A year ago tomorrow — October 31, 2025 — We brought home a ten-year-old Tesla Model S 85D and named her Scarlet. It seemed only fair. She is very, very red.
I've owned a lot of cars in sixty years. Scarlet is, hands down, the best car I've ever owned. And it isn't close.
By the numbers
14,414 miles in our first year together
5,883 kWh consumed, at a total charging cost of $323 — about 2.2 cents a mile
Roughly $1,400 in gas money I didn't spend, compared to a 25-mpg car at $3 a gallon
292 Wh/mile when she's sipping politely… 750 Wh/mile when somebody stomps on it. (Somebody is me.)
107,884 miles on her odometer as of this week — a veteran who still drives like the future
Nearly all charging at home overnight for ~12¢/kWh — and as a 2015 car she carries free unlimited Supercharging for life, so road trips cost nothing in fuel
Two weeks ago I started logging everything she does, because of course I did — I'm a tech geek and she now reports to a database on my NAS. In just the last two weeks she covered 750 miles on $20.61 of charging. That's the whole fuel bill.
She is not a garage queen. She's a working member of this family, and she seems to like it that way.
How I feel about her
People ask if I'd buy another EV. Wrong question. The question is whether I'd ever go back — and the answer is no. Not after a year of waking up to a full "tank" every morning, gliding up I-25 in near silence, watching a ten-year-old car out-drive cars a decade younger.
Next spring, if all goes to plan, she'll carry us to Telluride for mud season — on free Supercharging the whole way. A ten-year-old car, still taking us new places.
Happy anniversary, Scarlet. Best car I've ever owned.