Tesla owner who’s had a Model 3 for six years shares the seven hidden costs you’re not told about

A YouTuber and Tesla owner who’s been driving a Tesla Model 3 for years has shared the hidden costs of running one.

There are at least seven things to worry about, according to him.

Some of those are potential issues everyone might be aware of, but there are other, unexpected costs too.

And then there are a couple of issues that are only really a problem depending on where you live.

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The potential issues most Tesla owners might be aware of

Kevin Nether, known on YouTube as Kevin the Tech Ninja, has been using his Tesla Model 3 every day for over six years.

His YouTube channel focuses almost entirely on tech, but he decided to take a break from tech to talk about his Tesla ownership.

For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we decided to start with three issues that most people might already be aware of before moving on to four things that come as a bit of a surprise.

The first two potential issues he talks about are connected, pun intended, to home charging.

According to Kevin, the first problem is that, as a Tesla owner, you have to think about a charging setup for your home because if you don’t, this will lead to the second problem, because charging at Superchargers can be very costly.

In addition to the cost, Superchargers are also open to other brands, which means you might have to wait in line to charge your Tesla.

The third issue is something you only need to worry about if you live in cold weather climates, because electric cars are affected by cold weather a lot more than their gas counterparts.

The other hidden costs that might be overlooked

Kevin argues that tax and insurance should be considered item number four and five on the list of hidden costs, and here’s why.

In some legislations, the government will tax your car on depending on emissions or fuel consumption-related criteria.

Obviously, that’s not an option with a Tesla, which means authorities tax you on registration.

But the real problem, according to Kevin, is that your tax numbers might be skewed because the government might preemptively tax you assuming you’re driving more than you actually are.

“The amount of tax is assuming you’re driving 20,000 to 30,000 miles per year, and I drive less than 10,000 miles a year, so I’ve been taxed nearly 3x more than I should,” Kevin said.

He also said that insurance might be a problem, because insurance companies bake the cost of replacing your car, or even just the battery pack, into your premium.

The sixth problem, and this is also a bit counter-intuitive, is tires.

EVs, on average, are heavier than gas cars, and that means you might have to replace them a lot more frequently.

But the truly shocking hidden cost, and the seventh reason Kevin mentioned, has to do with connectivity.

“For the first year the car comes with all the connected services on the car, which includes real time, traffic, satellite map, view, radio, streaming, video streaming,” he said.

But after the first year, it’s gone, and you’ve got to pay $10 a month or $100 a year to keep it up.”

Teslas are basically a smartphone on wheels, so that’s not exactly good news.