Over 80,000 miles.

What started as a birthday gift from my brother - a new vehicle for safer transportation, with the suggestion that a road trip might be a nice way to travel during the height of the pandemic - turned into road trip after road trip, including Stage I of the Stage IV Tour: New York to Key West in January 2022.

Sleeping on the sand on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The Outer Banks.

Skyline Drive.

The Blue Ridge Parkway.

Tail of the Dragon in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Edisto Island.

The Florida Keys.

Some of the Great Lakes, including Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario.

Niagara Falls.

Presque Isle in Erie, PA.

Several trips to Chicago.

And ’21 to ’24 Paulie’s Push, as the official media support vehicle four years in a row.

More than 35+ nights spent under the stars in my little climate-controlled sleeping pod.

Sixteen different campgrounds: everything from privately-owned to municipal and state parks and federal lands.

I was in the early planning stages for ‘Stage II: Head West, Young Man!’ when a new driver with a lack of understanding of the need to take turns during a merge caused an accident that would send my ’21 Tesla Model 3 SR+ to the collission shop in October of 2024.

My insurance company’s adjuster would estimate the damage at under $3,000. The shop ballparked it at closer to $10K on first glance. And then, after weeks of insurance and the shop going back and forth - an apparent disagreement on paint appeared to be a sticking point - the vehicle was declared a total loss.

The resale market revealed that the check I would receive would cover the cost of a ’21 Model 3 SR+ with around 20K miles. Or a ’22 with 30-40K.

Or I could score a ’21 Model 3 LR - long range - with 40-50K miles.

But my insurance broker had suggested something called ‘Premier Model Year Replacement’ when I’d first insured the car. That little add-on probably cost me $300/year - and, in fact, I’d briefly considered dropping it this past year after my rates rose 38%, but kept it.

That rider says that, if your vehicle is totaled in the first five years of ownership, my insurance company will pay for a brand new vehicle of the newest model year.

It look more than an additional week for the insurance company’s third-party valuation company to calculate what that would mean. And me, with my distrust of insurance companies, spent that time thinking they were furiously working on a way to avoid providing that coverage, somehow.

But then I got the message - with a very fair valuation.

A week later, my parents, dog, and I had headed down to Westbury, NY to pick up a brand new 2025 Tesla Model 3 Long Range Highland.

And, thanks in part to my ‘loyalty bonus’ after purchasing my second Tesla, I even upgraded the color!

INTRODUCING… ‘RED ROCKET’!