What to Consider When Buying a Tesla SUV (Revealed!)

Looking into buying a new car is never an easy task, especially when you’re debating between a variety of different brands and model options. After all, no type of car, even if made by the same company, is exactly the same. To help with the struggle, here are a few points to keep in mind for anyone who’s considering buying a Tesla SUV.

When looking to buy a Tesla SUV, the best things to consider are charging availability, the total cost of purchase, insurance, and repairs, necessary preparations for the car, and the car’s software. While these are the main considerations, there are a few others that would be beneficial.

Understanding the whole picture is critical when it comes to buying a new car. While some of the considerations are more general to Tesla cars instead of the Tesla SUV specifically, all of the following topics are applicable to purchasing a Tesla SUV. We’ll discuss these vehicles in more detail below and help you decide whether or not this car would be a good choice for you.

Charging and Electricity

Most of the cars from Tesla are electric, especially those made in more recent years. Where electric cars are still a relatively new thing, it is useful to look at all that an electric car encompasses. First, there will need to be a charging outlet for the car inside of the garage. As Forbes mentions, the outlet to charge the car will need to be professionally installed.

Also, research will need to be done on where other charging outlets are, particularly when going on road trips or really anything that requires traveling a long distance. Plugshare is a supercharging network, so that is certainly worth looking into when driving an electric car. Keep in mind, Tesla also has a roadside assistance program, but it doesn’t currently cover running out of battery.

Something nice about the gauge that indicates battery percentage is that it is pretty accurate. With the exception of traveling long distances, it is best to keep the car’s battery between 20% and 80% to extend the life of the battery. The battery prefers to stay within that range, and it is pretty simple to set the charge to go to 80% instead of the full 100% charge.

Maintenance, Insurance, and Costs

The reality is, the cost of car insurance adds up, and it can be especially expensive when driving a Tesla. After all, Teslas are on the more expensive side, and insurance increases the more expensive the car is. Plus, there is always the matter of repairs. Tesla SUVs are made with pretty costly parts, and so any needed repairs will not be friendly towards the costs of the car.

However, JBR Capital points out that despite all of those things making it so expensive, there are a lot of costs that aren’t necessary for electric cars (such as gas), so that can help counterbalance the amount of money being spent. Also, Tesla has a 4-year warranty that covers most things, so that can help with repair costs earlier on.

When looking at the long run, there are a couple of other factors that come into play. First, depreciation starts as soon as a purchased car leaves the parking lot. All cars experience that, even the Tesla SUV. Once it is bought, it can’t be sold for as much as the initial price. The rate of depreciation is something to keep in mind. Second, Tesla has soft software upgrades, not hard software upgrades like how it normally is. That basically means that any special features (for example, paying extra for rear-asset) may be taken off when the Tesla SUV goes to a new owner.

As Gear Patrol explains, Tesla can disable and deactivate any of those features distantly. As far as Tesla believes, the new owner won’t have the features since they didn’t pay Tesla for them like the vehicle’s original owner did. The resulting con is that those features won’t contribute to a higher sell price for the car when that time comes. The extra features of the specific Tesla SUV model should likewise be taken into consideration and evaluated based on the wants and needs of the owner.

The Preparations

As previously mentioned, the Tesla SUV (assuming that it is electric) needs a way to charge. Because of that, the charging outlet will need to be professionally installed before the car has been picked up by the new owner and needs to be charged. It’s also beneficial to look into the supercharging network and get Plugshare before receiving the new car.

Continuing along the aspect of battery, Forbes recommends that someone buying a Tesla learns how to read power graphs first. The reason why is because the battery will die quicker at faster speeds, so it is important to know how to understand the power graph. That could save you from being stranded on the side of the road with a dead battery, especially if it is dying quicker than expected.

Miscellaneous

There are a few unique things Forbes mentions about Teslas that are worth keeping in mind even if they aren’t specific to the Tesla SUV. First, the full system is in use. In other words, all of the touch screen features that are normally disabled unless the vehicle is at a stop are always available for use, including while the car is driving.

The second thing to consider is that the tires may not last as long, and will potentially need to be rotated more often as well. Another thing to consider, if applicable and preferred, is that the Tesla has intense braking, which can be a bit vigorous.

If fast, smooth acceleration is important to you, there is another thing to consider. Gear Patrol gives a bit of insight into a feature that is sometimes in Tesla cars called Ludicrous Mode. Teslas are known to have crazy fast acceleration, but for them to perform the infamous 2.4-second acceleration to 60 miles an hour, they have to be fully charged and the battery needs to be warmed up.

To get the battery warm, the car has to have been driven for some time. Only then, once both of those requirements have been met, can the Tesla achieve that thrilling and rapid jump in speed.