Tesla Pushes Leases & Buyouts As It Maximizes US EV Tax Credit? – CleanTechnica

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Wait, the US tax credit for EVs is gone, isn’t it? What am I doing sticking it in the headline now?

Well, one month ago, we wrote about some news that broke just before the US EV tax credit expired. Ford and GM had worked out a loophole to essentially use the tax credit beyond the 3rd quarter. They were basically selling their cars to themselves before the deadline, logging the tax credit, and then going to be able to still lease those cars at discounted prices.

At the time, I wrote the following regarding Tesla: “Now, what about Tesla? Tesla doesn’t have separate dealers. So, presumably, Tesla couldn’t take advantage of this loophole. There’s no clear network of dealers who are independent partners to the EV company and can engage in a written binding contract with the company. Unless I’m missing something, it seems that Tesla will lose out here and suffer competitively from the loophole.” Maybe that is in fact the case and Tesla is simply trying to find a creative way to drum up support in this difficult time. But this is the email from Tesla that got me wondering about this again:

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Leasing Has Its Benefits

When you lease, you’ll be able to use all the features that make Tesla vehicles so fun to drive—from Tesla Arcade to drive modes to Full Self-Driving (Supervised).¹ And at the end of your lease, you can buy your Tesla outright.²

Leasing prices will be increasing by up to $80—order yours and apply by November 4, 2025, to be eligible.³

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Note there that leasing prices are going up soon. Why? Is Tesla running out of cars it was able to somehow log before October 1 and get the tax credit on? Or is it just that rising costs are forcing this?

Whatever is going on, Tesla is now offering and pushing something it didn’t offer for a long time — lease buyouts. Perhaps it is as simple as this — the company is trying to stimulate sales, so it is highlighting something that many may not be aware of, that they can lease a Tesla and then buy that car at the end of its lease.

As a final point, intuitively, the value of that car is going to be higher now than the value of a car at the end of its lease a month ago would have been, since there is no longer a $7,500 tax credit to drag down the cost of a new Tesla. That’s going to help Tesla. Instead of being able to sell a car for $25,000 at the end of its lease, as a hypothetical example, perhaps it can sell that car for $30,000 or $32,500 to the lessee. Bumping up the value of a car coming off its lease is a clear benefit to Tesla, and there’s no easier way to sell it without additional costs (transport, cleaning & checking, auctioning, etc.) than selling it to the lessee.

Any other thoughts on this? And will the percentage of Tesla sales that are leases increase in the 4th quarter? Historically, this is a very low percentage for Tesla compared to other automakers.