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.
You might look at the Bolt/Bolt EUV. It does have a touchscreen but also physical knobs and buttons for things like climate and volume, normal door handles, etc. I really liked it except that the cup holder was slightly narrower than standard, meaning it couldn’t hold my water bottle, and the DC fast charging was pretty slow by current standards (takes close to an hour to go from 10-80%) so I wouldn’t want to take it on a road trip.
I think there was a connected service through an app, but I was in a rental so I never set it up and the car worked fine. It seems like it’s optional, and while it would’ve been some nice features like getting the climate controls running before getting in the car, it wasn’t necessary.
Thank you; that’s a good tip.