High mileage Teslas are nothing new and we know of several that have gone past the 1-million kilometers mark. However, they are older vehicles from the first years of production, and most are not even on their original battery, their engines have been refurbished or replaced several times and they have had quite a bit of money invested in order to be kept on the road.
However, this 2018 Tesla Model S 75D purchased new in Australia has been driven for over 400,000 km (248,000 miles) and its owner, Nigel Raynard, who runs an airport pickup business, is very impressed by it. He says the decision to buy a Model S came after he watched a documentary called Dirty Money: Hard NOx (about the VW Dieselgate scandal) and that steered him away from the diesel BMW that he was about to buy.
He told The Driven that
I was ready to make a purchase of a second-hand BMW but after I watched Hard NOx what was really hitting for me, is that although most people discuss carbon and the difference between the footprint of a petrol vehicle, diesel vehicle, electric vehicle, what was more concerning for me was air quality.
My background is environmental science so I understand soil testing, testing contaminated sites, and understand what you can’t see … most people only react to things that can see. I saw in Hard NOx this thing where people’s health was compromised and it was basically accepted as the norm.
Nigel points out that over the three years that he’s had the car, it has cost him around $5,000, but that surprisingly, it was still on its original set of brake pads. This fact even caught Elon Musk’s eye and he tweeted about the benefits of using regenerative braking (that turns an EV’s motor or motors into generators that put current back into the battery and also slow it down without the need for physical brakes).
He says that the car had its front drive shafts replaced (at 360,000 km), as well as the air conditioning compressor (at 330,000 km), one door handle and one of the car’s exterior cameras; the latter he admits was a fault he caused. In regard to battery capacity, Nigel says that his 75D used to have 379 km (235 miles) with a full battery and now that has dropped to 343 km (213 miles), so around a 10 percent capacity loss.
Make sure to check out the original source article/interview to get all the details from Nigel who has to be one of the most satisfied Tesla owners and drivers that we’ve ever come across. He has now ordered a Model S Plaid as his next car.
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Source: The Driven