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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

So they saved a bunch of money by putting a ton of miles on before age related problems started showing up. In other news the sky is blue.

It's component deterioration from age that really gets you on a luxury car. Seat motors fail, wiring harnesses deteriorate, etc.

It's also worth mentioning that they didn't crash one. With enough road hours eventually it will happen. The vehicles that can be serviced by a normal shop will be cheaper to repair.

The lack of downtime is very impressive but if it's really that much cheaper than running a fleet of town cars then why do they need to twist the numbers?

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Components are much more likely to fail from being used consistently than due to the sheer passage of time. I would take a car that has been kept untouched in a garage over many years before I would take its equivalent model year that had been driven 300,000 miles.

Plastics and rubbers degrade over time.

For example, rear and side window motors tend to fail first because the mechanical components are used the least, become more full of dust, the rubber tracks harden, motors work harder and burn out.

The garage will help a lot but when a vehicle is on the road for 10-20yr issues specific to it's service that can't easily be foreseen or simulated in tested pop up.

> So they saved a bunch of money by putting a ton of miles on before age related problems started showing up. In other news the sky is blue.

Even if that's true the comparison to the maintenance and fuel coats of other similarly driven luxury vehicles is still valid.

Except the fuel costs.

They used subsidized electricity costs through Tesla charging network at 0$ cost.

That would be like saying MB giving 0$ gas if u fill up at their designated gas stations.

Tesla still comes out on top, but I have never heard of that lengthy repairs for MB. General maintenance a few hours, big issues a few days max.

U can take it to any MB dealership or authorized repair shop, or local shop. Courtesy pickup, drop off and or loaner vehicle. Don't even need special status.

If MB gave gas for free, Tesloop could have removed the fuel costs from the S-Class total. But MB doesn't give gas for free. On the other hand, Tesloop have benefited massively from Tesla's subsidized charging. I'm curious why you think it should be ignored.

For tesloop specific results, it shouldn't be ignored, but if u are taking the results and applying to general public buying model s today, you only get a estimated 1000 miles of energy for free.

There are costs to new general consumer for fuel on Tesla network, no unlimited free charging

At least the aluminium body of the Model S and X won't rust the way most cars do in places that use road salt in the winter. Can't say the same for the Model 3.

But is not mechanical damage to aluminum more expensive? Aluminum stretches much easier than steel and you cannot just stretch it to fix bends and dents. It's probably cheaper to replace external panels but I don't even know what you do to the monobody's damage.

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