- Someone bought a used 2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range All-Wheel Drive at auction.
- It has 216,000 miles, despite being just three years old.
- It still has its original battery and electric motors.
Putting over 200,000 miles on a car can take a toll on components. Adding that kind of mileage in less than five years is an achievement unto itself, but that’s exactly what happened with the Tesla Model 3 you see in the RSymons video below.
The car is a 2021 Model 3 Long Range All-Wheel Drive, so it has all the improvements to the interior and powertrain brought by the model’s first big facelift. It was used as a taxi in the United Kingdom and has a hefty 216,000 miles on the clock.
So, what’s wrong with it? According to the video, there are no records from Tesla that the battery or electric motors have ever been changed. In other words, the primary drivetrain components are all original. There are a couple of stone chips on the body and wheels, but nothing to write home about.
It throws an occasional error about the parking sensors not being available, but digging into the service menu revealed an intermittent fault with just one sensor. That’s an easy (and inexpensive) do-it-yourself fix. Some suspension bushings need changing, the rear trunk struts seem to be on their last leg and the cabin air filter has never been changed, judging by the manufactured date stamped on it.
The interior is in great condition save for the steering wheel, which has some wrinkles. It’s a perfectly usable EV that was bought sight unseen at auction for the equivalent of just $12,000. That sounds like a great deal, if the drivetrain is good.
Nearly 60 MWh of energy has been put into the battery from new, with nearly 11 MWh of DC fast charging and 47 MWh AC charging, according to the data stored in the car’s brain. Additionally, over 26 MWh of energy was put into the battery by the brake recuperation system. It’s certainly been used, but is the battery still good after all that?
A smartphone app reported that the Model 3’s battery still has 88% of the original capacity. That’s on par with an independent state of health check from Aviloo. Over all those miles, the car lost just 12% of its original capacity. When new, the 2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD had an EPA range rating of 353 miles on a full charge. Now, a drop of 12% means it should have a maximum range of 311 miles.
What about charging costs? The biggest chunk of energy to charge the car came from a home charger—47,000 kWh. If we multiply that with the average energy cost of $0.179 in the United States, we get a hypothetical cost of $8,413 just for the AC charging bit. An extra 11,000 kWh came from DC fast chargers. In the U.S., Tesla charges roughly $0.48 per kWh at its Supercharger sites, so another $5,280. Add everything up and we get $13,693 if the car would be stateside (the values are different in the United Kingdom). This means the cost per mile would be just $0.06 per mile or $6.33 per 100 miles.
Compare that to an all-wheel drive BMW 3 Series 330i xDrive, and you see why an EV is a better choice when it comes to operating costs. According to the EPA, the 3 Series has an average fuel economy of 29 miles per gallon, so driving 216,000 miles would require no less than $22,344 on gas alone, assuming an average price of $3 per gallon.
