Is this Lease a good deal?

[Kairide]

Tesla financing today is 6.69%. Current 1 year CD rates are between 5 - 6%. Do the math.

And you have to use Tesla financing?

 

[Mayer]

And you have to use Tesla financing?

I wondered too but it is certainly not easy to avoid Tesla financing when your purchase is done remotely on Tesla’s webpage.
I suppose you could get the loan first and then pay cash? Rates are high everywhere now so likely not worth the trouble anyway.

 

[CapeOne]

Leasing is never a good deal, you pay for years and own two things at the end of the lease: Jack and Squat.

I certainly wouldn't say it’s never a good idea to lease cars as part of it can depend on the actual resale value of the car at the end of the term. For example, if the market were to unexpectedly drop for a particular make/model after someone leased they could end having paid less with the lease because the residual was "too high" versus what turned out to be the actual resale value.

Also, you don't have "jack and squat" at the end of a car lease. You can have extra cash in your bank account due to the lower monthly lease payment versus financing. For example, if leasing a particular car costs $700/month for 36 months and financing that same car costs $1,400/month for 36 months, at the end of three years you would've saved $25,200 in monthly payments with the lease versus financing. That's not "jack and squat."

 

[Kairide]

I wondered too but it is certainly not easy to avoid Tesla financing when your purchase is done remotely on Tesla’s webpage.
I suppose you could get the loan first and then pay cash? Rates are high everywhere now so likely not worth the trouble anyway.

It’s not that hard.

 

[Mayer]

It’s not that hard.

can you quantify how not hard it is?
Just do the math; it’s not that hard.

 

[Kairide]

can you quantify how not hard it is?
Just do the math; it’s not that hard.

You can’t really quantify a qualitative response.
But I’ve purchased 3 Teslas using my credit union easily. There’s plenty of Tesla buyers who use their own financing. All you need to do is use the search function on TMC and you’ll see threads on it.

 

[mborkow]

But I’ve purchased 3 Teslas using my credit union easily. There’s plenty of Tesla buyers who use their own financing. All you need to do is use the search function on TMC and you’ll see threads on it.

Federal Choice, by all accounts a popular Credit Union on this site, is currently offering between 6.74% (up to 60 months) and 7.89% (up to 72 months). That means you are paying pretty high interest on a car well beyond its warranty…

They do offer a quarter point discount for new members…but even taking that into account you can hardly count on making money off that loan

 

[jjrandorin]

When I saw this thread spin back up, I figured someone must be dragging out the same old "leasing is bad never do it" / "you gotta buy cash or you cant afford it!" / "only lease a car, its a depreciating asset!" ...."stuff".

This debate has been going on in every auto forum since auto forums became a thing.

Absolutes are usually wrong, because we are all individuals, with individual finances, dreams, desires, etc.

The OP of this thread has not logged into TMC since 3 days after this thread was created, which is October 15th. They obviously are not looking for this advice any longer. Since this is not a financial advice forum, its probably best to take the "absolute" statements related to finances to one of those.