Hot August EV Deals: Volvo C40, Solterra, Ioniq 5, EV6, more
The latest new vehicle transaction report from KBB indicates that electric vehicle supply is still high, hovering at around 100 days, despite the average transaction price of an EV declining all summer long to a year-to-date low of $53,469. Legacy automakers continue to react by tweaking their incentives, and now we’re finding some of the best EV lease deals we’ve seen in a while.
Below are some of the best deals we found while updating our Electric Vehicle Price Guide and Electric Vehicle Lease Guide.
Volvo C40 Recharge
Missed out on last month’s Costco member-only incentive on Volvo EVs? Don’t fret, because Volvo sweetened their lease offers yet again.
A C40 Recharge can now be had for $483/month with $3,983 due at signing before tax and license. That’s an average monthly cost of $580/month, which is about $30/month better than it was last month with the expired $2,500 Costco incentive included. Not a bad deal for a five-passenger, all-wheel-drive SUV that blasts from zero to 60mph in 4.2 seconds.
Drawbacks? Well, with an 80 MPGe combined rating, a range of 226 miles, and 15-cubic-foot cargo capacity behind the rear seats, it’s less efficient, doesn’t go as far on a charge, and doesn’t haul as much as similarly priced electric SUVs. But recent Volvo lease terms and dealer offers appear to be helping shoppers look past all that, as availability seems to have dropped to half of what it was last May.
Speaking of dealer offers, we found a few Volvo retailers advertising lease terms that beat the factory offer on a C40 Recharge. Volvo Cars Gilbert in Arizona is advertising a 3-year, 7,500 mi/year lease at $399/month with $4,499 to start, for an effective cost of $513/month before tax and license. Volvo Cars North Haven in Connecticut and Galpin Volvo Cars in the Los Angeles area also have their own C40 Recharge lease deals with an average cost that’s close to $550/month. And there are a number of dealers offering significant C40 Recharge discounts from MSRP before incentives, which should translate into even lower lease payments.
If you need a little more room to carry stuff behind the rear seats or prefer a squareback look over the C40’s fastback styling, Volvo’s lease terms on the XC40 Recharge (MSRP $54,645) are also quite compelling, with an average monthly cost of $580/month. Check for Volvo C40 Recharge and XC40 Recharge deals in your area.
Subaru Solterra
Another relative bargain in the all-wheel-drive electric SUV/crossover category that’s worth a look is the Subaru Solterra (MSRP $46,220). Subaru’s lease offer of $399/month for 36 months with $3899 to start computes to an effective cost of $496/month plus tax and license, which is a significant savings over factory lease deals on the Model Y and C40 Recharge.
Yeah, you’ll have to do without the thrills and frills of the faster, upmarket Tesla and Volvo offerings, but the Solterra does scoot to 60mph from standstill in a very respectable 6.5 seconds and is as nicely equipped as other EVs at its price point. It also has 29 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats – about the same as the Tesla, which is almost twice that of the Volvo.
Oh, and at $496/month, the Solterra lease is about $19/month cheaper than the factory lease deal on its front-wheel-drive version of its platform twin, the Toyota bZ4x. So Toyota fans that are willing to switch their allegiance to Subaru can get two more driven wheels for free.
As far as dealer deals, McGovern Subaru in New Hampshire is advertising over $6,000 off on a Solterra, while Brattleboro Subaru in Vermont and Hanlees Subaru in California have Solterra discounts at around $2,000. Find Subaru Solterra deals near you.
Hyundai Ioniq 5
Passing the full $7,500 Federal tax incentive to lessees of the Ioniq 5 has resulted in some compelling lease terms on what is arguably one of the best-looking EVs on the market that rivals the Model Y in performance and utility. In all-wheel-drive form, this five-passenger SUV with 27 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats will hurl you from zero to 60mph in 4.4 seconds – all numbers that fall well within the Model Y’s domain.
Curiously, Hyundai’s website only lists lease deals for rear-wheel-drive configurations, but we can deduce that the average monthly cost of an Ioniq 5 SE AWD (MSRP $50,335) lease should be close to that of the Ioniq 5 SEL RWD (MSRP $48,785). Hyundai’s 3-year lease offer for the SEL RWD is $414/month with $5,001 due at signing, which averages to $541/month before tax and license. Since the SE-trimmed AWD configuration is $1,550 more expensive and has a lower residual value than the SEL RWD, I’m figuring that its average monthly cost is slightly more than that, but not by much.
Dealer offers somewhat validate this estimate. Mirak Hyundai in Massachusetts, for example, has a great lease offer with an effective cost of $500/month before tax and license on a discounted Ioniq 5 SE AWD. And Valencia Hyundai in the Los Angeles area has a lease on a discounted SEL AWD that averages to $542/month.
Other dealers with Ioniq 5 discounts that should result in attractive lease terms include Norm Reeves Hyundai in southern California and Ourisman Hyundai Laurel in Maryland.
Current Hyundai owners can qualify for an additional $2,500 off on a new Ioniq 5, which should lower lease payments by about $30 to $40 per month.
By the way, for folks that would rather buy than lease, Hyundai now has a $5,000 incentive on a purchase. Look for Hyundai Ioniq 5 deals in your locale.
Audi Q4 e-tron
At $58,895, the all-wheel-drive Q4 e-tron 50 in Premium trim seems a bit overpriced since it costs almost $10K more than the cheapest Model Y. However, it can now be leased at $499/month for 36 months, $5,389 due at signing before tax and license. That works out to an effective cost of $635/month, which is over $60/month less than a Model Y lease. Costco members can take another $20/month or so off of a Q4 e-tron lease by applying a limited-time $1,500 incentive that Costco is running on Audi electrics through October 2.
Audi dealers are starting to advertise discounts rather than markups on this 5-passenger SUV capable of zero to sixty times in the mid-fives, carries just under 25 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats, and runs for 236 miles on a full charge. Audi Nashville is taking almost $4,000 off on a Q4 e-tron 50, while Audi Appleton in Wisconsin and Audi Bethesda in Maryland have discounts of $3,405 and $2,500 respectively. Discounts of that magnitude should reduce monthly lease payments by $30 to $50.
Still too expensive? Buyers that can get by with rear-wheel-drive can opt for the Q4 e-tron 40, which leases for about $50/month less than a similarly equipped all-wheel-drive Q4 e-tron 50 and goes 29 miles farther on a full charge. Check Audi Q4 e-tron pricing in your area.
Kia EV6
Kia noticeably improved its lease offers on the EV6, now with terms that essentially match current factory offers on its platform sibling, the Hyundai Ioniq 5. An all-wheel-drive EV6 in Wind trim (MSRP $53,925) can be leased for $449/month over 36 months with $4,999 plus tax and license due at start, for an effective monthly cost of $575/month.
We found significant dealer discounts on an all-wheel-drive EV6 Wind at Crowley Kia in Connecticut ($4,005), Courage Kia in North Carolina ($3,101), and Car Pros Kia Glendale in Los Angeles ($4,373) that should drive that lease closer to $500/month.
Like Hyundai with its Ioniq 5, Kia is is offering a $5,000 incentive to consumers that prefer to buy an EV6 rather than lease. Look for EV6 deals at a Kia dealer near you.
As always, check our Electric Vehicle Price Guide and Electric Vehicle Lease Guide for the best deals on EVs in the US.
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Tesla (TSLA) is no longer confidently stating growth in its automotive business for 2025, and it has delayed updating its guidance until the next quarter after a disappointing performance in the first three months of the year.
2024 was Tesla’s first year in a decade where its vehicle deliveries went down year-over-year.
Just a few months ago, in January, Tesla was confident in predicting that it would return to growth in 2025:
“With the advancements in vehicle autonomy and the introduction of new products, we expect the vehicle business to return to growth in 2025.”
Today, Tesla released its Q1 2025 financial results, confirming that it had its worst quarter in years to start 2025.
The automaker is now clearly not as confident about returning to growth in its automotive business this year.
Tesla updated its “outlook” section this quarter to highlight the potential impact of trade policies and now no longer discusses automotive growth in isolation. Instead, it bundled automotive and energy businesses together and said that it will “revisit its 2025 guidance” next quarter:
It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services. While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment. We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.
Tesla’s vehicle deliveries are already down about 50,000 units so far this year compared to last year.
It will be challenging to catch up in the current macroeconomic situation.
Tesla again guided the start of production of “new affordable models” in the first half of 2025, which could help the automaker to deliver more cars.
However, as we have previously reported, these new vehicles are expected to be stripped-down Model Y and Model 3, which will cannibalize Tesla’s current sales and limit its growth to those products.
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US DC fast charging is becoming more reliable, and charging stations are getting bigger and busier, according to a new Q1 2025 report from the EV data analysts at Paren.
DC fast charging station reliability is on the rise
Paren’s latest US Reliability Index – “Can I successfully charge at this charger?” – increased from 81.2 points in Q4 2024 to 82.6 points in Q1 2025, a notable jump of 1.7%. According to Bill Ferro, CTO at Paren, “This continues a quarterly trend across the US non-Tesla fast charging infrastructure, which suggests that the ongoing efforts to replace or sunset older hardware are having a positive impact on station uptime. In addition, newer entrants into the field are bringing time-tested hardware along with enhanced driver experiences.”
Utah, Alaska, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Nevada were the top-ranked states for DC fast charging reliability in Q1 2025.
Growth slows, but charging stations are getting larger
New DC fast charging ports grew to 55,580 at the end of Q1 2025, up 3,667 from last quarter, with total stations reaching 10,839, an increase of 794. This is fewer new additions compared to the surge seen at the end of 2024, reflecting typical seasonal slowdowns due to winter weather. However, there’s a bright spot: the average number of ports per station among non-Tesla networks rose to 3.9, compared to 2.7 year-over-year. The Tesla Supercharger network now averages 13 ports per station.
Utilization rates reflect the urban-rural divide
Average utilization – that’s the minutes of a charging session as a percentage of time a station is open each day – dropped slightly from 16.6% in Q4 2024 to 16.2% in Q1 2025, following typical holiday travel patterns. But overall, charging use is climbing, especially in dense urban areas with significant rideshare and apartment communities that rely heavily on public chargers.
Early days for NACS transition
The Combined Charging System (CCS) remains dominant, with 59% of new ports, and the shift toward Tesla’s NACS (J3400) standard is still in its very early stages. Only 104 non-Tesla NACS ports were added this quarter at non-Tesla networks, so drivers of new non-Tesla vehicles need to use their adapters if they want to use Superchargers.
Fixed pricing prevails
Charging operators primarily use fixed pricing (80%), with Time of Use (TOU) pricing making up 16%. Pay-by-time options are rare, used only 4.2% of the time.
California is the only major state where TOU pricing surpasses fixed pricing, while many states, such as Oklahoma, Vermont, and Arkansas, almost exclusively utilize fixed pricing models.
As for the most expensive places to fast charge your EV? The top four metropolitan statistical areas are all in California, with average rates at $0.60 or $0.61 per kWh.
Rural and low-income areas at risk
The Trump administration’s cancellation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program poses a significant threat to rural and low-income communities. Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren, cautioned, “Our data is a harbinger of less expansion in rural and lower-income markets as CPOs will increasingly focus on urban markets, seeing high utilization, often north of 30%, versus markets with less than 5% utilization.”
‘Charging 2.0’ – a new industry phase
McDonald summed up the report by marking 2024 as a pivotal year, stating, “2024 was a year of mixed news in the US DC fast charging industry, but it will be remembered as a pivotal turn to a new era we are calling ‘Charging 2.0’. Charge-point operators and new players in the industry are increasingly focused on creating a great customer experience, improving reliability of chargers, and reaching profitability – a shift from chasing the availability of incentives, racing to get chargers in the ground, and then crossing your fingers that utilization will grow over time.”
Read more: Trump just canceled the federal NEVI EV charger program
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Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the first quarter (Q1) and full-year 2025 after market close today.
We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.
Tesla Q1 2025 earnings expectations
As we reported in our Tesla Q1 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $21.345 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.41 per share.
The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.
Did Tesla meet them?`
Tesla Q1 2025 financial results
After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it missed expectations with earnings of $0.27 per share (non-GAAP), and it also missed revenue expectations with $19.335 billion during the last quarter.
This is a big miss for Tesla despite the company admitting to selling a lot more regulatory credits this quarter.
At $595 million in credit sales, Tesla would have lost money without it in Q1 2025:
In short, Tesla is on the verge of being a money-losing company.
We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):
Here’s Tesla’s Q1 2025 shareholder presentation in full:
Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q1 2025 results:
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