What’s even more remarkable is that it can also be leased for as little as €20/mo. That’s less than many people pay for their cell phone plan.
And it's explicitly a down payment, not a deposit. I don't know exactly how that works in combination with a 4-year lease of €240 a year, totalling €960. I assume after 4 years, the lease ends, you don't own anything, and you're down 3500+960 = €4460, or €€3560 in France. That equals €92 a month for the lease. If you factor in time value of money over 4 years (or financing the downpayment), you're looking at €100 a month minimum.
Not sure if everything is included in this lease... insurance, taxes etc? I assume it does.
Not a bad deal, particularly for young city-dwellers. But at just €100 more, for €200, I can get something like a Toyota Aygo which has an 800km range instead of a 75km range and refuels in a minute instead of 3 hours, and seats 4 instead of 2, and can take trips outside the city.
Great city car, but spending 7k on a car that can't go to another city 30 minutes away, seems a bit silly. I think it's great for ridesharing though. We've had the Smart Electric cars in Amsterdam for a few years now at 25-30 cents per minute or so, they're quite nice. I typically use bike/publictransport, but when you're with a friend, it's raining or you have to go to the other side of the city, particularly after midnight or with annoying public transport transfers, the car is nice. But as you can see, it's already a niche category for me. Once these things become super cheap and ubiquitous, I'd love to use them more. Now I tend to have to walk a minute or two to the nearest one, and it's a bit expensive still. I think these cars would do a better job as they're 2-3x cheaper than the Smart. At some point the per-minute fee should drop for ridesharing to perhaps 15c per minute. At that point it gets interesting, because you get demand, and with demand it makes sense to make them ubiquitous, at which point there's a critical mass for them.
You certainly can't lease an existing €60,000 car for €200\month