the stories about long charge times, problems with drive motors going out, people damaging batteries and getting insanely high repair bills when not covered under warranty. I knew the Nissan Leaf had problem with batteries related to thermal issues. I heard people complain about road tripping issues. I knew those cars were over-priced crap. Case closed.
In 2023, my daily driver was a 2009 Nissan Sentra but I had wanted a new car for years. But when the old one just kept on going fine, I refused to get a new one when it wasn’t ‘needed’, being true to my frugal core and ‘the math’. I also refused to pay the crazy inflated car prices of the post-Covid market during 2021-2022. Sometime in Oct of 2023, my Sentra had been totaled (not my fault!) and I was considering what cars to replace it with, and running out of patience. I was fairly settled on getting a brand-new Nissan Sentra since my old one treated me very well, was reliable, had minimal maintenance expense for 146,000 miles and a new one of those would do the job of daily driving around my town very well. And, it would be new and fancy and finally I would have blue tooth audio for my music!
When I told a friend about my plan to get another Sentra, he said, '“I know you’re not gonna want to hear this, but I really think you should consider getting a Tesla.” Well, I just so happened to a have a spreadsheet I had built to calculate how much vehicles cost per mile and over the lifespan of 200,000 miles I believe they should run for. It’s helpful for comparing all the variables to make apples-to-apples comparison easier. I’ll skip the details but I started by entering the data on a Tesla Model 3, the cheapest one with standard range and rear wheel drive and the most comparable to the Sentra. The timing of all this happened to be shortly after Elon Musk and Tesla started cutting their prices and starting the price war. It sucked for the people who already bought at much higher prices but I would be happy to accept my patience finally paying off. To my surprise, after adding in the federal tax credit of $7,500 and the Colorado tax credit of $5,000, I could have the Model 3 for about the same price as a Nissan Sentra. Wow, that was a surprise. I was expecting it to be “unaffordable”, around $20,000 more than the Sentra the way the math had been in past years- but it wasn’t. Uh oh. I also knew that the same friend already owned 2 different Tesla’s and he was very happy with them and not having any issues with EVs and I trust him about such things as cars. I needed to re-evaluate my assumptions. What may or may not have been true years ago, no longer was, so I better re-evaluate my conclusions that were based on those assumptions.
When I woke up on November 4, 2023, I had no idea how this day would change a significant part of my life trajectory from the path I had been on before. I woke up and casually checked Tesla’s website of in-inventory vehicles and to my surprise I found one that was exactly what I wanted, for a price I was very happy with, a few thousand dollars less than if I ordered one. I called my buddy who confirmed this car was what I was looking for and then did the online order expecting to go a week later to pick it up. It turned out I could pick up the car the same day, if I was willing to drive the 5 hours to the dealer and could get there before they closed and then drive the 5 hours back at night. Welp, you bet, I sure did want to do that. My Tesla buddy went and charged his car and then we set off. I was excited! His 2015 Model S was taking us to get my Model Y. Good times!
On the drive, I called my Dad to tell him what I was doing, thinking he would be happy for me and think it’s a fun thing. He knew I had been patient waiting to get a new car. Now was my time, my reward. Instead, he basically thought I might be making a mistake and cautioned me to not do it. He wasn’t rude or mean, just cautious and a good Dad, but it still took the wind out of my sails. I was now second guessing myself, and worried. What if ‘old-me’ and my Dad were right and this becomes a disaster as I previously believed? I don’t know, it was too late. I was committed and just had to see it through- come what may. This was when the weirdness began. I was driving to buy a new car, an exciting time for anyone, but I was also having pre-buyers remorse and wanting to back out. I don’t know if its normal but it wasn’t how I envisioned it going down.
I picked up my 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD in Loveland, CO and immediately covered the front in painters tape, for paint protection, while doing my first supercharging session. Then, we set out for the 5 hour drive home, first on the surface streets and then merging onto I-25 heading toward Denver. Traffic was thick but still moving at or above the 75 mph speed limit. I was watching all the traffic but also needing to get things adjusted to me and learning how to use the center screen instead of the gauge cluster I was accustomed to being in front of the steering wheel. It was all new to me. Different. Weird. The car somehow told me it needed to calibrate the cameras or something like that. What does that mean? How do I do that? How long does this take? Well, it finally finished and I settled in and just got in the groove of driving the car and realized my friend had gotten a ways up ahead of me so I needed to catch up. I signaled, then started my lane change while gingerly pressing the accelerator pedal, and the car shot off, sinking me back in my seat, gaining 15 mph in a fraction of a second, without effort. First, I was surprised, then a child-like, joyful and exuberant smile took over my face. That felt awesome! This car is sick! I was hooked. The rest of the drive was fun and interesting. I got to test out Full Self Driving and was amazed that the car did a 75% good job of driving itself for about 30 minutes. Wow! There were issues but if Tesla was going to keep improving this, I could see real potential in this self-driving or assisted-driving technology- and I am here for it! We got home safely in the late hours of the night and headed to bed, the worry had been drowned out by the joy of the driving experience.
Going back to the beginning of this story and how the days, weeks, and months following the purchase was weird, I had done a lot of research over the last few weeks. I re-evaluated the things I thought were true, basically that EVs are terrible, and concluded that some of those things were correct at one point in time or for one model of EV but that wasn’t representative of all EV models or our current point in time. EV technology had come a long way since the 2012 Tesla Model S. Tesla learned lessons and improved and so did all the EV manufacturers. The charging network learned lessons and fixed them as well as rolling out tons more charging stations. And the EV community learned more about the limitations and good use cases for EVs. Were there still problems and things that need to get sorted out in the long run, of course. But, it was not accurate or useful for me to continue making decisions based on outdated evidence that has been fixed. The other big re-evaluation was related to false evidence that never was true. Specifically, my worries about EV battery failures were over blown, statistically speaking, when applied to current model year cars from manufacturers that have been doing it for many years. Mixing up driver caused damage to batteries with manufactured battery failures is not accurate. Any vehicle can have massive and expensive damage caused by bad drivers- that isn’t an indictment on all ICE vehicles quality, and it isn’t for EVs either.
So, I sorted myself out in the weeks leading up to my EV purchase which allowed me to feel good and go forward with the purchase but that didn’t mean all my friends and family came to the same conclusions in that same time. They were all still thinking many of the things I used to, and many of them, in part, because I told them or confirmed their same false and outdated conclusions. My Dad did intend to rain on my parade; he was just concerned that according to his model of the world, the same one I had not long ago, getting an EV could be a problem. It took a long while to go through the process of informing people about my purchase and then telling them why I changed my mind. I never had a negative interaction about it, it was more just the process of everyone learing and updating their models, a process that can be uncomfortable to question beliefs and evidence. It can be unsettling to question ones self. If I were wrong about something, what else might I be wrong about now and not know it yet? Now, a year later, most of my circle of people may not fully agree with me and are waiting to see if it all goes well but they have heard my story, evidence and logic once or twice so it’s fairly routine now. The weirdness is gone and now EV conversations are matter-of-fact and curiosity based and very pleasant and enjoyable. I look forward to them because I am comfortable with my decision and its fun to talk through the nuances of all vehicle choices. So many things are not right or wrong but merely trade offs and pros and cons and unique to each individual and circumstance.
The take way I have for you is this, whatever you believe about EVs now, be open to true study, research and evidence that confirms and/or contradicts your model of the world. Be open to people who are presenting information to you or challenging you in good faith. I think most of us can agree that there is always more that we can learn, things that we are wrong about innocently, and that the world is always changing for better, worse or just different. Update your model and beliefs as the data changes. On EVs specifically, I think there are cases where they are superior to an ICE vehicle and situations where they are inferior. Its up to each person to assess and decide the particulars about it and I hope EV Skeptic will be a helpful source for information to assist you in your journey.
If anyone wishes to discuss this topic or anything else regarding EVs, please reach out using the contact form here on EV Skeptic.
Cheers!
Dustin Gehrett
12/9/2024