Jon Jivan, '08, Electronic Media, is a stickler for paying attention to detail.
At least when it comes to the family car. In his case, a Tesla Model 3.
As senior coordinator, videography, for 5XÉçÇø's Division of University Communications and Marketing (UCM), Jivan's expertise lives in telling the stories of the university community.
As his ownership of a Tesla recently reached a milestone, Jivan took to Facebook to share his story of Tesla ownership and what it's really like to trust an electronic vehicle to transport his family every day.
Here's his review:
Today marks exactly five years since we acquired a very early make of the Tesla Model 3. Buckle up, data nerds, because I’ve tracked EVERYTHING.
Five Years of Model 3 Ownership by the Numbers
58,168 - Odometer reading - This works out 11,633 miles per year, under the average 13,500 miles per year driven by US drivers. I have a short commute.
14,115’ - Highest Elevation Driven - Pike’s Peak, Colorado. The battery charged from 42% to 52% on the way back down.
Jon Jivan hasn't hesitated to take his Tesla 3 on long-distance trips. This map captures everywhere the car has taken Jon and his family during the five years he has owned the vehicle.
7385 - Sequence number of the car, aka the 7385th Model 3 built by Tesla. Approximately 1.9 million have been manufactured since making this car older than 99.6% of Model 3’s you see on the road.
2,805 mi - Longest Road Trip - Ohio to Colorado Springs and back in the summer of 2020.
261 - Watt-hours per mile consumed - this is the average efficiency of the car throughout its lifetime. A single gallon of gasoline contains 33,700 watt-hours of energy. This means 261 Wh/mi is the same as 94 mpg (33,700/261).
94% - Percentage of charges that took place at home.
74 - Software updates (since I started counting in Jan 2019 - so there were more). Software updates download via the internet, just as they do to your cell phone. Some features added over the years that the car didn’t come with include the ability to change lanes automatically on the highway and autonomously take highway exits, the ability to drive autonomously in a parking lot and pick me up at the door, Spotify, Netflix, video games, and a fart machine.
30 min - Average length of each charging stop on road trips. The majority of these charges were while we ate lunch or dinner. In fact, all the meal stops likely brought up the average since we would often stay longer than necessary eating. The necessary amount of time to stop is usually closer to 20 minutes.
$27 - Average additional cost of electricity to our monthly power bill incurred by the car.
15.2 - Megawatt Hours Consumed - Total energy consumed by the car. This is enough electricity to power the average home in Ohio for 1.5 years.
Above: Jon Jivan and former UCM videographer Nathan Tranbarger featured Jivan's Tesla 3 in this video created for Jon's aerial cinematography class.
5 - Service Center Visits - Total cost $885 (a windshield - everything else warranty/recall).
3 - Mobile Service Visits to my home - Total cost $216 (to repair a torn underbody shield).
3 - Windshields replaced - rear window spontaneously cracked (replaced under warranty in 2018), front windshield cracked out during a failed Safelite rock chip fix in 2019, front windshield destroyed by a snowplow in 2022 (fixed for free courtesy of ODOT).
3 - Test drives given to complete strangers - In the early days, Tesla was not making inventory vehicles. Every Model 3 was delivered to a customer, so you couldn’t drive one unless you bought one. Three people found me in various ways and test-drove my car before they purchased one for themselves.
1 - Number of times we couldn’t go someplace because we were in an electric car. Wanted to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park while staying in Colorado Springs. The car had to charge on the way back, but the charger was so out of the way that it would have added hours of drive time. We did something closer instead.
0.3% - Lowest useable battery capacity reached - First Thanksgiving with the car. I had calculated we could make all the family visits we needed to get to that day on one charge but didn’t realize the car loses 3% of its battery capacity every time it’s parked in sub-zero temperatures. Still unsure why. It must have something to do with keeping the battery warm.
0 - Number of times the battery died before reaching a charger. The example above was the only close call.
0 - Number of brake services and oil changes
0 - Number of times Autopilot crashed the car