Context

Why the numbers matter.

Forty-five. Single. Rebuilding after a divorce. Every dollar has to justify itself, so the car has to prove it belongs.

The reason, not the punchline

Most writing about the cost of driving is done by people who are not paying for the car. A press fleet vehicle does not have a payment. A cost per mile calculator does not have a bank balance. The difference between an interesting number and a number you actually have to live with is the entire reason this site exists.

That is the whole of the personal story on this site. What follows is about the vehicles.

The fleet before this one

Four gas vehicles in about a year, one of them for just five days, each one bought for a job and sold when the job or the math changed.

Vehicle	What it did	mpg	Per mile	Held
2015 Chevrolet Express 2500	Detail van, dealership runs	13	28.0¢	Sep 2025 to Jul 2026
2016 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 2WD	Stopgap, 15 days	15	24.3¢	2026
2011 Toyota Sienna Limited	Family hauler	20	18.2¢	to 2026
Lexus ES300h	Stopgap, 5 days	44	8.3¢	Aug 2026

modeled at $3.64 a gallon. The Sequoia lasted fifteen days, which is its own small lesson about buying under pressure.

Work van

28.0¢ /mi

2015 Express 2500, 13 mpg

This car, measured

13.0¢ /mi

4 Supercharger invoices

Annual difference

$4,160

van vs. this car, 26,000 mi

The fleet, in order

Period	Vehicle	Role	EPA combined
Sep 2025 to Jul 2026	2015 Chevrolet Express 2500 Cargo	Detail van, dealership runs plus detail jobs 1 to 2 weekends a month	13 mpg
Jul 2026	2011 Toyota Sienna Limited	Interim daily driver	20 mpg
Jul to Aug 2026 (15 days)	2016 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 2WD	Interim daily driver	15 mpg
Aug 2026	2011 Toyota Sienna Limited	Interim daily driver, second stint	20 mpg
Aug 2026 (5 days)	Lexus ES300h	Stopgap, immediately before this car	44 mpg
Aug 24, 2026 →	2024 Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD	Current

The Lexus sits outside the cost-per-mile and annual tables below on purpose: five days never generated a real annual mileage figure the way the other three stints did, so putting a 26,000 mi/year projection on it would be modeled dressed up as measured. Its own real numbers, EPA combined and owner-reported weekly gas cost, are on the Ledger.

Cost per mile at today’s Tennessee pump price

Vehicle	Efficiency	Cost / mile	vs. Supercharging	vs. home charging
2015 Express 2500 Cargo	13 mpg	28.0¢	+16.0¢	+25.9¢
2016 Sequoia Platinum 2WD	15 mpg	24.3¢	+12.3¢	+22.2¢
2011 Sienna Limited	20 mpg	18.2¢	+6.2¢	+16.1¢
This car, Supercharging	258 Wh/mi	13.0¢
This car, home charging	258 Wh/mi	2.1¢

Gas figures use Tennessee’s statewide average of $3.64/gal (AAA, August 24, 2026). The Supercharging number is not an estimate: it is four Tesla invoices, 126.0 kWh for $54.01, a blended 42.9¢/kWh. Home charging applies Middle Tennessee Electric’s 8.1¢/kWh residential rate to the same measured consumption.

Two things only direct API access could show (Aug 27, 2026). First, charging loss is real and measurable: Tesla billed 43.484 kWh at Percy Priest Drive while the battery recorded 39.4 kWh arriving, a 9.4% loss between the plug and the pack. Every per-mile figure that ignores it understates cost. Second, self-driving share is higher than previously published: 259.4 of 264.7 miles, or 98%, across three consecutive days, including one day at 100%. Charging history came from Tesla Fleet API, which holds sessions no third-party tracker had, and the battery-side figure came from telemetry. Neither number exists without both sources.

What that is worth over a year

Vehicle	Annual fuel	Saved vs. Supercharging	Saved vs. home charging
2015 Express 2500 Cargo	$7,280	$4,160	$6,734
2016 Sequoia Platinum 2WD	$6,318	$3,198	$5,772
2011 Sienna Limited	$4,732	$1,612	$4,186
This car, Supercharging	$3,120
This car, home charging	$546

At the 26,000 mi/year midpoint of this car’s plan.

Why this section exists. Every other comparison in this document, and the one the Tesla app shows, measures this car against something in the high-20s or low-30s mpg. Nothing in that range was ever actually owned. The real bar was 13 to 20 mpg, and against that bar the Model Y wins on Supercharging alone, before a home charger is ever installed.

Where these numbers are soft. The three mpg figures are EPA combined ratings, not measured tank averages for these specific vehicles, so they carry the usual EPA optimism. A loaded detail van doing short local stops realistically ran nearer 11 to 12 mpg than 13, and the Sienna Limited is rated 18 mpg rather than 20 if it was the all-wheel-drive version. Both corrections widen the gap in this car’s favour, so the table above is the conservative reading. The 258 Wh/mi figure is driving consumption only, measured over mild-weather highway miles. The 13.0¢ per mile above is higher because it also carries idle drain and a measured 9.4% charging loss, and it will rise again in winter and in traffic.

Why used, and why the credit never applied

The car was bought used and financed from a Ford Lincoln store in Franklin. The federal clean vehicle credit did not apply to this purchase, so none of the figures on this site assume it. Buying used also meant someone else absorbed the steepest part of the depreciation curve, which for this model is the largest single cost of ownership and is covered honestly on the Ledger.

Where the line is

Context is public. Figures are not. Income, debt, per track earnings and financing terms stay in a private tool and never appear in these pages. What is published here is what a vehicle costs to operate, which is a fact about a car.

measured invoice or sensor modeled derived, and says so Pulled 2026-09-05 · VIN serial masked · no addresses