That’s what she told us. Maybe I should ask for her to provide more validation. Electricity isn’t cheap here in the city of San Francisco. Maybe cheaper elsewhere. Don’t know but I don’t care either.

 

Believe me, its not over $500 per month (in electricity costs) to daily a Tesla. Most place the monthly at 50-100$ max.

X-

 

She might be claiming that her electric bill is $560/mo. As in, the entire bill for her house and the car. I can see a big house in San Fran costing that much if you are charging a Tesla nightly.

 

I agree with you @UtahLandy . It always makes me think it's ironic when Defender owners are upset about the high cost of "fill in the blank". I wasn't raging about having to pay the price as it is hurting me. I've got six drivers in the house and I have a whole lot of other cost to complain about! It's the entire structure that the cost is artificially high from where it should historically be. To your point, my personal driving behaviors and product choice haven't changed at all. However, I do recognize that I am luckier, blessed, (fill in the blank for happy with my life) that I can feel this way. There are a LOT of people (all of my siblings) where this is an actual impact to their lifestyles and for that I'm fired up.

One more random thought: my mother-in-law once told me that you know you are old when everything starts to get so darn expensive! I laugh with chagrin about that every day....

 

I have no doubt the increase in fuel prices have affected a lot of people that live on a strict budget along with the increased cost of just about everything in the last couple of years. I am a little surprised that it may (or may not, I think everyone likes to complain about fuel prices) actually be affecting people that have the additional discretionary income to afford purchasing expensive luxury vehicles. Maybe it's just me but fuel costs never factored in to my decision to purchase a Defender.

 

I drive mine over 1300 miles per month so what's another $200 in fuel costs for a luxury vehicle? well, I mean I could say that about food or anything else, where does it end? There's a point where it isn't about whether I can afford a $12 coffee vs a $2 coffee that ends up down the drain in two hours anyway. There's a point where it becomes wasteful. I wouldn't say it has reached that point yet because the vehicle is in a unique situation where it isn't depreciating vs MSRP so because of that I wouldn't get rid of it just for fuel costs, but yea if all it is is a daily driver extra hundreds per month on top of the 1k payment starts to get hard to justify after a while and that's for a budget build, these people with 2k per month payments for posh builds, that's a different story. Then as a percentage relative to the payment the fuel cost is a much smaller amount anyway. For the record I'd want nothing to do with an EV at this point in time but that's really for other reasons.

 

I guess that's my point. If $200/month extra in fuel is more than you want to pay. Wouldn't you have been better off getting a $25,000 Corolla as a daily driver and saving $600/month in a car payment in addition to the additional fuel savings over your Defender. Clearly none of us HAVE to drive a Defender. I don't think anyone here would argue that it's not "wasteful" owning a Defender when there are more prudent car purchases available.

 

There's a certain amount of money I'm willing to spend to drive. That amount is the payment + the insurance + fuel + maintenance. So whatever that is for a Corolla let's call it $750 am I willing to pay $1350 to drive a Defender, yes. At this stage of my life yes I am. Add another $200 then it matters, in my budget it matters. If I thought it was acceptable to spend $200 more per month there are options I'd have added to the build in the first place. I drew my line in the sand at a 60k budget build. I am sure you're leaving some features off your build too, why? There's a limit to what you find acceptable given your budget. It's no different from interest on the loan if the interest was such that it were made $200 per month higher on a 60k vehicle it would rile up a few people even if fuel costs were steady.

 

I remember the runup in gas prices in 2008 then again in 2012. All of which had the effect of consumers waking up to being more conscious of the efficiency of their vehicles and it created the framework for CAFE standards and also was a large shot in the arm of the race to 40mpg by all the major manufacturers. When oil started dropping fast in 2015, it led to the very short memories of consumers pivoting back to full size SUVs and pickup trucks and opting out of small cars and sedans that were more efficient. Now we are back in that situation. If you bought the Defender and you are sensitive to the cost to fill the tank, and you've been alive over the past 14 years, it's on you as we've seen this movie before.

 

Damn...I started a really popular thread here😂

To clarify something, I didn't start this thread because I can no longer afford to fuel my Defender due to $5/gal gas.

I started it because paying for abrupt overnight increases in gas because world leaders are in pissing matches pisses me off.