What is GM Financial doing with all of the off-lease 2020 Chevy Bolts?

Off-Ramp EV
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My lease will be up on my 2020 Chevy Bolt EV Premier next month. My buyout price is a little over $23k, and I’ve noticed a trickle of Bolts at 3rd party dealerships for about the same price as mine. I asked my dealer what GM Financial is doing with the lease returns. He said that he has no idea, but he thinks that they are just going to auction because “nobody wants to buy the 2017-2020 Bolts due to the poor impression that their batteries will cause fires.”

If the Bolts are just going to auction, and 3rd parties are selling them at the same price as my buyout price, then it seems like GM Financial would be auctioning them off at $20k or below. Any ideas if that’s indeed what GM Financial is doing? If so, how a savvy customer could negotiate a buyout deal on a lease return to take advantage of their loss?

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I’m wondering the same thing… I feel like GM would save a lot of money for themselves if they revised our residual to like $15k and let us take over the responsibility of the vehicles. I don’t see any way for them to get rid of the thousands of Bolts that are about to be returned.

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If you consider how much used car values fluctuate x the number of returning leases, a company like GM Financial would have to employ a small army to price these and keep repricing them dynamically, answer questions and keep on top of all the paperwork.

Taking a loss on one model is better than adding to corporate bloat permanently.

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