Your question doesn’t have a universally correct answer. You pay for the use of the car regardless. That’s depreciation.
Lease: You pay for the use of the car, depreciation, and you pay for the money used to buy the car and rent it back to you. You have a fixed mileage allowance, extra miles are expensive. The term determines how long you have the car. If you have a business that requires travel, you can count the lease payments as a business expense usually. That means the government shares he cost of the lease in reduced taxes. People usually get a new car at the end of the lease period so you don’t wind up with older technology. You cannot modify the car. You know the value assigned at the end. Ending the lease early is usually very expensive. You don’t bother with selling or trading in a used car at the end. If the car is worth more at the end than the residual calculated, you may be able to keep the car, buying it at the calculated end value, then sell it and recoup the difference. Teslas often are worth less than the residual value due to price reductions and to advances in technology. When you turn it in, the car is expected to be in average condition for a car of that age. If the car is in superb condition, there’s no benefit. If the car is in worse condition, you’ll be charged the amount to bring it up to expected condition.
Buy outright: You pay cash for the car. It’s yours. You save finance costs. Drive as far as you want, keep as long as you want. You can eventually sell it to get a new one with the new technology. You don’t know the value at any fixed interval in the future. It ties up your capital. You can buy new or used. You can modify it any way you like.
Finance: You pay for the use of the money that is used to buy the car. You pay for the depreciation. You don’t tie up your capital but you pay someone else for the use of their capital. If you cannot buy outright, it’s a way to get the car without paying for it up front. It’s still an expensive way to buy a car. It’s your car at the end. If you finance for 5 years, you’ll owe more money than the car is worth (upside down) for most of the finance period so if you decide to sell early, you’ll need to pay that difference. Like leases, it can be expensive to get out early.
Tesla doesn’t have a CPO program any more, they sell used cars. On the plus side they include a guarantee usually. On the minus side, you order the car, they ship it, and you are expected to buy the car when it arrives. You don’t have to, you can refuse it. If you get one that had free unlimited supercharging, Tesla will strip that from the car so you’ll get it without that advantage. If you buy from a person and the supercharging is transferrable, it transfers to you. You get the remainder of the warranty. Some options exist to buy additional warranty coverage but that has to be done by the original owner before transfer. It can be challenging to find out exactly what configuration a used car is. Things change often, premium packages change, included equipment changes. You need to be careful in finding out exactly what equipment the car has and whether things are included that are important to you.
My feeling is that one should buy outright if possible. That implies one has the capital without compromising lifetime investing, savings, etc. But I’m old. Saving and investing are important to me. Buying a $100,000 car early in life costs much more in the way of total life savings than people expect. Getting a $25,000 car and investing the remaining $75,000 makes far more sense when looking at lifetime accumulation of assets. I think it’s nuts to go in the hole early in life for a car, regardless of how much one wants it, the lifetime cost will be there long after that car has been sold and forgotten. Buying an early expensive wasting asset is often a poor decision when looking at lifetime financial health. Still it’s your life so do what’s right for you.
Buy from an individual if you can get the warranty coverage you want included and if you want the best price.
Buy from a non Tesla dealership if you must, Tesla frowns on this, the car probably went through an auction, and non approved repairs may have been cheaply done. If you know cars, that should help. Be cautious.
So you want advice. I’d pay cash for the car you can afford. It might be new, or used. If you have a business, consider a lease. If you cannot afford the car, even used, then buy something else until you can save enough to afford the one you want. If you have kids, save for their educational expense first. People call cars “investments” but they aren’t, they are wasting assets. With rare exceptions, the car is worth much less when you sell it. Teslas are expensive to own. Taxes, depreciation, insurance, etc., far exceed any savings due to fuel. They are environmentally cleaner but there is high carbon cost in manufacture and the power has to be generated somewhere. Generating power with a solar array is probably the cleanest. It eats tires, those can be expensive. Repairs are rare but they can take a lot of time, months sometimes. Crash repairs often take many months. Lease payments, car payments, and depreciation accumulate whether or not you are driving the car. Teslas require specialized repair which is slow and expensive. It’s so expensive that a crashed Tesla may be totaled with relatively light damage. Travel is slower on trips. The battery needs charging and charging takes time en route. The actual route you take may be dictated by the available chargers. The range promised is an estimate. Range decreases over time as the battery ages. If a car has a range of 250 miles, for example, you won’t be able to go 250 miles between chargers. There’s a certain amount of overhead included in avoiding running out of power, you don’t want to run it to zero. And now Tesla may restrict the amount of charge you can get. The battery charges slower as you reach full charge so you are unlikely to charge to 100% on trips. Bigger batteries are always better. There are some battery configurations that should be avoided, the early 90KW battery packs for example. Check on insurance costs before purchase. Some companies may not insure some cars. Never ever buy a Tesla with a salvage title, no matter how cheap. Teslas don’t need routine maintenance, no oil changes, no tune ups. Well, there are things you can do, change the motor fluid but it isn’t usually necessary. You can drive it every day, plug it in every night, buy it tires every so often but otherwise not worry about the car. The car should go half a million miles, there’s very little that wears, no gas engine, no transmission.
Naturally my car is the best. It’s a 2017 S75D, with real leather. The 100 KW batteries have more range and better performance, and they charge quicker. I have the autopilot, I like it.
Tesla’s get software updates frequently. That means better features come along free and fairly frequently. Sometimes there’s a step back, particularly where autopilot is concerned. If you like cutting edge, Tesla is the car for you. If not, well give it thought. The 3 is probably a better option for anyone buying new, concerned with cost, and doesn’t need the space available in the other models. Tesla as a company is losing money. They cannot continue this forever.
This should get you going. Double check everything anyone says before buying. If used, make sure all promises are fulfilled before you pay. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything if they profit by the promises they make. Verify. Good luck.