I made the same inquiry and got the same offer, they'd cover 2 months plus you get the $1,000 loyalty credit. I've still got a year and there are a lot of uncertainties for us, but if it's true, that's almost 6 months of payments for me! I was also told that the MY2014 would be short and that MY2015 would begin a more typical cycle, starting likely in September. Our biggest interest would be the new heat resistant and much larger battery, which is rumored to be more likely My2016. I'm hoping that's September 2015. not sure what we will do to cover the gap from lease end if the bigger battery doesn't come out by the end of our lease. We may just bite the bullet and upgrade to an SUV for snow and outdoor/camping trips. If Nissan comes out with a viable long distance runner at a decent price, we may hold off on an SUV and let the market play out another cycle or two. Tesla's Model X is tempting, but so far it looks like it's getting configured as a souped up minivan, with essentially no roof rack...a no go for us. the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV may be the gap filler for us, while not an EV, it looks quite promising, with fully functional roof rack. We know that we can dramatically reduce the use of the second car that is paired with the model S to 4-5K a year (many of which would be short enough jaunts to be within the mitsu all EV range), maybe a bit more total miles if it turns out to be our long road trip car. having to rely on gas for those non-EV miles would be a difficult backward step for us to stomach.
I guess we are cursed with several decent but not perfect choices. we'd really like to settle back into buying cars that last us at least 10 years. we are willing to help the market through the transition to a thriving EV dominant market for a bit longer as long as federal tax credits and state sales tax exemptions continues and as long as we can make the numbers work. I suspect that Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV SUV will ratain it's value nicely for the first few years. It seems that for the right vehicles, there is a nice slow residual value curve in the Northwest, a market of folks who philosophically are so apposed to buying new cars that they will spend a premium to buy one lightly used, making flipping such vehicles more financially doable.
The Leaf posses a challenge for the way I've approached supporting alternatives over the last ten years, it's got the worst residual value of them all (of the ones I've owned) so far but as long as Nissan continues to offer killer lease deals it's tolerable. Generally, though, I don't like buying new cars so often and paying such a premium for it. The impact of producing new cars is huge but on the other hand, it's not like we are junking them when we flip, they are being introduced into the used market. I personally don't know what Nissan is going to be able to do with all these used Leaf's, guessing they are going to get shipped out of country. I suspect the majority will not buy out their lease and we may see Nissan go through some financial convulsions having to eat so much money on each one... the killer lease deals won't likely last forever.
