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.
It really made the most sense for me. Essentially long term rent a car and when the term is up, either technology has progressed to where the features of a new model are vastly superior, so give it back to the dealership, or there is still limited supply (I’m in a small EV market in Canada) and tech is more or less the same, then I buy it out.
Seemed like a fairly significant reduction of risk in getting an EV and a win win either way.