Has anyone who has taken delivery since the price drop and leased gotten their lease agreements?

[skywalker7]

No one at Tesla has been able to confirm how/if they are passing the $7500 to the lessee.

 

[ATPMSD]

Not surprised at all by the silence from Tesla.

Don’t lease, especially not from Tesla! Their rates are very high, you do not have an option to buy the car at the end of the lease, they do not perform a lease-end inspection as is the standard in the industry, and you cannot talk to a human being if you need too.

You will be much better off buying and if you find a good rate, the monthly payment will be the same or lower than a lease. And you get the tax credit.

 

[exxxviii]

No one at Tesla has been able to confirm how/if they are passing the $7500 to the lessee.

My hunch is that the $7,500 will not materially affect the lease rates. The simple explanation is that the lease is financing the depreciation, and the incentive does not change depreciation. The incentive is present at the front end (reducing acquisition cost) and the back end (reducing residual value), so no impact in depreciation amount.

 

[ATPMSD]

My hunch is that the $7,500 will not materially affect the lease rates

If they gave you the full credit upfront it would function in the same fashion as if you gave them a down payment. It would decrease the depreciation and would not impact residual since residual is a percentage of MSRP, and so it would lower the payment. But as this is a tax credit you would not be entitled to the full $7,500 anyway. And as the credit goes to the manufacturer it totally up to them as to what credit, if any, they give you.

 

[exxxviii]

If they gave you the full credit upfront it would function in the same fashion as if you gave them a down payment. It would decrease the depreciation and would not impact residual since residual is a percentage of MSRP, and so it would lower the payment. But as this is a tax credit you would not be entitled to the full $7,500 anyway. And as the credit goes to the manufacturer it totally up to them as to what credit, if any, they give you.

This was the mistake Nissan Financial made 10 years ago. The existence of the incentive in the future depreciates the used value of the car almost correspondingly. So it does lower the residual, thus it does not change the depreciation amount much.

 

[ATPMSD]

This was the mistake Nissan Financial made 10 years ago. The existence of the incentive in the future depreciates the used value of the car almost correspondingly. So it does lower the residual, thus it does not change the depreciation amount much.

Disagree. Down payments and incentives do not lower residual. Never has on any car I have leased, and I have leased plenty. Residual is strictly a percentage of MSRP. Consider that if they did that it would not lower the payment, which would nullify the incentive, so the incentive becomes pointless. If a company lowers the residual they are screwing you.

”Residual value is determined by multiplying the MSRP by the estimated depreciation value. (For example if your car is originally valued at $20,000 and the depreciation is 50%, then the residual value would be $10,000.) At the end of the lease, the residual value of the car would be $10,000.”

 

[exxxviii]

Disagree. Down payments and incentives do not lower residual. Never has on any car I have leased, and I have leased plenty. Residual is strictly a percentage of MSRP. Consider that if they did that it would not lower the payment, which would nullify the incentive, so the incentive becomes pointless. If a company lowers the residual they are screwing you.

”Residual value is determined by multiplying the MSRP by the estimated depreciation value. (For example if your car is originally valued at $20,000 and the depreciation is 50%, then the residual value would be $10,000.) At the end of the lease, the residual value of the car would be $10,000.”

The existence of an incentive throws the traditional residual calculations out the window.

The easiest example is what happened to Nissan Financial with the Leaf a decade ago when they failed to factor the impact of federal and state subsidies into their leases. Everyone else used them as the business case to adjust leasing calculations...

Last decade, many states offered EV subsidies in addition to the federal subsidies. So, you could buy a car and get a $10K to $12K subsidy back from the governments. The gist was that a lot of people could lease a Leaf for free, because the combined subsidies equalyed their total payments for the term of a 2-year lease. (The exact amounts are from memory, but they are directionally correct.)

The car was about $25K, and their residual was about $15K. The federal and state credits were ~$10K. So, Nissan leased a crapton of Leafs that they had on the books for $15K at the end of their leases. But anyone could buy a new Leaf for $15K thanks to the subsidies still available. So, nobody would buy the 2-YO ex-lease Leafs. Those cars were worth about $6K - $8K at auction. Nissan lost their shirts.

Lesson learned: If a car has government subsidies, ignore them in the residual calculations. (Or, if the buyer gets the subsidy, then reduce the residual by the subsidy amount.)

 

[240vPlug]

Credits like this are traditionally treated as a "capital cost reduction" for a lease. If Tesla is not advertising this or making info available I think it's safe to assume you will not see it.

Aside from that leasing a Tesla is just not a good deal. The residuals are lower and the money factor (interest rate) higher than market. You can't buyout the car or sell to a 3rd party dealer. They charge 25 cents per mile for overage. So if you go 10,000 miles over you will owe Tesla $2,500 and you have no other option buy to pay that.

Unless there is a big business tax benefit to leasing it then it's generally a bad idea. The cost to own over the same period of time is generally lower when you finance....not by a lot...but still lower.

 

[ATPMSD]

The existence of an incentive throws the traditional residual calculations out the window.

Yes and no, Nissan failed to determine the depreciation correctly. Had the subsidies expired before the end of the lease there would have been no problem, Nissan simply gambled wrong and lost. Had they thought it through they would have changed the depreciation percentage, which would then have changed the residual, so in a way your statement on the residual is correct - indirect impact.

The $7,500 credit today is not likely to have an impact. Even if this credit remains in place for years it is doubtful it will have much impact on the car's deprecation, given the price of a Tesla. And of course the amount of any credit is totally up to Tesla's whim so the easiest way for them to manage this is to limit the credit, to their customers.

And the best solution from the customer's standpoint is do not lease from Tesla!

 

[exxxviii]

Yes and no, Nissan failed to determine the depreciation correctly. Had the subsidies expired before the end of the lease there would have been no problem, Nissan simply gambled wrong and lost.

Exactly, they should have added the subsidy to the depreciation formula. That is why subsidies do not materially impact lease rates. It was basic human error in that they failed to consider the impact of the subsidy on depreciation and became a case study for other lessors.