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Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by tashoecraft on Monday September 13, 2021 @03:37PM (#28515769)
If you think about the math of what one actually pays for a car like that it becomes much easier to stomach.

At the end of the day you still wind up with an asset that was 85k. If you bought say a 3/4 year old car and bought wisely, it will have minimum depreciation. So while you are certainly out more money, it's not like you've lost 85k, it's more like 10-30. Whereas you probably are only going to be able to sell your corolla for let's say 4. We're now talking about the comfort/pleasure of ~25k, but the cost between the vehicles of between 9k - 85k. Let's say you have this car for 5 years, the difference in ownership is 4/5k per year. If you can afford this, even if I'm off by a factor of 2/3, it's really not that bad.

Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by asdff on Monday September 13, 2021 @04:44PM (#28516638)
At the same time, used cars are ones that have already taken that depreciation hit and prices eventually plateu (or even inflate regardless of condition if its a desirable car like an old porsche or a 2000s toyota land cruiser). I bet you could drive a $9000 used corolla for three years and sell it for $9000 afterwards, and it would have to be close to death for that car to ever be worth less than $5000, which is like the baseline for a used car without major mechanical issues.
Re:Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent... by walrus01 on Monday September 13, 2021 @04:57PM (#28516784)
as a data point I know somebody in Canada who bought a 12 year old mazda3 with 230,000 km on it for $3500, drove it in BC for two years, and sold it for the same they paid for it.

by far their biggest cost was the liability insurance.