Leasing has swiftly taken over the electric-vehicle market. Nearly 80% of new EVs bought at dealerships are now leased, according to Edmunds data cited by The Wall Street Journal.
That’s up from 16% at the beginning of last year, per Edmunds. And it’s at least triple the industry average, which sits around 20%. One caveat: since we’re talking about EVs bought at dealerships, these figures exclude direct-to-consumer EV makers like Rivian, Lucid and (most importantly) Tesla. Tesla tends to push leases less than many conventional brands, too. Since it makes the three best-selling EVs on sale, the full-market figure is likely considerably less than 80%.
Still, the rise of leasing is among the strangest dynamics in today’s EV market, and the long-term impacts could be immense.
For more fiscally conservative people, it’s generally a worse financial decision. This is especially true if you just return your lease at the end without doing the leg work to leverage any equity your car might have (or might not have).
In the EV realm, though, the decision is less clear. Banks are still figuring out how to quantify depreciation, so sometimes lease rates are ridiculously low or ridiculously high (I leased a $40k Bolt for $284/mo for 36 months and 10k miles per year). Also, the tech is both newer and changing faster than normal cars, so people are more hesitant to sink that much money into owning something that may or may not be worth it in the end.