I couldn't believe it when I read your post, it's not April 1st. What forum are we on???
Mustachians buy used cars, a used Tesla Model S is $70,000 and a used Leaf is $10,000. I would prefer to take the used Leaf and park $60,000 into VTSAX. The Leaf is not a POS, it's a fine electric car. It's not a luxury car, or else it wouldn't be mustachian. Yes it's not a huge car, but here's a post on how to help with that.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/12/08/turning-a-little-car-into-a-big-one/
It's range is over 80 miles, it's rare for mustachians to live more than 40 miles from work. For vacations you can rent a car or if you have a 2 car family you could also have an internal combustion engine car. You can travel up the west coast on I5 with the Tesla, but if you are traveling anywhere else you are pretty much screwed, and even with the superchargers on I5 it's very annoying having to stop and charge your car for an hour rather than spend 5 minutes getting gas, so a gas car is still ideal for traveling.
Handling and acceleration of a Leaf are fine, you aren't buying a race car, most people with similar complaints like this I call consumerist suckas because they drive big trucks and expensive luxury cars, it goes the same for your complaint about the look of a Leaf, and mustachians prefer hatchbacks anyways.
As for your comment about safety, here is another post.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/06/07/safety-is-an-expensive-illusion/
Lastly, here are some posts about an even better, safer, healthier and more mustachian way to get around.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safest-form-of-transportation/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/07/what-do-you-mean-you-dont-have-a-bike/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/12/05/muscle-over-motor/
I couldn't believe it when I read your post, it's not April 1st. What forum are we on???
Mustachians buy used cars,
I come here because it's an interesting web site with some good information and good forums. It's not a religion for me, and I don't model my life 100% on MMM.
I was a frugal millionaire long before this website existed. But I usually buy my cars new. And now that we are multimillionaires, we buy nice cars for my wife (I drive a 14-year old vehicle). Nothing crazy, she currently drives a 3-series BMW, which is a vehicle many here would consider extravagant, though we paid only a bit more than the cost of a laded Toyota Camry to buy it.
And we are seriously considering a Tesla for her next car. Though as I said, I think the Model S is a bit too large, we will likely wait for the Model 3, which should be about the size of her 3-series. It will cost us about 1% of our net worth.
Did I mention it's a really cool car?
You can travel up the west coast on I5 with the Tesla, but if you are traveling anywhere else you are pretty much screwed, and even with the superchargers on I5 it's very annoying having to stop and charge your car for an hour rather than spend 5 minutes getting gas,
There is so much wrong with this, I barely know where to start. Tesla has superchargers all over the damned country. You could easily travel coast to coast on multiple different routes without paying a penny to do so using the free Tesla Superchargers.
Here is an illustration of the current Tesla Supercharger network, and more are being added all the time. Note that this covers a whole Hell of a lot more than just portions of California.
https://www.teslamotors.com/superchargerBTW, it only takes 20 minutes to charge from 0% to 50%, so it's not nearly as much an inconvenience as you think. Perhaps you were confusing Tesla technology with the "old school" tech in a Nissan Leaf econo box?
You are right in that the Tesla is not for someone who is just starting out. But for those of us who've been doing this for a while, and for whom the cost of a Tesla is a tiny fraction of our net worth, there are certainly worse things we could spend our money on.
I wonder if my wife is going to kick my ass when she sees me driving around town with Emily Ratajkowski in my Tesla? :)