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Why Most Electric Cars Are Leased, Not Owned (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg's research shows that drivers in the U.S. lease almost 80 percent of battery-powered vehicles and 55 percent of plug-in hybrids. "The lease rate for the country's entire fleet hovers around 30 percent," reports Bloomberg, noting that Tesla does not divulge how many of its vehicles are leased since it sells its cars directly rather than through dealerships. From the report: The lopsided consumer preference for leases is fueled by the meager demand for battery-powered vehicles on the used market. Partly this is a consequence of public policy meant to spur electric vehicle adoptions: buyers of pre-owned cars can't grab thousands of dollars in federal and state incentives. The high lease rate is also fueled by the bet [many] are making that upcoming models will far exceed today's in value and capabilities. Perhaps electric vehicles will truly arrive when they are no longer compared to smartphones, which become obsolete after three years.
No shit. I lease my eGolf. Why - I leased it 2 years ago, and could get an 80 mile range car. Today for the same price I could get a 240 mile range car from Chevrolet, or a slightly nicer 120 mile range car from VW. I'm sure in a further 3-4 years I'll be able to get a 400 mile range car for the same price again.
It'd be completely crazy to bind yourself into a technology that's advancing so quickly at the moment.
When I looked into electric and hybrid cars a few years ago, most of them could ONLY be leased.
I don't know if that still holds, but it would set both a trend and expectations, so attempts to analyse customer preference based on owned/leased would be unfairly bent towards lease. It would be far more accurate to actually ask people with those vehicles if they'd rather own or lease the it if they had the choice.
My 2015 Tesla S still has 96% of the original battery capacity after 60,000 miles. I'm happy I bought it since leasing is expensive and I don't see getting rid of this car for a long time.
OTOH, I have heard that Leaf batteries don't last long since they don't have a good battery management system.
Leasing is sensible with EVs since the technology is changing fast. Tesla's are good since I get monthly software updates and the battery is good.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The new vs used argument is only valid if you assume that no one else would buy the used car.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Isn't there something about lithium-ion batteries having a 3-year shelf/life
Un-conditioned lithium batteries tend to have a relatively low life, as measured both in charge/discharge cycles, and in total lifespan. Cell phones have this problem because the cost of Battery conditioning hardware, and the space/weight of such equipment makes it unacceptable for cellphones. As a result, Cell phone batteries (and for similar reasons, laptop batteries) have a useful lifespan of only a few years.
Car batteries by contrast feature bettery conditioning which maintains temperature conditions in the battery within an ideal operating range which greatly extends the lifespan of the battery (3x to 5x improvement).
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Apart for missing those security updates, which your phone hasn't received since October 2016.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
To understand why, you have to understand the economics of EVs. The real economics - not the "EV sales are rising because more people want them" rose-tinted version its proponents like to believe.
EV sales are taking off because of CARB (California Air Resources Board). They have a ZEV mandate (zero emissions vehicles - mostly EVs though Toyota has a hydrogen vehicle on the market). Beginning in 2013 or 2014, CARB required a certain percentage of each manufacturer's vehicle sales to be ZEVs or PZEVs (partial ZEVs - basically plug-in hybrids). The percentage goes up every year. The formula is a bit complex but it's about 2% ZEVs for 2018, and supposed to reach over 15% by 2025.
If a manufacturer fails to reach this percentage, the manufacturer must buy ZEV credits from another manufacturer which exceeded its required quota. This is what keeps Tesla afloat. Since they only sell ZEVs, they always have excess credits which they sell to other manufacturers who didn't sell enough ZEVs. That's right - if you buy an ICE vehicle, you are likely subsidizing someone buying a $70,000 Tesla. This is also why Tesla is in no hurry to ramp up Tesla 3 production. They don't want to flood the ZEV credit market - that would devalue their own credits. So they're going to ramp up production just barely fast enough to keep up with how many credits other manufacturers need to buy to comply with CARB's requirement.
If the manufacturer fails to sell enough EVs or buy enough ZEV credits, they are banned from selling cars in California. Since about a dozen states automatically adopt CARB's rules, that ban would extend to about 1/3 of the U.S. by population. No manufacturer wants to be banned from that huge chunk of the market, so they do whatever they can to sell enough EVs to comply with CARB's ZEV mandate. This means sales, discounts, incentives, whatever it takes to get however many EVs they need into buyers' hands to satisfy CARB's requirements. This is why the EV deals are better in California than in other states - CARB only counts EVs which are sold in California. So California is where automakers offer the biggest EV incentives. I almost pulled the trigger on a 3-year e-Golf lease in 2016 for $500 down, $79/mo in Los Angeles (the Bay Area had zero down, $79/mo available).
Since EVs are not actually popular with buyers (at least not at the percentage the ZEV mandate requires), this means the manufacturers have to sell the vehicles at below true market value to generate sufficient sales (sometimes even below manufacturing cost). If they're going to do this, leasing it is preferable to selling it. With a sale, they've lost the entire manufacturing cost of the vehicle. With a lease, they at least get the materials for the vehicle back at the end, which they can then reuse or recycle. And if the blue book value of the EV is less at the end of the lease than was projected, they can write off the difference and get a tax deduction for the loss. Leasing also allows anyone to take advantage of the full $7500 federal tax credit. Being a tax credit, you have to owe at least $7500 in income taxes to take full advantage of it. Based on IRS tax stats, this means the buyer needs to make more than about $70,000/yr to take advantage of the full tax credit. But if you lease it, the tax credit goes to the car manufacturer, who pays a lot more than $7500 in taxes each year. So they can take advantage of the full credit and pass it on to the buyer. That means the real price for a leased EV for anyone making less than $70,000/yr is often less than for a purchased EV.
All this is why the blue book value of a used EV is so low. The ZEV mandate only applies to new vehicle sales, not used EVs. The incentives lower the price, effectively causing more new EVs to be sold or leased than would've at the correct market p
The US having lower taxes and thus lower gas prices is a defacto tax credit to both the producers and consumers of the gas
What an absurd statement. I assume you think that a product that has no artificially added taxes is a "tax credit" to the producers somehow. This is the same kind of logic that results in "massive budget cuts!!!!" in a US budget where there is an actual increase in funding, just not as much as some people wanted. It is an example of the idea that the government owns all the income and is benevolent and kind when it lets the workers who earned it have some back. It's how "tax cuts" are claimed to "cost the government", but tax increases don't ever cost the workers anything.
Complain until Tesla offers $29 replacement batteries.