The incentives don’t scale with MSRP of the car. The 3250 discount is the same on a 56k car and a 65k car. Yes, try to find a lower MSPR car if you want.
A LOT of so-cal dealers have the OL code event atleast once a month, usually the last weekend or second last. email around and check when is the next event. Most likely the sales rep won’t even know until a couple of days in advance.
You get 1000 from CCA and 1000 from utility. CA state too if you qualify.
BMW offers the same incentive on 530i and 530e, only way to capture that tax credit is either to purchase or do an Owner’s Choice “lease” in states where this is offered.
Most likely you will get only $500 from OL after an aggressive dealer discount. 15% might be hard to pull off but good luck.
CCA is 1000 - membership fees if you don’t have it already
You MAY also get state but no guarantees.
I did calculations of buying (and selling at 3-year mark) vs leasing (w/o loyalty) and leasing still came out to be cheaper, as BMW’s residual on leasing is artificially inflated, as well as the tax hit of 9% on the residual amount is too much. YMMV
I agree that it’s probably not worth the risk on the residual and that it’s probably still better to lease than buy. That’s what I ended up doing in April.
So an i3 with a $7500 fed tax credit goes towards cap reduction, but the $4668 on a 530e goes to BMW? Why would they take that incentive from the consumer?
I have been trying to figure that out, makes zero sense that BMW won’t pass it along when leasing. However, if u purchase the car u can get it. Which means that BMW makes more profit when you lease vs buy even thu lease vs buy incentives are relatively similar.