DaveinOlyWA
Well-known member
GetOffYourGas said:DaveinOlyWA said:LTLFTcomposite said:It's getting pretty frustrating trying to navigate a path that doesn't have me in perpetual lease payments. The original thinking was that EVs were supposed to last a lot longer than other cars but we seem to be at the other extreme. Just picking up another cheap mazda 3 is starting to look attractive, and plan on handing it down when the dust settles on EV batteries in warmer climates.
i was in your camp until I did some math. it really makes no sense at all to buy right now. I know a lot of people here and elsewhere who (deleted) justifying their decisions but sorry... its emerging technology that is literally improving daily. paying big bucks for some sort of utopian long term future plan is really insane.
now I could understand people buying 2011's because there was not the great divide in payouts like there is now. but when you can re-lease a LEAF in the $250 per month range, there simply is no math that puts a purchase ahead for all the reasons stated above
I don't think it's quite so cut-and-dry for all cases. In this case, the OP was also considering buying out his lease (rather than just buying a brand-new car).
It's different for everybody, but here's a really rough rundown of my math for my 2012:
I could buy out the lease for about $17k (including interest for financing) or I can lease a new car for maybe $250/mo for another 3 years. With say $2k down, that's $2k + 36*$250 = $11k.
The difference after 3 years is $6k and whether I still have a car.
So in order for leasing to be cheaper, the Leaf has to be worth less than $6k at 6 years old and (given my driving patterns) about 50k miles. Is that possible? Yes. Is it likely? Probably not.
This also assumes that I want to trade in the car after 6 years. If I keep it yet another 3 years, the ABSOLUTE MOST it could depreciate is a total of $17k (over the six years). Another 3 year lease will probably cost in the $10k range.
Assuming that the car will work for me for 9-10 years (it really should), my best option financially absolutely is buying and not leasing.
well, its hard to take your numbers especially when you are projecting, so lets take mine. $245 a month, ZERO down. or buy which is higher down, higher (only slightly as it would have been in my case) and degradation. your analysis *might* work if you did not drive very much but it does not even come close to working for me. I had a 15,000 mile lease and used all of it. The current lease I will have to supplement my needs with a gasser. I am 12 days from my 6 month anniversary and have 7900 miles on the LEAF, 3200 on the gasser.
as far as what your LEAF could be worth? very hard to say but betting it will be dependent upon the 3rd party market for battery packs. your LEAF struggles to keep value but when there is a 150 mile LEAF out there, it will really be an uphill fight