Why I Think The Tesla Model Y Might Be Uniquely Good For People Nearing Retirement

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This article explains the unique financial, safety, and self-driving advantages of EVs in general and the Tesla Model Y in particular.

I’ve long been a fan of Tesla’s Model Y. I wrote 3 articles the day of the unveiling (almost 6 years ago), including this one claiming the 3rd row was the key to its future success. That 3rd row has turned out to be pretty cramped and disappointing, but the broader point of the article is that Tesla wanted to make one model that could compete with 8 models from Toyota Group (4 from Toyota and 4 from Lexus). I think that is what they have accomplished.

Now I think they will release a smaller hatchback (Model Q), which will help sell more units (maybe 500,000 units a year or more if it is good) by expanding the addressable market. I also wrote an article on Crossovers for Dummies. I had never owned a crossover before. I would buy a minivan when my family needed space and a sedan when we didn’t. Now that my family has purchased three Model Ys, I understand how the crossover is a nice compromise with much of the advantages of both a minivan and a sedan. Now that I’m older and share a car with my wife, I can’t imagine going back to a sedan. It would be too low for our weakening legs and not have enough cargo space. When I had a minivan, a sedan had plenty of room, since I could just take the minivan if I needed more room. If the Model Q sits high, I could go to that if I like it.

Financial Reasons Why A Tesla Model Y Makes Sense For Someone Retiring Soon

Before I list the reasons, I have to explain what retirement is all about. There are many ideas on this, but I’ll express my ideas after listening to a bunch of YouTube videos on the subject. An idea first attributed to Michael Stein from his book The Prosperous Retirement is that retirement can be split into 3 phases:

1. The Go-Go years (which are typically the first 10 years, but obviously people would like to extend this if possible) are when you are healthy enough to be very active.
2. The Slow-Go years come when you have either finished your bucket list or you have run low on money or health to be as aggressive.
3. The No-Go years are when your health and energy is on the final decline.

Before you enter your retirement, you might be lucky enough to be in your peak earnings years (or you might have had a setback).

Many people nearing retirement might want to buy a car that can last them the rest of their life. With the Juniper release coming any day to the US, this offers customers a unique opportunity. Depending on what you can afford, you could buy a new Model Y and have a car that will likely look modern for 5 to 10 years, and after that you may not even care any more. If that is a little steep for you, can can get a big discount on the old Model Y as Tesla clears out the old to make room for the new. If that is still too much, you can get a 3- or 4-year-old Model Y for under $25,000 (less than $21,000 if you can get the $4,000 used EV tax credit).

Get a 10-year extended warranty so you won’t have any bad surprises that force you to sell your car before you want to because it has an expensive repair you can’t afford. Most of the gas cars I have sold in the past are because they were getting old and it was getting expensive to maintain them in terms of time and money. I think there is certainly a risk that the same thing can happen to an electric car.

Do the minimal maintenance needed for a Tesla. Your out of pocket expenses for maintenance and fuel should be very low. It is not guaranteed, but it is likely the Tesla Model Y will last you through the 100,000 miles you need in your Go-Go years, and if it is still in good shape, you don’t need many miles to make it through your Slow-Go and No-Go years. Your costs should be very low for those later years, which is good, since your health care costs will likely be higher and you will likely need some sort of help with your activities of daily living.

Non-Financial Reasons Why A Model Y Makes Sense

1. The outstanding crash safety of the Model Y has been well documented. There have been some recent reports that they have a high fatality rate, but I think that is likely because of reckless driving (which is more fun in a high performance car like many Tesla vehicles). I think seniors are less likely to be aggressive drivers.
2. Autopilot and Full Self Driving (Supervised) can make the cars much safer as long as you don’t get complacent and properly supervise them.
3. Full Self Driving (Unsupervised), if it becomes available before the senior’s skills degrade too much, should allow you to go places even after you are no longer a safe driver.

Conclusion

The low costs of running an electric car in general and the Tesla Model Y specifically seems to fit the needs of many seniors. The prospect of a long expected battery life and a replacement battery only costing $5,000 by 2030 means that electric vehicles and the Tesla Model Y should have a long life, even if you aren’t under warranty. The extremely high crash safety and reduced chance of being in an accident if you use the driver’s assistance features should keep you and your family safe until the time you can use unsupervised FSD to transport yourself when you can no longer safely drive yourself.

None of us know all the challenges we will face as we approach retirement and then the end of our lives, but I think the Tesla Model Y has some unique features that will help us with that journey.

 

If you want to take advantage of my Tesla referral link to get up to $1000 off a new Tesla vehicle, here’s the link: https://ts.la/paul92237 — but as I have said before, if another owner helped you more, please use their link instead of mine. If you want to learn more about Tesla’s new referral program (August 2024), Chris Boylan has written an excellent article on it.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Tesla [TSLA], BYD [BYDDY], Nio [NIO], XPeng [XPEV], NextEra Energy [NEP], and several ARK ETFs. But I offer no investment advice of any sort here.