I’m new, and have a lot to learn about leases. Leasehackr has been a wonderful resource. I’m looking at a new or used EV, and the fleet EV tax discount brought leased EVs to my attention.
A new vehicle every 3 yrs isn’t important to me, but $7,500 off sounds great. What should I be considering when weighing lease and returning vs lease and then buying?
Thanks!
Welcome! You’re in the right place, start here
Learn how to use the search function here and spend time reading. There are thousands of recent posts about the merits of lease vs buy on an EV, lease vs buy, short term vs long term, pluses and minus of specific EVs, ins-and-outs of each bank.
Look around, learn, ask questions. Don’t sign anything until you are ready and someone else checks your deal, post those in Ask the Hackrs
Besides the resources that @jeisensc has linked, it’s also important to keep in mind that, when posters here refer to leasing and then buying, they are usually referring to an immediate buy out (not buying at the end of the lease term).
Even if you don’t prioritize getting a new car every 3 (or 2) yrs, you’ll want to think about your other priorities. Is the specific model important to you? Or are you more interested in the lowest cost of ownership for any car w/i a particular class?
Assuming you are talking about buying the vehicle at the end of the lease, you want to look at vehicles that typically hold their value well. That means Lexus, Toyota and probably a few others. The problem is most EVs are not holding their value well, so buying at lease end is a crap shoot if the RV is going to be close to market value.