Should you buy a Tesla Model 3 for your next company car? Here’s one company’s experience switching from Diesel—cost comparison throughout.

This guide offers practical, honest insights to help you decide if an EV is right for you.

By Philip Corker Of Webuysupercars.com 

Instead of simply presenting the facts and figures, I wanted to share why we purchased an electric vehicle (EV), specifically a Tesla Model 3.

In addition, I wanted to discuss the challenges we faced while charging, driving, and owning our Tesla over three years 50,000 miles. And, importantly, do we still believe we made the right choice?

Keep reading to find out.

Our company, webuysupercars.com, specialises in buying and selling prestige vehicles. We take great care in viewing and collecting all the cars we purchase.

As such, I spend much of my time on the road, driving long distances and meeting clients whose cars we’ve bought.

I noticed a peculiar trend among our customers; many were selling us their luxury cars and then replacing them with Teslas.

Back in 2020, as a buyer of premium cars, I must admit I didn’t know much about Tesla.

To my mind, they just made expensive electric cars for tree huggers and Hollywood virtue signallers. I’d certainly have never considered buying one.

We had discovered that our customers, whom we considered petrolheads, were selling their high-spec Mercedes AMGs, Audi Rs, and BMW M cars. To buy all pretty much the same car. A Tesla Model 3 Performance

Digging further, we learned that most weren’t buying a Tesla for the reasons I had in mind but for TAX reasons.

Following a bumper year, post-COVID, they had sought a way to offset their corporation tax. Their accountant had told them buying EVs would achieve this. It would also reduce their company car tax burden to zero.

There were several other benefits to buying a Tesla, such as an exemption from the London Congestion charge (now limited to the ULEZ Zones charge)

But for me, having just swallowed yet another service bill on our Volkswagen, “no maintenance schedule” was the cruncher.

So I decided that we had better wake up our accountant. To see why he wasn’t telling us to buy one.

Early in 2020, the most prestigious EV brands were expensive, new, and untested. There was also the charging element. You might want a Porsche or an Audi, but where exactly would you charge it?

Also, putting £100k into a car your “accountant” had advised you to buy was a big ask, especially when you had doubts.

The solution, a £40-55k Tesla Model 3, seemed like a safe punt into an unknown world. And maybe if it worked, you’d be brave enough to buy a proper car like the Porsche Taycan, which would hold its value better… hmm.

But for us, the primary concern, like most people buying a car for business, is that it must also work as a car. What’s the point of saving taxes and buying a car you can’t use to do your job right?

So, I conducted my market research. This involved me calling customers up and saying, “Come on, man to man, is it rubbish? Do you miss the BMW you sold us?”

The first thing most of them said was how fast it was; I was expecting them to tell me about self-driving or the environment or something else. But no, they were excited about the car and enthusiastic about how it drove.

But “Was it any good?” I asked. Despite a few comments on the Tesla build quality not being on par with Audi, BMW, and other similar brands. Most people who had bought it didn’t regret their decision.

I wanted to try one, but 20 minutes would never be a real test. But as luck would have it, a customer sold their Standard Range Plus Tesla through webuysupercars.com. I collected the car myself and got a free real-world 24-hour test drive.

That drive back made my mind up; driving was fun, and I’d only spent £8 on charging it.

A single 20-minute charge during our 300-mile journey back to North Yorkshire was all it took. During that time, I could grab a sandwich, use the loo, and reply to a few messages, things I would have done anyway.

Comparing the running costs was more complicated than I imagined. I looked up the nighttime charging rate on the car, which at the time was just 5p per kilowatt hour. I compared that to the £2 a litre that diesel had just hit, subtracted what we had spent on the VW servicing, and concluded it was a no-brainer.

But we can now see the table below, based on our Touran and Tesla costs. And it is always the best estimate. ( this took ages, by the way). If anyone can pick holes in this, please let us know in the comments.

This table includes detailed cost breakdowns, per mile, and monthly costs for both vehicles over four years. The Tesla Model Y shows significantly lower costs per mile and month compared to the VW Touran. I haven’t included tyres, but the VW used more rubber, despite Tesla’s reputation for eating them.

The Table below uses actual service costs, but rather than working out past fuel prices, it’s accurate as of today’s charging and fuel costs. (December 2023)

Tesla Model 3 Performance Vrs Diesel VW 2.0tdi: 4-Year Cost Comparison (20,000 Miles Per Year)

Cost Basis:

• Tesla Model 3 performance (Mixed Charging): 75% home charging at £0.075 per kWh, 25% Supercharger usage at £0.45 per kWh.
• Diesel VW 2.0tdi: Fuel cost based on 45 mpg efficiency and £7 per gallon, with additional costs for road tax, maintenance, AdBlue, cambelt service, and brakes.

Monthly Cost Comparison

Cost Type	Tesla – Mixed Charging	VW 2.0tdi
Charging / Fuel	£80.86	£259.26
Road Tax	£0	£15.00
Maintenance	£0	£58.00
AdBlue	£0	Varies
Total Monthly Cost	£80.86	£332.26 (Excluding AdBlue)

Annual Cost Comparison

Cost Type	Tesla – Mixed Charging	VW 2.0tdi
Charging / Fuel	£970.31	£3,111.11
Road Tax	£0	£180.00
Maintenance	£0	£696.00
AdBlue	£0	£60.00
Total Annual Cost	£970.31	£4,047.11

4-Year Total Cost Comparison

Cost Type	Tesla – Mixed Charging	VW 2.0tdi (Including Cambelt and Brakes)
Charging / Fuel	£3,881.25	£12,444.44
Road Tax	£0	£720.00
Maintenance	£0	£2,784.00
AdBlue	£0	£240.00
Cambelt Service	£0	£1,300.00
Brake Service	£0	£1,200.00
Total 4-Year Cost	£3,881.25	£18,688.44

These tables directly compare costs, showing the substantial difference in the overall ownership expenses between the Tesla Model 3 Performance (under the mixed charging scenario) and the Diesel VW 2.0tdi over four years. The Tesla demonstrates significant savings, particularly in terms of fuel/charging costs and maintenance-related expenses.

Purchasing a Tesla would not only save us money but would also allow us to offset 19% of the purchase price against that year’s profits. So, in other words, £60,000 gave us £ 11,400 off this year’s bill.

Additionally, we could run the car on the company. There was no company car Tax, and we could bill all the charging costs to the company. It all appeared to add up to me.

However, at the time of ordering, I found myself hesitating. What would our Supercar customers think of us as a company if we switched to a Tesla Model 3? Would they perceive us as having gone soft, lost our petrol headiness, gone off the rails?

So, to counter that, I scrolled down the models and ticked Tesla Model 3 Performance, spending £20k more on the all-wheel drive performance version… oops.

I reasoned (to myself and then my partner) that spending £20,000 more of the profit saved even more on this year’s Tax bill…

I ordered the car online using a customer’s Tesla referral code to get the latest offer: Which at the time was 3000 miles of free supercharging.

We chose a white Tesla Model 3 Performance because its three-layer metallic pearl would show off not only the company logo but also because it was free.

The metallic is also more hard-wearing than the flat black paint Tesla offers, which costs £1000 more. The blue was featured in most complaints about Tesla’s poor paint finish and seemed to chip easiest. I thought Grey was dull ( I now own a grey one, go figure). And the red cost an eye-watering £2500 more and wasn’t me anyway.

Towards the end of September 2020, we arrived at Tesla Leeds and were asked to wait in the waiting room until a staff member became available.

After waiting about 30 minutes, we were called to a desk and asked to sign the paperwork.

Coming from a VAG group background where we were forced to do hour-long handovers, getting handed a credit card key and being told the car was somewhere in the car park was a culture shock.

I was nervous as we approached our car because I had heard a few stories about cars with scratches and poorly fitting panels. So we were relieved when our vehicle appeared in perfect condition. ( yes, we know, why wouldn’t it be?)

It was no Audi, but it seemed well enough put together. The paint was spot on, and almost all the panels were fitted.

Apart from the driver’s door, which was a touch-off. Hey ho, what can you expect for £53k?

Looking at some of the others parked next to ours, we felt like we had won the build quality lottery a little, as, in truth, each car’s panel gaps were slightly different. (That is not the case now)

Having worked in the car industry for 30 years, I was confident that I didn’t need to read the manual or watch any of the Tesla videos ahead of collection.

So, of course, 30 minutes later, I headed back to the showroom to wait until someone came to show me how to open the door. They promptly left again, leaving me trying to figure out how to start it.

I carefully drove the car, not home, but to Project R in Weatherby to have it covered in paint protection film (The paint stories had been bothering me). Then we had them tint the windows and roof. Then, much to my partner’s dismay, they covered up all that chrome that Tesla had at the time.

Ours was a facelift car and had the 20″ black turbine alloys. Had we waited another two months, we’d have had an even more refined Tesla Model 3, with double-glazed windows and more range—courtesy of a heat pump in place of our car’s ceramic heater element.

About a week later, it was ready to collect, and now it was time to have my first proper drive.

Holy sh… that was my first thought on experiencing the instant acceleration, followed quickly by a strange feeling of nausea.

It may be the lack of audible clues from the engine or the completely linear acceleration. But many people on Tesla Model 3 test drives often report this queasiness.

Get past the vomit-inducing acceleration from a standstill, and you quickly discover you can pass just about any car on the road in any situation. Forget being in the right gear or rev range; just hit the accelerator. In an instant, you were another 100 feet down the road. It was like driving a full-sized Scalextric.

And it handled well, too, with weight at the bottom of the car, it’s impressively flat through the bends with plenty of grip from the wide Michelin PS4 tires. That particular tyre choice was impressive; I’d imagined Tesla might put them on rock-hard, eco-efficient rubber. But not on this model.

Looking around the interior, I’m sure there were some quality issues. There are some cheap-looking finishes here and there, thin carpets and that awful IKEA bathroom cabinet-type wood on the dash. I swore to get rid of it and never got around to it.

Against was also an oddly satisfying, solid-feeling piano with a black lid on the centre console. Arguably, it was the most premium feeling part of that version of the model 3… Until you try to shut it. Only to have it bounce off a weak magnetic catch and flip open again.

Irritated, you’d flip it shut again, only to be sternly warned by the car’s computer to close the lid gently.

And here you have the first indication of how crazy some of Tesla’s engineering can be. Instead of fixing the catch design, they add a sensor that can tell if you, the inferior human, are closing the lid too hard. Bonkers.

In those first few weeks, the car was on the road constantly, and I was learning on the move. I didn’t have the time to sit and read the manual.

Instead, I steadily pestered the Tesla owner’s forum on Facebook for answers to questions as they arose. Like how do you turn it off? How do you plan a round trip, and why is the car trying to kill me on autopilot?

The group members were a mixture of insightful knowledge and sharp-tongued patronization. But in general, most were full of the sort of detailed knowledge that you’ll find nowhere else, apart from maybe…the manual 😉

During October and November 2020, we were flat out using the car for work. Because of the COVID restrictions, we couldn’t use our usual logistics company, so rather than viewing the odd particular vehicle, we were using Tesla to do weekly 300- to 500-mile round trips and collect the cars we bought ourselves.

At first, like everyone, we worried about range, meticulously planning every trip, and getting everything wrong, like running it almost to the point of empty and then charging until complete like you might a petrol or diesel car.

That did cause a few early charging dramas. Like the time we got screwed by ZAP MAP directing us to chargers that didn’t exist.

Or when we used the need to charge to justify a more expensive than usual working lunch in a Miller and Carter steakhouse. Only to realise neither car we had plugged in had received any charge. And now we were £60 poorer with two even flatter car batteries. Not only that, but we were also an uncomfortable distance from the next charger.

We soon found ourselves sticking to Tesla superchargers whenever possible. But even they had a few challenges. Finding them, for a start.

The car’s sat-nav might mark them, but finding them in a dark, rain-strewn car park isn’t always easy. They often sit around the back of some random Travelodge or Best Western or, at Edinburgh airport, in the staff-only car park on a no-access road. So, no, it wasn’t as easy as you might think.

The other issue we had to overcome (Tesla has since addressed this) was that the navigation wouldn’t let you plan a round trip. It might get you to your destination with a 20% charge, only to discover the car wouldn’t reach the next charger on the homeward leg.

It took a few times to forget range and think time was my revelation. I realize this is different for you, but you’re doing well if you can average 60 mph on Britain’s congested motorways.

Two hours is also my limit without a coffee or a pee. So I’d drive for circa 2 hours, stop for 15 mins, which is precisely the time it takes to buy a coffee and visit the loo (assuming you don’t run and wash your hands), and in that time, the car would replace the charge I’d used in two hours or 120 miles or so.

Then, 2 hours later, I’d do the same. So a 400-mile round trip would include two coffee stops to arrive back at base with enough charge to get the car back to 80/90% on the 4-hour cheap nighttime rate at home (we now get six hours of cheap rate power on Octopus Intelligent).

In 3 1/2 years and 55,000 miles, we’ve only used a non-Tesla charger once, other than that first month of fast learning, including an 1800-mile round trip to the Dordogne in our latest Tesla Model Y.

Having been let down by the ZAP MAP app a few times, we discovered the somewhat better (In My opinion) A Better Route Planner App

We owned our first Tesla Model 3 Performance from September 2020 to September 2022 and did around 28000 miles. Here’s what went wrong and what we spent on servicing.

Moisture in the rear lights was replaced on the drive, and there was no drama from Tesla.
The rear tailgate catch worked loose, and likewise, Tesla sent a Tesla Ranger to us, who fixed it in 10 minutes.

Booking appointments is a piece of cake. You photograph the issue and send a photo on the Tesla App, and they send someone to fix it. At least, that has been our experience so far.

We replaced one full set of tyres at around 18000 miles with Michelin PS4s and another the day after for a nail. 🙁

It’s worth checking the inside edges. This tyre on our Model 3 performance was worn to the canvas, but by any average visual measure or sticking your fingers in the treads, this tyre looked fine.

Charging at home costs circa £4 to put maybe 150-180 miles on it, 60% off the battery, charging 20-ish to 80 per cent on average. That works out at roughly ( correct our maths if you think we are off here) 2.6p a mile

We changed our Model 3 Performance for a Tesla Model Y Long Range in September 2022, just because the Y is a much more practical family car, and we started to use it for everything,

Having paid £53000 for the Model 3 Performance, we got £47000 from selling it on our website, webuysupercars.

Six weeks later, Elon crashed the used values by knocking £7k from the retail price of the Tesla Model Y. Hey ho; you win some, you lose some.

Our Model Y on PCP with Santander costs £730 a month for 48 months with an annual mileage allowance of 20,000 miles. Usually, we trade up our company car every two years.

Still, this time, it would appear to make more sense to me to keep it and, as much as it pains t to admit, hand it back with 80,000 miles on the clock. ” the final payment with Santander is £22300 and as much as id like to think that it could be worth more than that by the end, I doubt it.

It’s hard to compare the VW Touran directly. But, well, try it. It cost £26152 and is currently worth circa £12000 with 80000 miles at four years old. In that time we spent roughly £12500 on fuel. The most significant expense was maintenance at just over £ 5,000, not including tyres. I’ll try to make some sense of that here, and if anyone can see a hole in my maths, please comment below.

We’ve had a bath on the Tesla Model Y depreciation; we won’t lie; it’s worth maybe £35k to a dealer today and cost us £60k, ouch… I think it may be the first car we hand back on a PCP, which is a tad upsetting.

All EVs have been hit hard in the current market ( December 2023); however, it’s not a unique EV issue, and many, if not all, ICE cars have had an equally challenging year. Blame Sunak, the Bank of England and even Elon Musk, But don’t blame the cars. We still feel it works for us, considering the overall savings. We haven’t even mentioned the company benefit in kind tax comparison. But we are working on one.

Our advice if you’re thinking of making the switch is always to ask yourself the most basic question: is an EV fit for my purpose? Switching To An EV? How To Make The Right Choice – (evbuyer.online)

of our Tesla is simply fantastic. No other car in this category feels as safe when overtaking. Even some of the performance ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars we’ve dealt with don’t match Tesla’s predictable and safe overtaking power with just a press of the accelerator.

It is a huge plus. Getting into a fully charged car each morning, even after arriving home with an empty battery, is lovely. It eliminates the need to visit a petrol station, queue to pay, and deal with the hassle of diesel on your hands, not to mention the cost savings.

The lack of a regular serving regime is excellent. With our usual travel pattern, including frequent short trips like school runs, we used to need two services per year at around 9,000 to 12,000 miles each. Avoiding the inconvenience of taking the car to a dealer and dealing with upselling tactics is a relief.

The Tesla’s tech features are impressive. The touchscreen navigation is user-friendly, much like using Google Maps. The routing via supercharging stations is also efficient.

Pre-heating or pre-cooling the car adds comfort—no more scraping ice in winter or worrying about leaving the engine running unattended. The car can preheat or pre-cool using a phone app or on a schedule.

Connectivity in the Tesla is excellent, thanks to an inbuilt mobile chip. This allows for convenient access and control over various features.

Dealing with EV criticism can be tiring. Defending your choice against misconceptions about charging times, safety concerns, environmental impact, and the perceived cult-like following of Elon Musk is frustrating. See our TikTok for the anti-ev rhetoric people spout on there.| TikTok

Some tech features, like the auto wipers and high beams, are unreliable and poorly executed.

Will we buy another Tesla? Yes.

The Model 3 Highland update improvements, like heated and cooled seats and rear entertainment, are promising.

We hope that in another three years, the Tesla Model Y will be even better. However, seeing what other manufacturers offer will be interesting, And if the infrastructure improves and charging companies adopt more user-friendly payment models, we will be open for a change.

But for now, Tesla remains our top choice as a diesel replacement for high-mileage users.