Leaf Price / Discount discussion thread

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One problem with a lease extension while waiting for better new lease offers is that one would have to renew state registration for the year. Registration is not particularly cheap in California and they won’t give you a refund for a partial year registration, to my knowledge.
 
Working with a local dealer who said (verbal, nothing in writing yet) that they would do 500 down, 350/month, 36 months on a 2018 SV with the tech package and the all weather package. This is about $13,000 over the life of the lease. Thoughts?
 
ljwobker said:
Working with a local dealer who said (verbal, nothing in writing yet) that they would do 500 down, 350/month, 36 months on a 2018 SV with the tech package and the all weather package. This is about $13,000 over the life of the lease. Thoughts?

It's a somewhat better deal than I got for my SL. Residual?
 
This is why I still don't understand the "leasing an EV is smarter" argument. This dealership wants $13,000 for a "new" car lease on a model year that we are no longer in. Meanwhile, if you qualify for the federal, state, and utility incentives/discounts (which, granted, you may not), you can buy an actually new 2019 SV for $20,000 total out of pocket. So the theoretical options are: pay $13,000 and get 3 years of use, or pay $20,000 and get 10ish years of use. I get it that buying an EV is a bigger commitment, and that with the Leaf's battery degradation this can be extra anxiety inducing, but even if you purchased an SV, drove it for 8 years, and then junked it the day after the battery warranty expired, it would still be less expensive on a years of possession to dollars spent ratio than a lease - $20K/8 years vs. $13K/3 years. And if leasing EVs is still the preferred permanent strategy, then over a 10 year period, leasing new Leafs every 3 years at the same rate that you're being offered by this dealership would cost you $13,000 x 3.33 = $43,290.

Unless they're offering you some crazy cheap deal - like $7,000 total out of pocket over 3 years - I would say don't do it....
 
When you say "I don't understand..." and then list the two major reasons for leasing, one of which involves many thousands of dollars, it's clear that you actually do understand - you just don't understand how many people who want to drive a Leaf will get nowhere near the full tax credit if they buy. You also seem to discount the possible problems with dealing with substantially decreasing range every year for at least 4 years while waiting for a new warranty battery that will itself behave the same way.
 
LeftieBiker said:
many people who want to drive a Leaf will get nowhere near the full tax credit if they buy.

This is a valid reason for leasing.


LeftieBiker said:
You also seem to discount the possible problems with dealing with substantially decreasing range every year for at least 4 years while waiting for a new warranty battery that will itself behave the same way.

This is not a valid reason for leasing. Don't be relying on "new car range", but plan on "warranty triggered range". For any EV. Don't use the full battery often. Listen to Uncle Sean.

The missing reason for leasing is that would be that the lease is so cheap that it is cheaper per mile and year than buying and owning the car for the warranty period.
 
WetEV said:
The missing reason for leasing is that would be that the lease is so cheap that it is cheaper per mile and year than buying and owning the car for the warranty period.
The problem is that there are no good deals on leasing right now. Like Kieran973 said, if you can get all the incentives, it's cheaper to buy and then sell compared to leasing.
 
I have been talking with a couple of dealerships and can get a 2018 SV with the cold weather package for under 30k OTD before any tax incentives. There are definitely some deals if you can find them still on the lot. The battery might have lost 5% already but the warranty starts when you buy the car so you'd still have 8 years/100k miles of capacity protection.

They asked about leasing but it doesn't make sense for me, I know the resale on a Leaf isn't great but I should be able to drive a 40kWh leaf for a decade without capacity concerns based on my use and the warranty period.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Given that scenario it does make more sense to buy. What are your range needs?

80 miles any season would do it for me barring any major life changes. I'm doing it with a 2015 right now it's just getting a little tight in the winter.
 
If you bought a 40kwh Leaf, then lowest Winter range could get down to somewhat below 80 miles before you got a warranty replacement pack. That's one of the reasons I doubt I'll buy my 2018 - my range needs are about the same as yours, and I don't want to have to charge to 100% regularly.
 
It's close I guess, it depends what you consider typical winter range loss. Single digits are pretty rare where I live most winter days have lows in the 25-35F range or warmer. I see about 10% less than summer range with no heat and maybe 30% less if I run the heater on my commute in my 2015S and that's without the hybrid heater I'd have in the 2018SV.
 
If temps stay above the mid teens where you live, then I'd guess that ~80 miles would be the range floor in Winter for you. Remember, though, that the heat pump matters little below 20F and not a whole lot below 26-28F.
 
Kieran973 said:
This is why I still don't understand the "leasing an EV is smarter" argument. This dealership wants $13,000 for a "new" car lease on a model year that we are no longer in. Meanwhile, if you qualify for the federal, state, and utility incentives/discounts (which, granted, you may not), you can buy an actually new 2019 SV for $20,000 total out of pocket. So the theoretical options are: pay $13,000 and get 3 years of use, or pay $20,000 and get 10ish years of use. I get it that buying an EV is a bigger commitment, and that with the Leaf's battery degradation this can be extra anxiety inducing, but even if you purchased an SV, drove it for 8 years, and then junked it the day after the battery warranty expired, it would still be less expensive on a years of possession to dollars spent ratio than a lease - $20K/8 years vs. $13K/3 years. And if leasing EVs is still the preferred permanent strategy, then over a 10 year period, leasing new Leafs every 3 years at the same rate that you're being offered by this dealership would cost you $13,000 x 3.33 = $43,290.

Unless they're offering you some crazy cheap deal - like $7,000 total out of pocket over 3 years - I would say don't do it....
We also will be considering to again lease or buy a 2019 SV when our 2016 SV lease is up in 2 months.

But the comparative math here is off. A few calculation issues:

You mention federal, state, and utility incentives applied to buying new but do not include all of these in the lease scenario. Yes, Nissan assumes the federal credit and reflects that in the lease price, but not state and utility incentives. Here in CA, in PG&E utility land, that's another $3.3k off. So your lease is down to $9,700/3 years.

Then you compare the value of owning a vehicle for 10 years to leasing for 3. The correct comparator would be the cost of lease for 3 years vs. the purchase price minus the sales price in 3 years. If at 3 years you want to buy out your lease or continue to own for 7 more years, you would need to do that math.

We can't say the lease is $9,700 x3.33 = $32,330 because the vehicle in the scenario with buying then keeping the car for 10 years doesn't get you a new vehicle every 3 years. If you did get a new vehicle every 3 years, you also get all the latest upgrades that come with that (eg longer vehicle range - maybe you get the 60kWh battery at the next lease or purchase, more safety features standard, etc), so if you keep the vehicle 10 years you must subtract out that comparative value.

In places like CA, if you don't qualify for all or some of the federal credit, leasing gets even sweeter. Leasing guarantees the whole federal credit (included in lease price). With buying or leasing, the lower your income, the greater the chance you get more than $2.5k from the CA state rebate and you still get the utility rebate.
 
In places like CA, if you don't qualify for all or some of the federal credit, leasing gets even sweeter. Leasing guarantees the whole federal credit (included in lease price).

Are you saying that in California the leasing companies have to pass on the whole Federal tax credit, or something else? Because Nissan no longer passes on the whole credit automatically in leases. I got maybe $4k of it at most.
 
LeftieBiker said:
In places like CA, if you don't qualify for all or some of the federal credit, leasing gets even sweeter. Leasing guarantees the whole federal credit (included in lease price).

Are you saying that in California the leasing companies have to pass on the whole Federal tax credit, or something else? Because Nissan no longer passes on the whole credit automatically in leases. I got maybe $4k of it at most.
No, I’m saying that, for example if you have a $4000 federal tax liability and you buy a Leaf all you will get back from the feds is $4000. However if the same person were to instead lease, Nissan would get all $7500 and in theory will pass this on to you with lower lease terms to reflect that.

Because there will be residual left on your car after three years, it looks like one doesn’t get all $7500 passed on through the lease, which is technically correct as part of that goes into a lower residual value.
 
Nissan stopped passing on the Federal credit at the end of 2017, IIRC. They sometimes do it with the S, or increase the CCR until it's just about all there when they want to get rid of cars, but they no longer directly apply the $7500 to the lease.
 
I have not heard anything about that. Anyone else?

Kieran973 wrote that a dealership wanted "$13,000 for a "new" car lease on a model year that we are no longer in." That would be amazing if we could then claim up to $7,500 federal credit after that. That would net <$3k for a 3 year lease here in CA. So it would be surprising if the federal credit is not accounted for in that $13k lease.

Update
I just checked on Nissan's website and there are no changes from when we acquired our 2016 SV lease; indeed the $7,500 is included in the SV Leaf lease when you work through the configure/build section:

Monthly price shown includes $7,500 in available federal tax credits and incentives. Available state tax credits and incentives not included in price.
 
That is for your location, this month, as they want to clear them out. Where I live it isn't included, or wasn't as of a few weeks ago. They change it often - believe it or not, as you wish.
 
Not discounting what you said, just never heard of that or come across it over the last few years as you have. I periodically run these things online, so it's not a one off thing here.

It's an important point to discuss if others are seeing what you are given the implications.
 
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