A Tesla Model S after 400,000 miles: an analysis of the maintenance expenses

Since 2015, a company called Tesloop has been using a Tesla Model S 90D for a shuttle service in Southern California and Nevada. The Model S was the company's first car, which it decided to call eHawk, and since it went into service it's covered more than 400,000 miles, an average of 17,000 miles per month. So how reliable was the car -- and how much did the upkeep on it cost over those years?

As far as anyone knows, the eHawk is currently the Model S with the highest recorded mileage on its clock in the entire world.

Tesloop is obviously proud of this achievement, and it was happy to supply the Autoblog website with a whole load of data to support its claims, including a Google datasheet showing the mileage and cost of all repairs and maintenance carried out on the car.

Since the Tesla went into service it's undergone three major services. The first saw the front drive unit replaced, which happened at just 36,404 miles. Other early repairs included the calibrating of the sunroof, replacing the driver's door handle assembly, and several entirely predictable and understandable replacement tires and wheel alignments.

There have been two replacement batteries fitted too. The first was in August 2016 at 194,237 miles and the other was in January of this year at 324,044 miles. But it now appears the first battery replacement could have been postponed if an update to the car's firmware had arrived earlier than it did.

It turns out the car has cost Tesloop around $19,000 to maintain since it was put into service, which over 400,000 miles works out at around $0.05 per mile. Tesloop estimates it would have cost them around $88,500 or $0.25 per mile over the same 400,000 miles to maintain something like a Lincoln Town Car or a Mercedes GLS Class.

The company also operates a number of Model X shuttles that are currently costing just $0.05 per mile to maintain. And as all the Teslas operated by Tesloop have eight-year warranties, the company believes it can get a further 600k miles from the eHawk before its warranty expires.