Buying vs Leasing — Electric Car, Tesla, & Plug-In Hybrid Drivers (CleanTechnica #EV Report)

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One of the perennial topics of interest regarding cars, in general, is whether to buy or lease. We won’t dive into that decades-long debate, but we were curious to see the results of that consideration among early EV drivers.

The majority (53–87%, depending on group) bought their electric cars, while 11–44% leased them.

We assume that many of the people who leased non-Tesla fully electric cars (or any EVs, for that matter) likely did so because of the rapid technological progress in this market, and especially with regard to batteries and range.

Others certainly did so out of concern about the longevity of batteries, as well — a matter we don’t have much insight on at this point in time.

Simple business finances are another reason known to lead to leasing versus owning.

Overall, though, we need to question respondents in more depth in the future in order to determine how much these various factors led to leasing versus buying, and to also determine why the majority of respondents chose to buy their cars. (Though, the most common reason for buying versus leasing, in general, is because it often costs less in the long run.)


In case you missed previous summaries, here’s a short summary of our 2017 EV report:

We surveyed over 2,000 electric car drivers living in 28 countries (49 of 50 US states, 26 European countries, and 9 Canadian provinces). We wanted to find out what early electric car adopters require and desire from their next electric cars and from EV charging networks, as well as what EV life is like so far for them.

This report segments responses by three distinct electric vehicle groups (Tesla drivers, pure-electric but non-Tesla drivers, and drivers of plug-in hybrids) as well as by continent (North America versus Europe). This segmentation unveils clear differences on many topics — which is sensible given the vast variation in user experience for each type of EV and for the two regions, but which we’ve never seen uncovered before.

You can get the full 93-page report — Electric Car Drivers: Desires, Demands, & Who They Are — for $500, or you can check out the first 30 pages for free. (If you contributed to the report/surveys and want a free copy, drop us a note and we’ll send the entire report your way.)

Our core partners for this year’s report included EV-BoxTesla Shuttle, and Important Media. Other report partners included The Beam, EV Obsession, and the Low Voltage Vehicle Electrification summit.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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