Wow.
I’m 6’1", 280 lbs., I wonder if those come with shoehorns…
Some of those look like kei cars.
And as for that, I have a Champion-brand sweatshirt that lists the size as US/Canada/Mexico medium but Asian extra-large.
Those little Chinese trucks are not street legal in North A,erica. Farmers and rural acreage owners buy them, and they get used like golf carts in cart communities.
The low price doesn’t include crating, shipping, and taxes, which can quadruple the price. One channel I watched said that the $3200 price went way over $10,000 by the time he had it home. Still cheap, but not crazy cheap.
Very interesting article, particularly the total ownership costs of the different flavors over 10 years. According to that data, we should save money buying this Tesla Y over most other options.
As I literally said above, that $3,200 covered shipping.
Other people have different numbers.
https://electrek.co/2021/10/18/cheapest-ev-in-usa/
There is a company that imports the trucks and handles fhe brokerage fees, documentation, shipping, tariffs, etc.
From the article:
That’s for vehicles that range in price from $900 to $2000 US in China. There are a lot of little hidden fees importing these things. And they cannot be made road legal as anything other than a low apeed vehicle like a golf cart.
There’s a writer on electrek.com that produces a weekly article on various unusual electric vehicles that can be found on Alibaba:
The vehicles range from submarines to front loaders to rollercoasters. Some of them are actually meant to be kid’s toys. My favorite was the boat with a duck’s head on the front.
These reviews are for entertainment purposes only; he strongly discourages people from actually buying them. Although he has actually bought one himself, a small pickup truck.
Come to think of it, it may have been something like a bobcat or excavator that they got.
You’re both right!
He did have a little pickup truck, and recently bought a two or three skid steers or loader type vehicles. I can’t find the videos right now. They’re all for offroad use on a farm in Florida, if I recall correctly, which might not be true, as I likely dreamed the videos.
Dropping from a $1000 deductible to $100 for COMP is an additional $10/month. One windshield replacement every 5 years will more than cover that increase so well worth it. I’d be kicking myself if I had to replace it and didn’t elect for the coverage.
$1310/year for extremely good insurance on our Tesla Y. I can provide the coverage numbers, but most everything is maxed out. Yes, that is $500 more per year than our 13 year old Subaru (well, we now have better coverage on the Y), but again, I think any new $50K car would be several hundred more.
You now join a -large- number of rational (as opposed to “what’s the lowest down payment I can get to take this new car off the lot!”) people that I’ve given that advice too over the years. Seriously, glad to see you have the extra protection from the many uncontrollable natural events that cause car grief!
I’ll admit that when I was young and very poor, I made the decision to do away with a car because, at that time, motorcycles required NO insurance. I rode for several years with no coverage and during that period, I received numerous speeding tickets. When I finally starting going upwards and got a car, my previous auto insurer wouldn’t touch me with a 10’ pole. I still remember that he said the only worse thing I could do than get so many tickets while uninsured was to get a DUI. I paid extra for a bit and have been repenting ever since.
I kind of breezed by this when I first read it, but then I was like: “You can buy a car through Costco??” And I googled it and sure enough, there is a “Costco Auto Program.” Can you provide more details on how it worked for you?
We used the Costco auto program once. We just had to show our Costco card to the dealer, I think there might have been a bit of paperwork, and we got an additional discount on the car.
Some friendly advice: Don’t mention Costco until you’ve negotiated a price. If you tell some dealers you have a Costco discount, they’ll just figure out a way to raise the price by that amount. For the same reason, never tell them how you plan to pay for the vehicle until you’ve negotiated a price, and don’t tell them you have a trade-in until you have a final price as well. Dealers are very good at blending all this together into a final price that hides the fact that you’ve been screwed.
And NEVER tell them how much you are willing to pay per month. They’ll always work back from that into some godawful long term payment scheme that gets you ‘your’ number, but you’ll pay a lot more for the car.
We ordered it through Cadillac, but at the last moment Costco had a discount coupon which the dealer brought up independently (we had already downloaded it). So, $7500 tax rebate at the dealer, $5000 GM incentive and $1000 Costco. I wouldn’t hesitate to use the Costco auto program, however. Costco is a pretty impressive machine. Costco travel is awesome.
I looked into this but it doesn’t appear Costco does this for Teslas. We had to settle for the $7500 fed rebate plus the $4500 dealer “on our lot” reduction.
Thank you both for describing your experience.
I was curious what insurance averages were like in the US so did some searching and it appears our $1300/yr is very inexpensive. One article lists the Honda CR-V as the most inexpensive at $1500/yr. They do list Teslas as the most expensive, but the numbers they provide are way higher than we are actually paying. Heck, that number they provide for the Tesla S is more than our two vehicles, umbrella policy, house insurance, and rental house combined.
I searched for a “what do you pay for auto insurance” thread here and don’t see anything recent. Are our rates unusual? They went up quite a bit during the lockdown and I thought we were getting to expensive ranges, but it seems the opposite of that. I assume our small town is a big contribution to inexpensive rates.
Forbes also seems to think the rate you’re paying is extremely low for a Model Y. Do you buy your insurance through Tesla itself? Do you have comprehensive and collision coverage?
I can’t really puzzle out why your rate is so low…
For my Model 3 it is about $1800/year. We have collision, comprehensive, and all of that. They aren’t maxed out though, but it is a $500 deductible. It is also a 5 year old car.
When Tesla insurance became available I got a quote, and it would have lowered the price by $50/year or something relatively small, so I didn’t bother switching.