As any electric vehicle owner will explain, the higher purchase price of an EV is partially offset by the savings on fuel and maintenance, and for many buyers, by federal and state incentives. Tesla has always emphasized this fact – when you order a vehicle online, the web site helpfully takes into account incentives and savings on operating costs to calculate your effective price. Years ago, Tesla's online savings calculator even incorporated the time saved by not going to gas stations (at $100 per hour!), until embarrassed fans convinced the company that this was stretching a marketing technique a bit too far.

*This article comes to us courtesy of EVANNEX (which also makes aftermarket Tesla accessories). Authored by Charles Morris. The opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs.

Above: Tesla's Model S (Image: Tesla)

Now, it's one thing for a company to trumpet the savings delivered by its product, but in the case of Tesla, many a satisfied customer has done so as well. The latest of these to attract our attention is Greg Autry, who tells us in a recent post on Forbes that, after logging 50,000 miles in his Tesla Model S, he calculates its effective cost at a mere $5,060 – not a bad price for a luxury vehicle. Furthermore, Autry calls his Model S "the best product of any kind that I have ever purchased."

When Autry first went shopping for an EV, he test-drove a Ford Focus Electric. The salesperson told him that "electric cars just don't go fast." As he observes, it's "no wonder Tesla ate their electric lunch." (After years of negligible sales, the Focus Electric has been discontinued, and Ford currently has no electric model in its lineup.)

Autry bought a 2014 Chevy Volt, which he describes as "a comfortable, decent-looking plug-in hybrid that could just barely get me to work on [a charge]." While he doesn't seem to have found the Volt exciting, it did clue him in to "the low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and lifespan advantages of electric vehicles."

Those advantages are many, but can the effective price of a Model S really work out as low as five grand? Read on…

Autry paid $95,000 (including taxes, registration, and the usual extras) for his Model S, and took advantage of a $7,500 federal tax credit and a $2,500 incentive from the state of California, bringing the up-front cost down to 85 big ones. Unfortunately, new buyers won't get the full $7,500 credit, but you can still get $3,750 if you buy in the first half of 2019.

At home, Autry charges his Tesla with solar energy generated on his roof, and on the road, he charges for free using the Supercharger network. "No gas bills for 50k miles driven has saved me $5,000. Model S cost down to $80k," he gloats. Alas, most new buyers won't get free Supercharging, and while the energy coming from the sun may be free, the panels required to capture it are not. However, there's no question that running on electricity is cheaper than burning gas – the prices of both vary widely around the world, but a very rough rule of thumb is that driving electric will save you around two thirds of your fuel bill.