First Road Trip!

We're heading out on our first Tesla road trip today! We're driving to Arizona from Washington, going down through Oregon and California. I've planned a route that uses only superchargers. It should take about 3 days each way. Stay tuned to hear how it turned out!

Net Worth Update: End of November 2018

At the end of each month, I post an update of my net worth, including a brief discussion of any notable events that might have occurred. The latest month's figures can always be found under the Featured menu in the menu bar at the top of the blog.

Last updated: End of November, 2018
Net Worth: $911,270
Change from last Month: +$43,458

Events Of Note Last Month:

My SQL courses on Udemy generated $47.60 of income. My courses on SkillShare, meanwhile, earned $78.96. This is the first month ever that my SkillShare income has exceeded my Udemy income. I also earned $0.12 in royalties from my real estate ebook :-)

In some strange news, I received a check from Tesla this month for $151. I think this was supposed to be a reimbursement for the alignment I had done. If you recall, they originally wanted to charge me for it ($151), but because my car was still fairly new, they agreed to waive the cost. Apparently that message got altered somehow into them reimbursing me for the alignment. The only thing is - I never paid for it in the first place! So thanks, Tesla, for giving me $151! I applied it to my car loan.

On a somewhat related note, the rear spoiler finally came in and I took my car back to have it installed. The whole replacement process ended up being something of a waste of time, as the corners of the new spoiler are still a bit up in the air and not flush with the car trunk, just like the old one. While I was at the service center, I walked the parking lot and checked out four other Teslas that had a rear spoiler. Half of them had corners flush with trunk and the other half were sticking up slightly like mine. I'm going to say this is just how it is and not worry about it. Honestly, I don't see it causing any issues. It was just something I happened to notice and, while my car was in to get the paint and alignment fixed, I asked them to fix it as well.

Net Worth Update

The stock market bounced back, as it usually does, taking my net worth with it. I'm up $43,458 this month, regaining almost all of the $45,658 I lost last month.

October 2018

November 2018

The process of  shutting down my self-directed IRA and moving it to a traditional brokerage is still continuing. The funds have now been sent to the IRA custodian, which is why my Cash category dropped and my Property category increased. (Mint always puts manual account entries in the Property category.)

The outstanding balance on my Tesla loan dropped to under $100,000 ($99,925 to be precise). There's a long way to go until it's paid off, but this is a nice milestone. I only need another 832,708 more of those twelve cent royalty payments to pay it off! (If you have a Kindle and Amazon's Kindle Unlimited plan, you can help me out at no cost to you. Just get my other ebook (originally published under a pen name) for free and read it or just scroll through all the pages. It costs you nothing and I get royalties based on how many pages are viewed.) 😁


If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please drop me a line in the comments section!

It's That Time Of Year Again - To Ask For A Gift

Time to ask your credit card companies for a gift - a credit limit increase. I have a detailed post on why you want to do this here, but the short version is:

1. Increasing your credit limit, decreases your credit utilization, which increases your credit score. See the above referenced post for why.
2. This assumes you do not go out and spend your new credit. If you can't control yourself, don't do this.

I got my credit limit increased by $3,000 on one card and $6,000 on another. My wife had an unsolicited credit increase on one of her card at the end of October, so I didn't need to try to increase that card and I scored a $5,000 increase on her other card.

Both of our Discover cards increased our credit limit without performing a credit check. It was a simple on-line request that was approved instantly. My Chase card did perform a credit check - I think. I had to email their customer support asking for the increase and, as part of that process, I said I agreed to them pulling my credit report. A couple days later, I got a report from my credit monitoring service saying Chase performed a credit check, so I know they actually did pull my report.

I have one other credit card, from Bank Of America. They said they would need to pull my credit report and I opted to not go forward with that one. It's a card I almost never use. In fact, I only got it to use on a trip overseas two years ago. I figured the benefit of the higher credit limit for a card I rarely use would not be worth the temporary credit score hit of a second hard credit check.

Take a minute or two before the holiday craziness kicks in and ask for a Christmas gift for yourself this year. It sounds counter-intuitive, but a credit limit increase can actually improve your credit score!

How I Almost Fell For A Slick New Phishing Scam

I like to think that I am fairly savvy when it comes to phishing scams, but I came very close to falling for one last week. It was pretty slick and if I was not sitting at my computer when the call came in, I might have been a victim.

The Scam

I get so many telemarketing calls on my cell phone these days, I never answer the phone unless it’s from a number I know. One of the tricks telemarketers are using now is to fake a local number that shows up on your caller ID. This is called “neighbor spoofing” and the thinking is that people will be more likely to answer a call from an unknown number if it looks like it’s from someone nearby. This is actually pretty easy for me to spot because last year, I moved from Arizona to Washington, but I kept my same cell phone number, which has an Arizona area code. If it’s a neighbor or local business calling me, they will have a Washington phone number, not Arizona, so I simply ignore all calls from Arizona that I don’t recognize.

But the call I received last week was from an 866 number, so I answered it. The person on the line claimed to be from Verizon and was calling to confirm that an authorized user on my account had ordered 4 new phones. He claimed the person was waiting on his other line while he authorized the transaction.

Of course, I said I did not authorize this. The caller than said they would help me press charges if I wanted to and said they would help me change the password to my Verizon account.

This is where I was glad I was at my computer when this call came in. As soon as I was told this guy was an authorized user on my account, I logged in to the Verizon website to look for his name. While I was doing this, the scammer told me I should reset my password and, if I wanted, he could initiate that for me. Of course, I said ok. He said I would be getting a text message from Verizon with a password reset link. He wanted me to tell him when the text arrived – which it did seconds later.

But at this point, I was already logged in to my account, so I asked the scammer where on my account I could find the authorized users page. He told me I would not be able to log in to the account because he just reset my password – which was true because I just got the text message. I told him I was already logged in to my account, which I had done before he reset the password, so where could I see the list of authorized users? At this point, he hung up, which was a pretty clear indication this was a scam 😀

He was able to actually reset my password, so I did have to go through that process, but the scammer no had no way to get that new password and my account was still safe. After giving this some thought, I think I figured out how this scam works.

Here’s How It Was Supposed To Go

This scam is possible because the Verizon website allows you to log in using your phone number as well as a username. Because phone companies are assigned blocks of numbers, it’s very easy to tell what phone company a particular number is from. The scammers had my phone number and could tell I was with Verizon.

For better security, they should not allow a phone number here

So they call me up, claim to be from Verizon, and make me think my account has been hacked. When I agree to have them help me reset my password, they enter my phone number on the Verizon website and click the “Forgot my password” link. This brings you to a page where you can enter your user ID or phone number. The scammer enters my phone number and Verizon resets my password and sends me a text message with a link to create a new one.

Had I not become suspicious at this point, causing the scammer to hang up, I’m pretty sure his next step would be to have me read him the reset link from the text message to “confirm” I got it. If I read the link to him, he would enter it into his browser and change my password to whatever he wanted, thus gaining control of my account.

This is probably not what would happen though, because I would immediately be locked out of my account, which would raise my suspicions. Instead, I think he would have entered the link on his computer and asked me to give him a new password, which he would type in himself. Now he would have access to my account, but so would I and I would not be suspicious at all. He can hang up and get into my account at any time to do whatever nefarious things he was planning on. Sure, I could have changed my password again after I got off the phone, but why would I? I should be thinking I was dealing legitimately with Verizon and everything was taken care of.

Pretty Slick

This was a pretty slick scam for a couple of reasons. First, it used Verizon’s legitimate password reset tool. Second, he told me the supposed phone buyer was still on the line and that he would help me press charges. This does two things: it creates a false sense of urgency and it appeals to my desire to prosecute someone scamming me, both thoughts that are designed to make me eager to work quickly with the real scammer and not think too hard about what is going on. Lastly, and this is based on my conjecture on how this scam would have concluded, it gets the scammer access to my account without immediately raising my suspicions, giving him precious time to rip me off before I take notice.

How To Avoid Scams

I got lucky in that I was able to force the scammer off-script by immediately logging into my account before he could initiate the password reset. At that point, he didn’t know how to proceed, so he just hung up. But even if you aren’t able to log in to your account while the scam is in progress, there are a couple of things to remember that would protect you from this.

The password reset process is designed to be completely automated. There is never a need to speak to someone. This is simply a matter of cost control for companies. It would be too expensive to have help desk people taking calls from people who forgot their password. Therefore, the entire process is designed to be done without any assistance from a live person at the company.

There is never, ever a need to tell your password to anyone, even if they legitimately work for the company. They don’t need to know it. Furthermore, they don’t want to know it because that creates a legal liability for the company. Suppose a bank requires you to tell your password to their phone agent. That agent can make a note if it, go home, and access your account. Or sell that password to someone else. In short, it’s a huge security risk for the company, so they have designed their systems so that their agents can perform legitimate tasks without your password.

Keep these tips in mind and you will go a long way towards keeping yourself safe from phishing scams.

Two Month Ownership Update

I've owned my Model S for almost two months now, so I thought I'd post another update on my ownership experience.

Electricity Cost

I recently got my first electric bill that included a full month of Tesla ownership. You may recall that I estimated my monthly Tesla electricity costs to be around $42.74. And although that was what I calculated, I actually have budgeted $50.

Turned out, I was pretty close. My electricity bill for September was $86.64 and for October was $132.82. That's an increase of $46.18. I did own the Tesla for a bit of September, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison, but it's close enough for me. The weather here is starting to grow colder, so electricity costs for the car will creep up a bit, then decrease again in the spring as temperatures rise.

There are a couple reasons for this. First, batteries don't perform as well when they are cold. In fact, Teslas have a battery heater to keep the batteries from getting too cold. And B, when the batteries are very cold, the car limits regenerative charging until the batteries are heated. I have yet to see this happen (an indicator is displayed on the dash), but so far, it's only gotten down to the low 50s in my area. When December and January roll around and temperatures drop to the 30s, I expect to see this more frequently. Of course, if regenerative charging is reduced, that will increase the power needed from the wall connector to charge. Lastly, when it is colder, I'll probably be using the heater more. The seat heaters are more energy efficient, so owners tend to use those more than the cabin air heaters to stay warm. I'm not sure which method I will use more often. I will say that I like the heated steering wheel. My hands often get cold on my morning commute and gripping a warm steering wheel helps keep my fingers toasty!

Service Visit

I took my car in for some minor servicing. After driving it for a week or two, I noticed it seemed to be pulling to the left a bit, so I needed an alignment. I also found two paint issues on the hood - one was a small chip and the other looked like a little imperfection in the paint - like a small paint bubble was there and popped during drying. I also noticed the edges of the rear spoiler weren't firmly attached to the hatchback.

Tesla service was quite professional. A technician took my car for a drive and confirmed the alignment issue and also checked the paint. He said the paint issues were probably from debris while the car was being shipped to my delivery location on a carrier. The spoiler has to be replaced - they can't just glue the corners down. They didn't have a replacement spoiler in stock, so that is still on order.

All work was done with no charge and I was given an older Model S as a loaner while they worked on my car. They originally wanted to charge me for the alignment, but I said the car only had 1,000 miles on it (at the time), and I had noticed the alignment issue since I first picked the car up. I admitted it was probably my fault for not bringing it to their attention sooner and if they had to charge me, I would understand. My service adviser consulted with his manager and she approved a no charge alignment, which was nice.

Paint Coating

I opted to get a ceramic paint coating applied to the car. After reading comments from a bunch of other Tesla owners, I decided on Opti-Coat Pro. This is a ceramic coating that chemically bonds with the paint to form a protective barrier over the car. It takes a month to fully cure and harden, but once it does, it provides protection against chips, fading, and messes like bird droppings. It also helps keep a great shine on the paint and makes water bead more readily. When this coating is applied, any paint imperfections are basically frozen in place, so I wanted to get this done as soon as possible, before any washing swirls or polishing marks got into the paint. It was pricey (about $1,000), but I had that much saved in my auto maintenance budget for a planned suspension replacement on my old car, so I used those funds. I plan on keeping this car for at least 10 years, so I figure this was a good investment to keep it looking good.

Software Bug

I have come across a bug in the audio system. Twice now, the audio just didn't work. No radio, no Bluetooth audio from my phone. Even the turn signals stopped making sounds. The fix was to reboot the 17 inch main display. You can't do this while driving, but I pulled over and parked to do it. It only takes about 60 seconds for everything to come back online. Both times, this fixed the problem. This appears to be a known issue from at least a year ago. I forgot I can submit a bug report from the car, so I'll do that if it happens again.

Road Trip!

We've planned our first Tesla road trip! For the holiday season, we'll be driving down to Arizona to visit family. I spent a couple hours using the trip planner at EVTripping.com. We're going to try to make the entire trip using only free Tesla Superchargers. I've made a spreadsheet of our route (because I'm a geek that way) and it looks like the trip will take about 25 hours of driving and 7 hours of charging spread over a three day period.

Planning the trip was an exercise in juggling several variables. Not only do we have to plan how long to drive and where to stop and charge, but, because we are also taking our dog, we have to plan our overnight stays at hotels that accept pets.

Our first overnight stop will be in Mt. Shasta, California at the Best Western Plus Tree House hotel. This site has 4 Supercharger stations available at the hotel and there are 16 more right across the street. This will be interesting because the location is up in the mountains and the temperatures in December are in the mid 40s. That adds up to significant energy usage.

Our second overnight stop will be in Riverside, California. This stop is not quite as convenient, but only because we are travelling with a dog. There are 24 Superchargers on the top floor of a parking garage (open 24 hours and free for Tesla charging), but the closest hotel that accepts pets is about 10 miles away from there. Not bad, but not quite as convenient as charging right outside your hotel door. We'll have to stop and charge a bit on the way to the hotel (at the end of our full day of driving) and top off again the next day on the way out at the start of the next day. I want to leave Riverside with a full charge, because from there, we cross the California desert and don't charge again until we hit Quartzsite, just across the Arizona border. I'm pretty surprised we can go that far, actually. The trip planner says we can make it using only 65% of our battery. I used to make this trip when I drove from California to Arizona State University back when I was in college, so I know there is a serious elevation drop (about 3,400 feet, according to the trip planner), which is likely why the energy usage is low. And if things look a little dicey, there are a couple Superchargers in Indio where I can always top off. (Going back will be a different story, though. I haven't planned that trip yet.)

Hotel charges will be about $200 and I figure maybe $250 in food costs. That's one-way, so double that for the return trip. Energy is free, so I'm looking at about $900 total cost for the trip. A quick search on Travelocity shows a single round trip plane ticket for our travel dates is about $750, plus we'd also have to pay about $100 in pet fees. That means we're looking at a savings of about $1,450 over flying for my family of three plus dog. Of course, I'm trading time for money, but my wife and I both have vacation time we need to use before the end of the year and my daughter will be on winter break from school, so we've got the time to spare.

It's going to be a different type of road trip for us. We normally want to drive fast and get to our destination quickly. But with an electric car, we need to watch our speed (going over 80 MPH or so really burns energy) and we'll have to stop to charge every 2 hours or so. I think this will be a more relaxing drive (especially with Autopilot), but who knows. The slowness might drive us crazy.

Still Love It!

All in all, the car is amazing and I still love driving it every day. And it keeps getting better! Two days ago, the software was updated to include a "navigate on autopilot" feature. A new dash cam feature was also deployed as part of the recent Version 9 software update. It had some issues initially, like corrupting the thumb drive it stores files on if you didn't manually turn off recording before shutting off the car. A software update about a week later seems to have fixed that issue.

Net Worth Update: End Of October 2018

At the end of each month, I post an update of my net worth, including a brief discussion of any notable events that might have occurred. The latest month's figures can always be found under the Featured menu in the menu bar at the top of the blog.

Last updated: End of October, 2018
Net Worth: $867,812
Change from last Month: -$45,658

Events Of Note Last Month:

My SQL courses on Udemy generated $53.57 of income. Not all that impressive. What is impressive however, is the fact that I now finally crossed the $11,000 lifetime income threshold! Sales have slowed over the past 3 months and I expect they will continue to stay low or drop further. As I talked about last month, this doesn't bother me.

My courses on SkillShare, meanwhile, earned $22.11. This is more of less in line with typical earnings. My courses have been on that platform now for a year. The highest month was $92.80 and the lowest (full) month was $9.88. The average monthly earnings works out to $34.16.

Net Worth Update

I normally wait until the month is completely finished before doing this post, but since the 31st falls on my normal publishing day this month, I'm going to publish this before the month technically ends. Truthfully, one more day won't make that much of a difference. Our net worth took a nose dive this month, dropping by $45,658. Ouch!

September 2018

October 2018

The decline was due to drops in two areas: the stock market and the housing market. The S&P 500 sunk by about 300 points this month. The index funds I'm invested in track the S&P 500, so that means losses for me. I'm looking at the S&P 500 drop as a buying opportunity. The end of the year is coming and that is when many index funds pay out dividends and capital gains. In fact, my fund of choice, SWPPX, only pays out once a year instead of quarterly, so I'm happy to accumulate as many shares as I can before the end of the year when its payout happens.

The housing market in the Seattle area has cooled off considerably as well, causing my home value to drop by about $20,000 from last month. The net result of these two things is a big drop in my net worth. It kinda sucks to see, but it pays to remember that financial figures rarely go up every single month. The important thing is to keep on saving and investing and the market will go back up again eventually.

Last month, I mentioned I was shutting down a self-directed IRA. That process is still continuing, which is why my cash balance remains high. Next month, the final step of moving the funds into a regular IRA should be complete. I was surprised that this has progressed as quick as it has. I had to file some paperwork with the state of Arizona to close my LLC and they said that process could take 50 business days - two and a half months! It turned out not to take that long at all - just 3 or 4 weeks.  Now I have to wait for a closing bank statement showing the LLC's account is closed. That should be in the process of being generated today. Once I have that, I have to mail everything, including the funds, to the company managing the self-directed IRA, then initiate a rollover from them into my regular IRA at Schwab. None of this is complicated, but it does take time.



If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please drop me a line in the comments section!

My Tesla Energy Costs Versus Gasoline

The Caveat

I'll state right off, that this whole post is based on very limited data. Sixteen days worth, to be precise, and my driving during this time involved mainly just my work commute and driving about on the weekend here and there. No long trips. I'll revisit this subject in the months to come, but because the Tesla is a new toy, I wanted to look into energy price comparisons now.

I thought I'd take a look at how much money, if any, I am saving by driving an electric car instead of a gas car.

Crunching The Numbers

Luckily, I have good data on how much I have spent on gasoline over the past year. Because I track all my spending in an app and on Mint.com, I can easily pull close to a year's worth of data. For this study, I'm using data from November 2017 (the first full month we lived in our house in Washington) through August 2018. (I got my Telsa midway through September 2018, so I'm excluding that month from my calculations.) My gasoline costs include all taxes.

To calculate electricity costs, I need to be a bit more careful. Unlike some areas, my electricity costs are comprised of only two components: costs for electricity used and taxes. My power company does not assess a delivery fee or a base monthly service fee like they do in other parts of the country. Here's a copy of my bill. As you can see, no extraneous charges. Just energy costs and city tax. (State tax is included in the electricity price.)

Click to enlarge

Based on this information, I have what I need to create a basic spreadsheet to compare my monthly average gas costs with the average electricity costs for my Tesla. Last week, I posted some efficiency numbers for the car, but here's a slightly updated version (2 more days of data). My efficiency dropped by 1 Wh/mi. (Technically, it rose, but that means it got worse because lower is better for this metric.)

Here's my spreadsheet. Formulas are pretty simple. I extrapolate the electricity costs to a monthly value based on a 30 day month. Electricity costs and taxes are taken directly from my electric bill.

Click to enlarge

Note that my electric company does not offer a Time Of Use plan to residential customers, where electricity rates are lower during non-peak hours. They tried it once in 2001 / 2002 but most customers ended up paying more, so they cancelled the program.

"Oops. My bad!"

Given that 16 years have passed and electric cars are becoming more popular, I hope they may reconsider this decision and try the program again. If they did, I could program the Tesla to charge when rates are lowest and possibly save even more.

The Verdict

Based on this, I am saving an average of $51.56 each month by driving an electric car instead of my Prius.

Last month, I adjusted my budget by lowering my gas budget from $100 a month to zero and increasing my electricity budget by $50. I picked that number simply because it was half of my gas budget, but it looks like that was a good guess.

Some Final Thoughts

The car is not going to pay for itself via gas savings. I never thought it would and I've never heard anyone claim it would. But in addition to gas savings, there are a lot of other savings an electric car offers: No oil or oil filter changes. No radiator fluid or transmission fluid changes. No tune ups needed. No spark plugs. No timing belts. No air filter changes. No emission test fees. These savings will add up over time.

My old car was a Prius that got between 48 and 53 miles per gallon. If I drove a non-hybrid car, my savings could easily be twice what they are.

My initial thought is that living in a mountainous area might result in better energy usage numbers. Sure, I have to use more energy going up hills, but I regain a lot of it going back down. Compare this to a place like Arizona, where I used to live. There, the terrain is pretty much flat, which means there are next to no opportunities to charge via gravity. Of course, you still regain some charge from just slowing the car via regenerative braking. I wonder if anyone has compared energy efficiency on the two types of terrain...

Electricity is a price-regulated commodity (at least in most states, including my home state of Washington). This means wild swings in prices are rare. Gasoline, on the other hand, is not regulated and wild pricing swings are common and subject to various geopolitical forces.

A Time Of Use plan could be critical in some areas. In Arizona, the electric company charges three different rates during the year. Lowest rates are in the spring and winter. Rates are higher in June, July, September and October, and rates are the highest in August - peak air conditioning season. Charging your car in such an environment would necessitate being on a Time Of Use plan to charge at the cheapest rates possible.

Installing solar power at your home would increase your savings, although maybe not enough to pay for itself.

Where'd his glasses go in panel 7?

An Energy Primer And My Tesla Energy Usage So Far

(Not actually from my car)

I remember back when I first got my Prius, I was totally fascinated with gas mileage and how to maximize it. There is a whole community dedicated to hypermiling - trying to get the maximum miles per gallon from their cars. After owning a Prius for a while, my interest in gas mileage gradually tapered off and I just accepted that I would get between 48 and 53 miles per gallon. Tesla owners are no different only instead of miles per gallon, they geek out over watt hours per mile.

There are probably not many subjects drawing the attention of Tesla owners, especially new Tesla owners, more than energy usage. A Tesla keeps all sorts of statistics about its energy usage and a lot of that information is made available to programmers via Tesla’s API. This allows for programmers, be it third party developers or just amateur hobbyists, to look at raw data from the car and go full nerdcore on all sorts of technical information.

It’s The Internet. Of Course, People Are Arguing!

In reading Tesla owner’s posts about the subject, it’s clear this can be quite the rabbit hole and I have no intention of falling in. There is a wide range of disagreement on how much power a Tesla actually uses and ways to compare how much power actually gets into the battery versus what is actually drawn from the power company (which isn’t the same due to heat and resistance loses, efficiency losses, battery degradation, etc.), what the best current level to charge at is, as so on. And don’t even get me started on the semantic argument over wall charger versus wall connector! I’ve got a degree in electrical engineering and even I don’t want to get involved with these discussions.

I Don’t Care If I’m Off By A Tiny Bit

Instead, I’m just going to go with what the car reports. This may be slightly different from what is actually used, but trying to figure out anything in more detail involves making a whole lot of assumptions of information we just don’t have.

Look at this like trying to calculate a gasoline car’s miles per gallon. You fill the tank, reset your tripmeter, drive around, fill the tank again, and note your mileage. Your miles per gallon is the number of miles your tripmeter reports divided by the number of gallons of gas you put in. Simple, right?

The problem is that’s not going to be super accurate. Your tripmeter is calibrated for a certain diameter wheel and tire. Is your wheel the same size as what the manufacturer calibrated with or did you get custom wheels? What about the tires? Did you know different tires have different rolling resistances and that rolling resistance may account for 5% to 15% of fuel consumption? Tire pressure affects mileage, so if your tires change pressure (and they do with temperature, as well with possible leaks), you can’t get an accurate number. The density of gasoline varies with temperature, so if you initially filled your tank on a hot day then filled it again on a cold day, you might be putting more gas into your tank than you actually burned.

In other words, when you figure your car’s miles per gallon, you ignore a whole bunch of variables that may affect your final number and you just use the data the car reports to you (via the tripmeter and the gas pump). I’m going to do the same with my electric car and avoid falling down that rabbit hole I mentioned earlier.

I’ve linked my Tesla account to the EVTripping website. This allows the website to get an authentication token that allows it to connect to my Tesla and download data each night. I’ve had an account with them since I bought my car, so they’ve got my entire usage history from Day 1.

The MPG Equivalent For Electric Cars

The important number EV owners track is watt hours per mile (Wh/mi) – how much energy it takes to move the car per mile. The lower the number, the better. Just like it assigns gas cars a miles per gallon figure, the EPA rates electric cars with an energy usage value. They rate my car at 35 kWh/100 miles . That is another way of saying 350 Wh/mi because 1 kWh = 1,000 Wh.

Many of the apps that track Tesla energy usage calculate an efficiency number. This number is how your car compares to the EPA rated performance. In gas car terms, this is like comparing your actual gas mileage with the EPA stated gas mileage for your vehicle. If the EPA says your car gets 25 miles per gallon and your actual figure was 20 miles per gallon, you could say your efficiency was 80%, or 20 divided by 25.

A similar calculation is done by most Tesla-related apps. Your efficiency is your actual energy usage divided by the EPA rated energy usage. Numbers greater than 100% indicate you are using less energy than the EPA calculated you would.

It’s incredibly rare for a gas car to get better gas mileage than the EPA calculated value. After all, their tests are done under ideal conditions and your driving isn't. Further, with gas cars, fuel flows in one direction – from your tank through the engine. By that, I mean if you are going downhill, you may use less gas, but you don’t actually get more gas in your tank as you travel down the hill.

Wait, I Get Power Back?

Thanks to regenerative braking, electric vehicles do reverse the energy flow and refill your “tank” (aka battery pack)! As gravity pulls your car down the hill, your motor switches from consuming energy to generating energy and feeds it back into your batteries. In effect, this lets gravity “refill your tank.”

Now, there is no free lunch. Going down a hill will never allow you to recapture *all* of the energy used going up the hill. You lose energy due to friction, heat, wind resistance, and a bunch of other factors. However, going down the hill can regain you around 90% of the energy used to go up the hill in the first place. (Again, this is a number many people argue about, but it’s what most trip planning sites use when calculating energy usage over changing elevations and it seems to match well with people’s experiences, so I’m going with it.)

Being able to generate their own electricity is what helps electric cars achieve greater than 100% efficiency. For example, look at this data from my drive to and from work:

The trips are listed in reverse chronological order, so the bottom trip is my drive to work and the top is my drive home. You’ll notice my drive to work has an efficiency of over 100%. Part of this is due to the change in elevation. My home sits at 375 feet above sea level and my work is 138 feet above sea level. My morning commute is basically a 237 foot downhill drive. (For those sharp-eyed readers looking at the distance figures, I take different routes to and from work to avoid traffic, which is why the mileage is slightly different for the trips.)

I also use Autopilot in both directions, which helps reduce energy consumption by reducing the small fluctuations in speed that happen naturally with human drivers because they can't keep their foot pressure perfectly constant. (Cruise control in gas cars provides a similar boost to MPG.)

My Numbers

After two weeks of ownership, here are my lifetime energy usage numbers. Note that this chart lists efficiency as Wh/mile rather than a percent comparison to the EPA rated number (which again, is 350 Wh/mile).

My average efficiency is better than the EPA stated 350 Wh/mi. Granted, this is only after two weeks of use and, as you can see, there is no battery degradation. Over time, batteries do start to lose some of their energy storage capability. Real world testing by Tesla users has shown that I can expect about a 5% loss after 50,000 miles, but the loss really tapers off after that. Tesla battery packs should retain 90% of their capacity after 160,000 miles and 80% after 500,000 miles!

For comparison, with my Prius, I did not notice any battery degradation after 8 years and 145,000 miles. Granted, the Prius provided absolutely no way to measure battery usage other than a 6 segment image on the dash, so it’s not likely I would have noticed a 5% to 10% loss in capacity.

In short, I’m not worried about battery life.

Next week, I’ll talk about energy costs and compare it to what I would have spent on gasoline.

If you have questions or comments, be sure to leave a note below!

My First Week Of Tesla Ownership

Ava, The Quickening

Wow. What a fun week! The car is amazing! Here are some random highlights:

What's In A Name?

In the Tesla software, you can name your car. I tested out an Easter egg by naming my car 42 - which was changed to "Life, The Universe, And Everything." I ended up going with a suggestion from my wife: Ava, which was the name of the robot from Ex Machina. Not sure if that means she thinks the car is going to kill us.

The Original Ava

Charging

I've set the car to charge nightly to 80% battery capacity. This gives me about 250 miles of energy. Tesla recommends charging to 80% to 90% for day-to-day use and only going to 100% for long trips. This is to help extend the life of the battery. I drove to and from work Monday and Tuesday, about 62 miles round trip each day and, without charging it Monday night, I was down to 28% charge on Tuesday night.

My car is scheduled to charge at 12:30 AM and the Tesla app tells me when it stops charging. On Tuesday night, to go from 28% to 80% took 3 hours and 15 minutes using the high power wall charger. Sadly, my local electric company does not offer a time-of-use plan for residential customers where power costs at night are lower. Still, I'm just going to leave my car programmed for doing scheduled charging at night.

I haven't tried a Supercharger yet, nor have we done a long road trip where we need one, but one is in the works. As part of planning for that, I also signed up for free cards from the ChargePoint and Blink charging networks. The cards are free and give you a discounted price when you use their chargers. I don't plan on using anything other than Tesla Superchargers, but it pays to plan for contingencies.

Tech Goodies

I love Autopilot!! It makes my commute so easy, especially on the way home when I sometimes hit stop and go traffic. Autopilot takes care of the tedious starting and stopping. Here are a couple videos I made of Autopilot in action on my way to work.






I'll be the first to admit these aren't the most exciting Tesla videos out there, but I wanted to show the dashboard display and the early morning hours seemed a good time, with it being dark out and all. You can see the Tesla detect cars in the adjacent lanes as they approach. I like that the image of my car changes - when the car slows, the brake lights on the car image come on and, as you can see, when the headlights are on, the image shows headlights. I am easily amused.

The displays to the left and right of the center image are configurable. To the left, I keep mileage and trip energy usage data. To the right is a graph showing my energy usage over the last 5, 15, or 30 miles. But if you don't like those, you can display other data - the air pressure of each tire, a navigation display, an analog clock, phone contacts, or media player info (either FM or XM radio or media from a connected phone, or some other internet streaming service). The left image changes to a turn-by-turn navigation map when you are using navigation.

The car uses GPS location to intelligently perform some tasks. For example, when I approach or drive away from my house, it will automatically open or close my garage door. I have the air suspension option and the car remembers the location of where you set it to the High or Highest position. Whenever you return to that location, it automatically raises the car. This is nice because I have a steep driveway and my Prius was always bottoming out. Now, whenever I am near home, the suspension raises. When you hit 35 MPH, the suspension automatically drops from Highest to High and at 45 MPH, it drops from High to Standard. For less wind resistance at higher speeds, you can tell the car to drop to the lowest position over XX MPH. (It defaults to 90 MPH.)

I can use the Summon feature on the Tesla app to have my car remotely pull out of or into the garage. Out of the garage works fine, but going into the garage has some problems. Because my driveway is so steep, the car won't go forward until at least the front wheels are in the garage and on a flat surface. But Summon actually works anywhere, so if I'm in a parking lot and someone has parked too close to let me open my doors, I can have the car pull forward so I can get in.

Fit And Function

The interior of the car has a very minimalist look. In fact, there are no storage pockets in the doors, there are no handholds on the ceiling and, something Tesla owners have been complaining about for years, there are no coat hooks. After a couple of days, I did find one storage area right under the main view screen. Unfortunately, this area does not have a door to it or even a small lip. When stuff is in there, it tends to come flying out when you accelerate quickly 😄

The car doors have a high threshold. I find I have to raise my leg fairly high to get out of the car. Maybe I just have my seat too low. You can set it to adjust the seat and steering wheel when you park to make entering and exiting the car a bit easier.

Buzz

We went out to dinner Wednesday night and I had my first instance of Tesla time. Tesla time is the term owners coined for the time Tesla owners spend answering questions from curious strangers about their cars. The waiter had seen me park and asked some questions about my Model S. He was fairly knowledgeable and commented that he hadn't seen many P100Ds around.

I'm A Scaredy Cat

I haven't tried Ludicrous mode yet. The car accelerates so quickly in standard mode, I'm honestly more than a bit scared to see what the faster mode is like. You want to know why I am scared? Read this Motor Trend examination of what happens during Ludicrous acceleration. One point four one g at 0.4 seconds after launch! Zero to sixty in 2.28 seconds! It hits 30 MPH after traveling 1.5 car lengths!

I also would like to first try it on a straight stretch of road, which is hard to come by in Washington. I am looking into racing tracks around the area. Seriously.

Show Me The Money

My monthly car payment is a bit lower than I planned. I also will pay less total interest over the life of the loan than I calculated. I originally thought I would pay about $6,800 dollars in interest. It turns out, I will pay significantly less (because I ended up putting more down).

Only $5,682! My purchase qualified for the $7,500 tax credit, which means even taking out a loan, I'm still coming out $1,818 ahead.

Net Worth Update: End of September 2018

At the end of each month, I post an update of my net worth, including a brief discussion of any notable events that might have occurred during the month. The latest month's figures can always be found under the Featured menu in the menu bar at the top of the blog.

Last updated: End of September, 2018
Net Worth: $913,470
Change from last Month: +$848

Welcome To The New Monthly Update Page!

Now that I went out a bought my Tesla, I no longer have a goal to track progress towards. I could have started counting down until my car loan is paid off, but that's pretty boring. Also, that information will be reflected in my net worth number anyway, so I've decided this monthly post will just become a monthly net worth update.

Events Of Note Last Month:

The biggest event, of course, was that I unlocked a new achievement:

Woo hoo!!

In less exciting news, my SQL courses on Udemy generated $76.46 of income. My courses on SkillShare earned $25.58. As usual, this money went towards the Tesla. Last month, I was less than $100 away from hitting $11,000 in lifetime earnings on Udemy for my online courses. I came very close to crossing that milestone in September but I fell short by.... twenty one cents! Argh! Next month...

Truthfully, my online courses are getting a bit out of date. Not technically. Everything in my courses still applies and is valid. However, I made the courses using SQL Server 2012, which was the latest version at the time. Since they were made, SQL 2014, 2016, and 2017 have been released. The user interface has changed slightly, so I expect to start getting complaints from students that my course is teaching an old version. I'm not sure I care. It was a huge effort to make the courses and re-recording them just for a UI update doesn't seem worth the hassle.

Now that I have the Tesla, my motivation is lacking. I know I can still use the course income to pay down my loan, but.... meh. There are some new features I can make new courses about, but I don't have the setup to demonstrate those on my laptop. So, I expect my course income to start dwindling off soon.

Net Worth Update

Surprisingly, our net worth rose again, this month by $848 to another all time high of $913,470. I really wasn't expecting this.

August 2018

September 2018

The gain would have likely been higher, but Tesla stock is down $43 as I write this because the SEC just filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk for his tweets about taking the company private. One of the terms they are asking for is that Musk no longer be allowed to serve as an officer or director of any publicly traded company. I think Musk was stupid to tweet what he did, but that penalty seems a bit harsh. We'll see how this plays out.

Lots of numbers jumping around this month.

Our cash balance is really high because I'm in the middle of exiting a real estate investment. I had $70,000 in a self-directed IRA that was invested in a hard money loan (i.e., I was a mortgage lender). That mortgage was paid off and my partner has been having some difficulties finding new investments, so I've decided to roll that investment back into an IRA at a traditional brokerage. The self-directed IRA is nice, but the company that manages it is fairly expensive. If I can't get an 8% or higher return, it's not worth the hassle for me.

And it is a hassle. A self-directed IRA requires an LLC and mine was formed in Arizona, where I no longer live. The bank account for the LLC was also in Arizona. I can't open a business bank account in Washington unless the LLC is registered in Washington, which costs a couple hundred dollars to do. So rather than move all that stuff here only to get mediocre returns with my partner, I'm just going to close the LLC and move the IRA back into the stock market. Unfortunately, officially closing the LLC requires filing paperwork with the state of Arizona and they say that process can take up to 50 business days. That's two and a half months for filing a single piece of paper! Anyway, the upshot of all this is that my $70,000 is sitting in a savings account until that process is finished, so my cash number will be inflated for a while. When all is said and done, that money will eventually find a home in the Investments category.

Similarly, I had a hard money loan investment in my daughter's name and I also moved that into the stock market.

Those two investments were formerly part of the Property category, due to how Mint.com handles manual account entries.

On the other hand, the Property category now also includes my Tesla, the value of which is somewhat offset by my new auto loan which shows in the Loan category.

So just looking at the numbers provides a somewhat blurry image of how my net worth is actually composed this month, but the final number is the one that really matters. And that went up, so all is good!


If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please drop me a line in the comments section!

Don't Leave Money On The Table: My Credit Card Cashback Rewards Year To Date (Sep. 2018)

This week, I'm going to take a short break from all the Tesla posts and get back to some personal finance topics. My post on my first week of Tesla ownership will be next week, I promise!

I got an email from my Chase Freedom credit card a week ago showing me how much I've earned in cash back bonuses so far this year.

That's a pretty big chunk of change! It's higher than I would have guessed.

But this was only for one of my credit cards. I also have a Discover card that earns cash back and partway through the year, my wife switched to the Citi Double Cash card, which gives you 1% back on charges and 1% back on payments. My wife also has a Discover card as well, so we earn cash back there. Basically, every credit card we own gives us cash back.

We charge just about everything we purchase and pay off our balances in full each month (each week, actually). Because we never carry a balance, we are never charged interest. This means all the cash back we earn goes straight into our pocket. It's like getting free money.

I was curious to see how much free money we earned over all of our credit cards so far this year. Luckily, I track all my transactions on a phone app, so it was a simple matter to get this information.

Wow! $1,025.66! That's a lot of free money! (And there's still three more months in the year!)

This isn't phantom savings either. I don't take this money and go spend it all on hookers and blow frivolous items. Each month, as soon as the cash back is awarded, I immediately apply it to my credit card balance. That means it directly reduces the cost of my day-to-day monthly expenses.

The trick to maximizing cash back is to pay attention to the details of your cash back program. For example, both my Chase Freedom card and our Discover cards have a bonus category each quarter where you earn 5% cash back instead of the normal 1% or 2%.

For July, August, and September, the bonus category for Discover was restaurants. So anytime we went to a restaurant (even fast food), I made sure to use my Discover card. For October, November, and December, the bonus category changes to Amazon.com. So on October 1, I'm going to change my default credit card on Amazon to be my Discover card. I'll probably also do most of my holiday shopping on Amazon to earn more. (I'm an Amazon Prime member, so shipping doesn't cost me any extra.)

I keep a note in my wallet listing the bonus categories for each card, so I can make sure I use the right card in the right situation.

It's really nice when you can put big expenses on a cash back card. Back in August, I paid my $2,500 Tesla deposit with my Chase Freedom card. The $4,000 worth of electrical work I had done for installing the wall charger and new electrical panel? On the credit card.

Of course, the important part is being able to pay off your credit card bill in full each month. If you can't do that, you'll end up losing money. But if you are careful with budgeting and are able to consistently pay off your monthly bill, you can earn some serious coin for buying stuff you needed anyway. So take full advantage of your cash back cards and don't leave money on the table!

The Tesla Purchase Experience: Week 6 Plus One Day

Sunday

The last time I spoke with the delivery advisor, she mentioned that her workweek was Sunday to Thursday, so on Sunday I was waiting for the written confirmation that my trade-in quote was actually good for 1,000 miles or 4 weeks, not the 500 miles or 2 weeks the paperwork said. Sunday night came and I hadn't heard anything, so I sent her an email asking for confirmation.

Checking the weather forecast, it looks like there is a slight chance of rain next Sunday when I am due to pick up the car. I hope it's not raining because I'd like to give the car a good once over. But, it's a week away and weather forecasts usually aren't all that accurate that far out anyway. And for all I know, the delivery place might be indoors or have covered parking. I should probably check it out on Google Maps...

Thinking of the weather also got me thinking about floor mats. It rains so much here, I definitely want some all weather floor mats so I don't ruin the standard mats. (I did the same thing with my Prius.) So I ordered these OEM floor mats. They are made by WeatherTech, the same people who made the ones I bought for my Prius. It looks like they are $35 cheaper if you buy them from WeatherTech, but they charge $33 shipping whereas Tesla doesn't charge shipping at all, so it works out to about the same. Plus, if you order directly from Tesla, you get the Tesla logo on them, which you don't get ordering from WeatherTech.

Monday

I received written confirmation of the longer time frame for the trade-in quote. The advisor asked me one last time if I wanted her to go ahead and submit the final paperwork. She had been holding off submitting in case I needed to resubmit with a different mileage. I told her to go ahead.

Shortly thereafter, I received my (second) delivery appointment confirmation. Hopefully, this one will not be postponed! The email said to check my Tesla account for payment information and instructions.

I logged in to my Telsa account and had a bit of a shock. Instead of the "6/6 Tasks Complete" image (like above) that I had seen the last several times I logged in, I saw this one:

I seem to have lost 2 tasks along the way. One of the steps now gone was the trade-in step. I can't remember what the other one was. But I also now had a payment section:

Goodbye, money!

When I spoke with the delivery advisor, she said I could submit the payment details at any time. Of course, I want to hold on to my money as long as possible, so I asked her if I could wait until Friday night, even though ACH payments are not processed on weekends. She said yes, that even if the funds have not actually transferred, they can see the payment is in process. So I'll probably submit the transfer Friday.

There is one other issue I just thought of: In Washington, as I was told by a Tesla employee back when I placed my order, the trade-in value of my old car can be offset against the cost of my new car when it comes to calculating sales tax. (I verified that here.) This should result in about a $505 tax savings for me. As you can see in the image above, it's not clear that happened. I emailed my delivery advisor to confirm this was calculated correctly. I asked for a line-by-line accounting of the totals.

Tuesday

I received an email from my delivery advisor regarding my tax question. She said she passed the request on to the contract team for more information.

Wednesday

No response yet, so I sent another email.

Thursday

My all-weather floor mats arrived today. Still no response regarding taxes. Stopped off at the gas station for what I hope will be the last time ever today!

Friday

Had some heavy rain early this morning, but it's stopped now. That's the first heavy rain in a couple months. Forecast for Sunday is 67% chance of rain, with 64% chance in the 10 AM hour and 61% in the 11 AM hour. My pickup appointment is at 11 AM.

No response on taxes. At this point, I need to initiate my payment, so there's nothing I can do about this. Truthfully, I don't have any leverage to force them to address the issue. It's not like I'm going to cancel my order and lose my $2,500 deposit over a $505 tax discrepancy. Likewise, I'm not going to delay taking possession of the car because there's a good chance a new trade-in value calculation will drop the value of my car by more than $505.

The Sales Tax Issue

I decided to take another look at the documents available to me in my Tesla account and I found the purchase agreement, which contained a breakdown of the purchase costs, including taxes.

Try as I might, I can't figure out how they arrived at that tax figure. It seems to be more than what I should have been charged, but less than I could have been charged, so I'm going to go with it.

The sales tax rate in Bellevue, where I am picking up the car is 10%:

If they charged me tax on the whole purchase price, I should have been charged $14,870. If they charged me tax on the purchase price less my trade-in (which is what they should have done), I should have been charged ($148,700 - $5,050) * 10% = $14,365. If they messed up and charged me the Seattle sales tax rate (where their other pick up location is located), which is 10.1%, I should have been charged either $15,018.70 or $14,508.65.

The actual tax rate I was charged is $14,795.96 / $148,700 = 9.95%. Go figure. So the difference between what I think I should have been charged and what I was charged is $14,795.96 - $14,365 = $430, in their favor. But they charged me $74.04 less than the flat out 10% tax rate I think they might have charged. It's not worth raising a stink about, in my opinion, so I went ahead and made the payment.

If only that were true, Tesla. If only that were true...

On the positive side of things, I timed this purchase just right for my existing license. The current license for my Prius is due to be renewed exactly one week after I get the Tesla, so that saved me $150 or so in licensing fees.

Saturday

Less than 24 hours to go!

I took a look at the pick up location on Google maps. It's a Tesla showroom as well. Still a 61% chance of rain at 11 AM tomorrow.

Spent some time getting my paperwork together (I need to bring my title, registration, and proof of insurance). Also cleaned out my old car. Then I spent about 2 hours watching You Tube videos from the Teslavangelist.

Too bad my weekly posts run Sunday to Saturday. You'll have to wait for next week for the big delivery!







Just kidding!! I wouldn't do that!

Sunday

The day is finally here! It was overcast, but not actually raining - yet. The clouds were definitely thinking about it though.

With my wife and daughter, I drove out to the Tesla service center in Bellevue. It was a pretty big building with a parking lot on two sides filled with Teslas. The building functions as a showroom, delivery center, and service center. We were greeted by an associate holding the door open for us and, when we entered, it looked like we were the only ones there. We were about 15 minutes early for our appointment, so the associate had us wait in a little lounge area, which had a big screen TV displaying a football game, a Koering coffee machine with a selection of flavors, and two big jars of Life Savers candy. The overall color theme of the place was white and the whole building had an Apple Store vibe to it.

After about 10 minutes, an older couple came in and started waiting as well. They were also there to pick up their Tesla. After another few minutes, a different person came in an introduced himself. He said they were just finishing up detailing my car and, while they were doing that, we could finish the paperwork.

He first asked for the keys to my trade in and went out to check it out and get the mileage. When he came back, he had a couple forms my wife and I needed to autograph. We had to sign over the title to our trade in, then a couple of papers giving Tesla power of attorney to file paperwork for the car on our behalf, then some ownership transfer papers.

The next group of papers were for the new car. One was for the loan, another was for the registration and license. The last piece of paper we were given was a cheesy little award that looks like it was made from a Microsoft Word award template and printed on regular paper, not even card stock. I mean, it didn't even have a facsimile of Elon Musk's signature, just had a tiny "Tesla SoDo" down where a signature might be. I'll forever be wondering what that means.

And that was it! It was really painless and we did it all right there at a little table in the lounge area in about 5 minutes. There were maybe 15 pages in all to sign. Based on what I had read online, I expected the process to be entirely electronic, but maybe the state of Washington doesn't allow electronic contracts yet.

We had to wait about 5 more minutes for the detail work to be done, during which time a family of four came in to pick up their car as well. Finally, a woman came and escorted us back to our car.

The Reveal

There were two cars parked inside the building in the back part of the showroom. This was obviously where they delivered the cars to their new owners and went over the brief demonstration of how to use some of the features. The woman had my wife and I sit in the car while she walked us through the basic controls.

I had read the manual many times and had watched lots of videos, so there wasn't really anything she told me that I didn't already know. One thing I did find out was that the Auto Pilot and Auto Steer functionality isn't enabled until the car has been driven at least 50 miles. This, she told me, was to allow all the sensors to calibrate themselves.

She told us how the key fobs operate (they look like little Teslas) and went over the charging adapters that come with the car. She also explained how to plug the charging cable into the car and how it locks and unlocks to the charge port. I then checked out the car to make sure everything looked fine, which it did. Finally, we got in and drove off into the sunset! Err, sunrise.. Well, high noon, partly cloudy sun, actually.

Our first stop was just 5 miles down the road to get some lunch. On the way, my daughter told me to "punch it," which I gleefully did. Holy crap! Everyone screamed at the surge of power. And that wasn't even in ludicrous mode!

We made it safely to the restaurant, where I parked and took some pictures.

We hit a little bit of rain on the way home, but for the most part, the sun shone on my new car all day!

First Thoughts

Wow. The car really is amazing! It takes some getting used to because when you take your foot off the accelerator, the car really slows down with the regenerative breaking. The first dozen or so miles, you can easily get nauseous because you have to learn how to moderate your foot pressure. You don't take your foot of the gas and coast before stepping on the brake like a gas car. In fact, you very rarely have to step on the brake at all!

One thing that really feels weird is there is no ignition or even an on / off switch. Being a Prius owner, I was used to no ignition key, but I still had to push a button to turn the car on and off. Not the Tesla. If you've got the fob in your pocket, you just get the in car, sit down, and put it in drive. When you arrive at your destination, you put it in park and just get out and walk away. It will shut itself off and lock all on its own. If I ever have to drive a regular car again, I know I'm going to just walk away and leave it unlocked and running....

When we got home, I spent the next couple hours playing with all the various settings in the car and doing things like connecting my phone, programming my garage door opener, connecting the car to my WiFi network, installing the all-weather floor mats, etc. The car notified my that there was a pending software update.

During software updates, you can't drive the car or do anything with it. I had the option of scheduling it to install at night (it estimated 1 hour and 40 minutes to install), but we were getting ready for dinner, so I told the car to go ahead and install it now. I was worried that if I left it to install overnight, I might wake up in the morning to find the update failed and the car unable to be driven. (Can you tell I'm a Windows user?) Later in the night, I got a notification on my phone from the Tesla app saying the update was successful.

This post is already running long, so I'll end it here. Next time, I'll talk about my first week of driving.