The comparison isn't exactly fair. I love my Tesla and won't go back but if I'm not mistaken when leasing other brands you can buyback the car at the end of the term which isn't the case when leasing a Tesla.
Oh believe me it will be the case. EV technology is moving so fast and as a result ev depreciation is so high they will be glad to sell you the car after two to three years, even if the contract does not currently provide for it.
Perhaps they do not want to put it in the contract now because they have some increasingly desperate robotaxi dreams, but it is clear to me that the robotaxi aint happening with the current hardware, and in a couple of years even elon will have to admit that.
> EV technology is moving so fast and as a result ev depreciation is so high they will be glad to sell you the car after two to three years
Doesn’t this imply even-faster falling prices for ICE vehicles? We’re nowhere close to the Norwegian death spiral [1], but at 7.3% of sales growing at 2.6 percentage points YoY from a 1% base [2] we’re 5 years from their 20% fleet penetration rate [3], which implies a lot of gas cars being sold today will be scrapped versus resold. (I own a gas car. I expect to drive it until write off / they start penalty taxing gas.)
The cheap leases for EV's from other brands ($250/month for a Hyundai EV6 is a steal) rely on high residuals. So even if you can buy the vehicle back at the end of the lease there's a good chance you won't want to.
With the exorbitant cost of changing out the batteries once they crap out, unless you planned to replace the car anyway by that point, it seems like leasing EVs would be the ideal solution. Drive it for the lease period, then when the time comes for the batteries to get replaced, someone else is footing that ~20k bill.
I've owned an EV for 7 years, ignored the recommendations (I charge to 100%, use fast chargers, etc) and the degradation is like 5-10% over those 7 years.
I think most EVs are more likely to be totaled by a crash than have their batteries replaced due to wear or defect.
For my Mazda I got a fair-market estimate price at the time of lease signing. Tesla doesn't allow you to buy a used Model 3? If so, why is it they won't let you buy your used model 3?
"The Robotaxi Repo Theory: Tesla overstated S/X sales in 2018 using new lease accounting methods, however this led to large 1Q19 writeoff. To avoid further writeoffs, TSLA declares cars appreciating assets in 2Q19, allowing collateralized borrowing to be considered sales."
