The open secret to EV ownership is to buy after the lease. The depreciation is insane, why pay to rent the car for three years when you can buy it outright after the lease return for a fraction of the cost? EVs with active cooling systems last just about forever but people are still "oh no the battery".

(Still driving my 2012 EV - not a typo - and got a can't-miss off-lease CPO deal on a "new" 2022 this year.)

High mileage EV's are really cheap right now. Buyers think they'll have to spend a fortune to replace the battery when in reality those batteries still have lots of miles left in them. People are picking up 150,000 mile model 3's for $10K, and that car could be good for another 150,000 miles.

Other than some squeaks and creeks, my 2018 model 3 is working fine with 160,000. I don't plan on replacing it anytime soon.

Battery has lost ~10% max capacity over the years.

> The open secret to EV ownership is to buy after the lease.

How do you dig into this responsibly?

I really don't want to be buying a new car right now as the ICE ones all seem to be expensive trash but the EVs are changing so quickly that it isn't worth it.

My Chevy Volt is beginning to show its age, but you will pry it from my cold, dead hands at this point.

Three years is plenty of time to assess the reliability of a make and model - and also to get early issues resolved. Take a look at the forums.

As the owner of both a 2012 BEV and a 2014 PHEV (in addition to my "new" 2022), all of which are in perfect mechanical condition, it's tough to look at BEV technology as something that will "greatly improve".

Is my 2022 BEV way better than my 2012? Sure, but it's an entire decade removed (my 2012 is looking like... well, whatever the dog did to it). Is it worse than current 2025/26 BEVs? No, not by much at all.

Keep on rockin' with the Volt until your dog rips up the upholstery. There'll be a three year old off-lease BEV or PHEV waiting for you at a shocking low price when it's time.

This is compounded by the fact that EV tech is rapidly improving, fueling depreciation. It's like personal computers in the 90's/00's.

Compare to gas cars which is a very mature technology, and really only perks and features get updated.

Are they rapidly improving though?

Sure, other companies are making an effort to catch up with Tesla on autonomous driving, but range/speed/price are largely stagnant.

Mostly, it looks like every company (in the US/EU)is in shambles releasing half baked EVs hoping no one will notice that their hardware company is terrible at software.

Absolute, resolute "no" to "autonomous driving". Not unless it is 100% reliable, and it will never be with current technology.

The development of autonomous driving has hit diminishing returns, and while "mostly reliable" is OK for a Taxi fleet with expensive experts on call 24/7, I do not want the deadly half-arsed crap from Tesla.

The combination of range, (charging) speed, and price have all greatly improved since 2020. The next five years look promising too, with solid state batteries and smaller/lighter motors set to hit the market.

Yes, but not at 90’-20’s laptop improvements cycles.

Not really. Battery density and cost has been improving steadily for a decade. Most manufacturers are installing heat pumps now. The speed of DC fast charging is inconsistent between OEMs, but that's still a factor of infrastructure too. Vehicle to home and Integrated trip planning with battery charging are the biggest areas of improvement for most OEMs.

Leasing will require you to carry comprehensive and collision insurance. With a fully owned car like mine, I carry only the liability insurance. This in practice more than halves my insurance premium payments. The reduction in insurance premium more than offsets any financial benefit of a lease with an artificially high residual value. (Leases are only beneficial because the residual value does not match reality.)

Interestingly, in the UK, comprehensive insurance is now generally cheaper than "third party only" or "third party, fire & theft" cover

The reason is because the insurance companies want you to care about the car as an asset, on the basis that statistically they are driven more carefully (and therefore cause less third party property damage, bodily injury, etc.)

I don't know about the UK but comprehensive insurance here means fire and theft.

That works if you want an EV just because you prefer to drive an EV, but makes it basically impossible to save money compared to buying an ICEV, you’ll never pay off the car, and you can’t put enough mileage on a lease to break even with fuel costs.

and mitigates technological risk, like if Toyota makes good on those solid state battery claims, Tesla might be screwed