Leasing an Electric Car Is a Better Deal

Man, what a load of FOMO bollocks. It's a car, not a phone, and EV technology isn't going to change so fast that one needs to flip cars every three years. (If that is, indeed, the case then we can quit touting EVs as something to reduce carbon emissions if we're encouraging the purchase of a new car every three years.) And what technological leaps are EVs going to make vs. an ICE? Longer range? Our Hyundai already goes as far on a charge than our 2005 Scion xB gasser. More electronic fiddly bits? Don't care; perhaps you do.

Repair costs? We had an OG (as in, we pre-ordered the first day we could in 2010) Nissan Leaf, and we didn't do shit to it. We bought tires once because the stocks ones suck. Threw wipers and a cabin air filter at it once in a while. If your electric car needs a lot of repairs, you bought a lemon.

You’ll enjoy peace of mind. It’s difficult to predict now how much an EV purchased today will be worth in two, three, or five years...

It's not difficult to predict: your car will be worth a fuckton less than it was when you bought it, it's just a matter of degrees. I realize resale value can be a factor, but resale value is mainly a concern of those that...drum roll please...flip cars every few years. And if you want to save the planet, quit flippin' cars.

That said, CR isn't completely wrong. The only way you're getting $7500 off a Hyundai is to take the lease rebate. We did that, and then paid it off at the first opportunity. And that is what makes leasing an EV a better deal. I'm not sure what motivated CR to print the rest of it.

I own a BEV from 2012 and a PHEV from 2014. BEV has only had around 8% battery degradation, PHEV has around 20% but that's still enough to not use gas unless we're driving out of town. They're both in very good condition and look fine.

They've both been paid off for years and years. A new set of tires for each were the most expensive maintenance. We fill up the PHEV with gas around once a year for $40 and get an oil change whenever it prompts us, which is around every two years because we use gas so rarely. Insurance and registration for both cars ends up being a little over $1000/year total - both included. Our power costs are around $.055/KwH here - mostly renewable at this point - so we pay a few hundred in extra power costs each year charging them up.

Back when we got both the conventional wisdom even then was "lease don't own because the technology will be better in three years". Actually, the conventional wisdom was "wow, don't buy an electric car, what are you doing?" You know what? These guys still get around town just fine, don't look like junk yet, and paying a grand total of $750 or so per car per year feels real good.

With ICE cars the best deal was always buying a gently used car that was just a couple of years old. Is that not still the case with EVs?

Unless you're leasing from Tesla who might not allow you to buy out the car when the lease is finished.

Sure, for Well Qualified Lessees™. Anyone else will get hosed in the money factor.

Government incentives being misplaced is the reason it’s a good deal.

Leasing new BEV frequently means they supply used BEV frequently. It's a good thing for who can't afford (or don't think it worth) brand new vehicle.

Interestingly on my Mastodon client (Ivory), this link is rendered with the following title:

> Delete this version from 7/25/23 since old story got updated.

I don’t see this title when I load the page myself.