I just entered into a 2018 Honda Clarity EV 36mo lease. Does anyone know what the lease transfer fees are for Honda, if I want to get out of the lease in 1-2 years?
Fyi lease details $258.50/mo, total down was ~$880, included first month, title, taxes, etc. 20k miles per year. No purchase option at lease end.
You can’t transfer a Honda lease.
Thanks. Are there creative ways to exit if needed, some type of sale instead of lease transfer? I notice there are a couple Hondas listed on swapalease.
You could always take it to Carmax/Carvana/Vroom and they can offer to buy the car from you. Compare whatever offer they give to your payoff amount, and sometimes it can be more than the payoff and you can profit. But the lease will not transfer to anyone.
The leased Clarity EVs cannot be sold…they are subsidised by Honda purely to learn charging and driving habits of leasees. Best case scenario is to switch the lease to a clarity plugin by working with honda and the dealership.
The car cannot be purchased from Honda for the payoff?
There is no payoff…the Clarity Electrics are only leased.
There is no option to buy out the car at the end of the lease.
Correct. I found this odd. Not sure why they do not offer the leasee an option to purchase at the end of lease term. What will they do with all the returned Clarity EVs? The lease economics implies limited decline in value of the vehicle, although EVs historically lose value quickly.
The Clarity Electrics are experimental cars.
The sales guy at honda said that they are being used to just get the data out from the driving habits,routes,charging habits etc. of people to improve the Honda products. So they are being leased only in CA and OR for a limited time.
The car is heavily subsidised and there is no major improvement in battery life or range YOY. It’s almost like you are being paid to drive by selling your data.
Off topic here, but it’s important to mention. Similarly, in the 90’s, the EV1 model from General Motors was not offered for purchase at the end of the lease. They were repossessed and crushed.
This is similar to when they were leasing the Fit EVs. Lease only, no purchase option, although they did allow lease extensions due to people complaining.
Given the special situation, you may want to call them ask them if they can do something for you.
They can tack it back or allow you to transfer it as an exception…
It was a GM car from the 90’s, it deserved what it got.
So many GM secrets lost forever…