Tesla Vs. B-Class

Since our purchase of our first electric vehicle and experiencing it first-hand, we have gathered some more parameters of comparisons an electric car.

Specifically speaking Tesla. The key question remained - why would I spend $1300 a month to lease Tesla vs $300 a month for B-Class. ?

Here is a short comparison:

All wheel drive vs. Front wheel drive: as you may have guessed the key reason for Tesla's electric performance (pun intended) is the fact that it has two engines (models of 2015 above), so to speak, which drives all wheels.

Double the size of the battery: B-Class comes with 31 KWh battery pack vs. Tesla's base model S comes with 60 KWh.

Chargers: Tesla comes with four charging options including its super fast charging option. B-Class has only two AC options which gives you the fastest speed of full charge in 4-5 hours. B-Class does not even come with an option of DC Chargers which some others has an option of.

Free Charging: while free charging is still an option via many free chargers in our area, Tesla offers free pubic charging options to all their customers. This means, literally, FREE GAS when you buy Tesla. - A value of at least $200 per month.

No dealer hopping: Tesla is bought online, just like you would buy toilet paper. No haggling, no shopping no dealers cash and none of that. Interestingly you can now by pre-owned Tesla too.

In Summary: It is an individual definition of value which will decide if Tesla's high performance, long range, quick charging options, free charging, simple clear transparent buying process without any feeling of "I may have paid more! :)) - is worth $1300 a month.

You may also be interested in my other posts:

From MPG to MPKWh

From MPG to MPKWh

Since Tesla announced that they will be launching a model for $49K, electric car had been an option we were trying to exercise. Tesla did not deliver their promise of 49K Model S but they indeed created a huge demand for Electric Cars. As I write this there are 335,125 electric cars on the road, only 10% of them are Tesla. The sales of electric cars are growing at 150% year-over-year.

Still, 336,500 is meager 0.5% of 50 Million light-weight-vehicles on the roads of America.
[ Visit - Chargepoint for latest count ]

It was Sunday, around 8 PM; we received delivery of our very first Electric car, Mercedes Benz B-Class. Our first ride home, some 20 miles, subscribed us to a new mileage term – we got 3.5 miles per Kilo Watt Hour (KWh). That intrigued and triggered a series of questions and intense research for next one week, as time permitted.

Kilo-watt-hour is also referred to as “Juice” as gasoline is referred to as “Fuel”. It feels like we went from junk food to natural, raw, organic healthy food! Wink! Wink!

1 KWh is also called a Unit, if you monitor your electricity bill. Our cost of 1 unit of juice is 15 cents or 19 cents depending upon the consumption that month. Thus to drive a mile, at say 19 cents, it will cost us 19 divided by 3.5 = 5.42 cents.

Our gasoline car, Camry drives 30 miles per gallon. Current gas cost is $3.60 per gallon. Thus to drive our Camry a mile, it costs, 3.60 divided by 30 = 12 cents.

B-Class comes with a battery bank of 28 Kilo-Watt-Hour capacity. Thus at 3.5 miles per KWh it would have a range of 28 x 3.5 = 98 Miles. 98 miles is when it will run out of juice if not charged. This of course assumes you drive without AC or any other juice consuming amenities!  

Thus it is likely that we will be saving around 50% of transport cost by going from Miles per Gallon (MPG) to Miles per Kilo-Watt-Hour (MPKWh). Not to count the carpool advantage and pride of helping the environment! again ... Wink! Wink!

Please look out for the next installment of Juice – “The freedom and choices of juicing it up”.

The enabling Infrastructue

What it means by an enabling infrastructure:

It was Feb 01 2015. Midwestern USA was being pounded by a blizzard. Both the major airports of Chicago, O'Hare and Midway, were shutdown. The air travel was at its worst delays and cancellations.

I was flying from sunny Orange County to Minneapolis and to catch a connection to Midland MI. Completely oblivious, I had no idea that the Midwest was this bad until I landed at MSP and the gate monitor said my flight to MBS was cancelled. This is the only flight to MBS everyday.

No issues, once I am away from home I do not care where I sleep, until it is a Marriott! :) I walked over to the nearest customer service area, captured a desk, picked up the phone (direct reservation line), explained to the agent and sent her off to find me options.

At this moment I understood that Airline was not going to offer a hotel accommodation because this was a cancellation due to weather. While I was on hold I pulled out my laptop, connected to Internet - went to my corporate portal, went over to my booking engine. Searched for hotels next to Airport, found two - most airport hotels (hotels near airport) offer a shuttle service. Confirmed that they do.

Meantime the agent on the phone needed some information and correction, it took approx 20 minutes to get all booked. I called the hotel were I would have stayed and changed my reservation, called rental car and changed it, all the while I was on hold.

Because of my elite status with Marriott and rental car company, all the reservation changes happen seamlessly and in literally a minute without any penalties.

I landed at MSP around 6:45 PM, and was watching Super Bowl in my hotel room at 8:15 PM.

New England Patriots won after all that controversies of the deflated ball!

It is important to recognize that I had never put a foot into Minneapolis, before.

Next day, I had my full morning breakfast, worked till noon  and headed to the Airport. There was no impact to the required productivity of the project. I could participate in key calls. 

Morale of this story is: this is what it means by enabling infrastructure.

- clearly defined processes within airlines and infrastructure to get to them.

- airport infrastructure of WiFi and its consistent functionality.

- hotel services and processes clearly defined and consistent across the globe.

- the Marriott consistency and familiarity

- ease of use of corporate portals and technology which work seamlessly.

- not to mention - clean and abundant toilets and washrooms.

Infrastructure is not limited to physical aspect of it: it is not roads, cars and malls, alone: it is an orchestra of effective processes, clear and concise communication, effective tools, well trained humans, honest and focused objectives, and a need to excel supported by the physical infrastructures.

PS: The context of this post is developing countries. When McDonalds, Malls and roads pop-up in these countries - the feeling of "infrastructural sufficiency" evolves. The intent of this post is to define a level of maturity required to enable the human growth.