EV general discussion
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
Christ no, those things are made with slave labour, the batteries either catch fire or die within 7 years and make them worthless..
I thought a lot about this then decided to buy as I like to own my stuff. I think a big part of buying outright was actually having something at the end of the finance; spending £20k over 3 years on a lease and having nothing to show for it except the memories of driving to work and back in it didn't seem very wise. However, I've discovered it's no different to buying, with some caveats.
I decided to track my ongoing costs of buying versus the lease I was considering to see if I made the right decision. It would also help me decide when the time comes to change the car. Any excuse for a speadsheet lol.
- With leasing the costs are fixed and the ongoing cost is linear after the initial payment, predictable. No road tax increases, servicing and tyre costs. A lot less hassle unless you get a lemon. You hand the car back and start again.
- With buying (after a trade-in, large deposit and a bank loan) the monthly costs can vary because of the need for servicing, tyres and road tax increases. So the ongoing cost is not linear and more difficult to predict. Another factor is what to do when you decide to change the car, it's future value can be tough to know. For my calculations I followed a graph I found that compared depreciation of ICE vs BEV cars, which was quite bleak lol! Anyway, you've then got the decision to either have the pain of selling privately or take the kick in the nuts and sell it/trade it to dealer. Or of course keep it under your own terms.
What I've found is that in the 1st and 2nd years it's cheaper to buy rather than lease. Not easier, just cheaper and relies heavily on the future value of the car. Then for the 3rd and 4th years leasing becomes cheaper but not by much. For the 5th and 6th years the buying option becomes cheaper again because you can't lease a car for more than 4 years so have to start again (or buy the car if that's an option). The original loan for buying the car will have come to an end so you'll actually have something tangible at the end of the process.
After writing the above I think the OP was more interesting in people's concerns with reliability (car and brand) rather than the ongoing costs. Doh!
I think a lot of what you have found is determined by the deal you (the individual) take/make. Also you can continue to extend a lease for pretty much as long as the finance company will let you, unless you are confusing PCP (Personal Contract Purchase) with PCH (Personal Contract Hire) as PCP is not leasing. When you cash buy or pay off a great deal of a car a lot of folk don't take into account the opportunity cost of the money either.
For sure, plus I didn't mention salary sacrifice as that gets complicated to calculate with tax savings, insurance etc.