So, I have been reading the forums here, learning about leasing, negotiating, and fair pricing online, and am actively seeking a new EV lease sometime in the next 6 months. Everything I see outside of car dealership websites and car sales aggregator websites indicates that lease prices are much more reasonable than they appear to be when you go to those aforementioned sources to see what is actually available.
For example, if I go to Edmunds and search for a new 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 5 Limited RWD. I will see various results (several hundred miles away from me, because KY doesn’t care about EVs) and all of them have very reasonable estimated lease prices attached (pic 1). However, when I actually click on any of the results, the price that shows up is drastically higher (usually $800-900 more; Pic 2). The exact same thing happens on dealer websites - the lease price will be advertised and when you click to calculate pricing or do the deal online, suddenly it’s hundreds of dollars more - way more than any taxes and fees would inflate the cost (Pics 3 and 4 - same car from 1 and 2, on the dealer page). Now, I know not to prioritize the monthly cost for a lease, but this discrepancy is just strange to me - surely an online system can pull actual lease pricing, right? What’s going on here? Is the only way to get a valid price to go in to the dealership or call?
Typically if you click the asterisk/question mark/whatever for more details, it’ll give you the fine print for the advertised price that tells you that the price is before tax, title, license, acq fee, gov fees, dealer add ons, etc.
Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter though. There’s no reason you should ever bother looking at the pricing a dealer shows on their website. It’s up to you to work out what the lease should cost based on a well-researched target deal and then make offers accordingly. Going off of anything the dealer puts out there is a waste of time.
Many of the dealer websites appear to be generic lease calculators without the ability to input all the components of the lease deal that may be advertised. They may not have vehicle specific MFs or residuals.
I totally get that. The thing that has bugged me is that you will see that price on the dealer’s site as $276/mo, then on the next page, it’s over 800. That’s the strange part to me.
I’m assuming that, as the other commenter mentioned, this is a result of them using generic calculators that, even though they have the rebates and specials and such, don’t factor in other details like money factor and residuals. When doing the basic math on Pic 2, it adds up to roughly 40k, which is strange for a 36mo lease on a 47k car.
They are based on the same programs (RV and MF) you can find on Edmunds or Rate Finder, they are structured to show a smaller monthly payment with a higher DAS that excludes taxes (which vary), tags, and fees.
As Matt mentioned, just pretend those advertised lease deals don’t exist. They are a Marketing gimmick. Do you research to come up with a target deal and move to a strategy of making offers. If you ask “how much” they will tell you what they want you to pay.
After posting this, I decided to go deep into learning about how the calculator works, all of the various incentives/rebates/coupons, etc… I now feel like I have a solid grasp on how this all works.
