Best Lease-to-Own EV Deals and the ‘1-day lease’
Looking to put a huge holiday ribbon on a new EV? There’s a widespread belief that buying a new car is always much cheaper than leasing it in the long run. However, we’ve found six EV lease deals that shatter that myth, with terms that pass the entire commercial clean vehicle Federal tax credit to the lessee and enable the lessee to eventually own the vehicle for thousands of dollars less than paying cash up front.
As mentioned last month, some folks are using the “1-day lease” to take advantage of these deals by buying out their lease almost immediately. This enables the federal tax credit to be applied without stipulations on foreign made vehicles with foreign made batteries or owner tax bracket considerations. Ask about this at your local dealer.
However, do the math to make sure that an early payoff is cheaper than riding out the full term, especially if the intent is to finance the buyout, as all the lease deals mentioned below except for one have a money factor that translates to an APR that is significantly less than current new car interest rates. Also, in the relatively high inflation environment we are unfortunately enjoying right now, it could be wise to defer the payment of over half the cost of the car to three years from now when the US dollar could be worth a lot less than it’s worth today.
1. 2023 Lexus RZ450e Premium
Cash: $66,689; Lease-to-own: $59,390. Lease-to-own savings: $7299
Lexus currently has a lease offer on the $62,100 RZ450e Premium that’s $499/month for 36 months, $5999 due at signing, and the option to buy for $28,808 at the end of the lease. These compelling terms are a result of a huge $15,000 lease incentive that significantly reduces the capitalized cost of this five-seat SUV with a 220-mile range, zero to sixty time of 4.6 seconds, and 34.9 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats.
During the three-year lease term, tallying up the $5999 plus 35 payments of $499 (the first month is paid for at signing) adds up to $23,464. At an assumed 9% tax rate on the up-front capitalized cost reduction, down, and first payment ($1818) as well as on each subsequent payment ($45/month), the total cost to lease the RZ450e is $26,899.
At the end of the lease term, buying the three-year-old RZ450e will cost $29,808 plus $2683 tax for a total of $32,491. All-in, the lease-to-own cost adds up to just $59,390.
In comparison, paying cash up front at delivery will cost a whole lot more: $62,100 MSRP plus $5,589 tax, less a paltry $1000 rebate, comes out to $66,689. That’s $7,299 more than walking the lease-to-own path! For the nearly 80% of consumers that finance auto purchases, Lexus does have a 2.49% promo rate on a 48-month loan, and with $7318 down the payment comes out to be $1323/month. Which is a lot, but after three years, the payoff is only $15,661. Still, the total cost to own the RZ after three years on the promo rate is $69,596 – that’s $10,200 more than leasing it.
By the way, the .00324 money factor (APR 7.78%) on Lexus’ RZ450e lease offer is relatively lofty compared to the rest of the deals mentioned here, which range from 1.68% to 4.58%. So it may be possible to save even more money by buying out the lease early and refinancing at a lower rate.
We found a number of dealers offering discounts ranging from $2527 to $4327 on the RZ450e. Lexus of Serramonte in California tops the list, followed by Lexus of Silver Spring in Maryland. Look for Lexus RZ450e deals near you.
2. 2023 Toyota bZ4X XLE FWD
Cash: $48,553; Lease-to-own: $41,627. Lease-to-own savings: $6,926
Toyota continues to improve its lease terms on the bZ4X, now down to $349/month for 36 months, $3999 due at signing, and the option to buy for $21,381 at lease end for the base XLE trim in front-wheel-drive configuration that MSRPs at $44,544. Assuming a 9% tax rate and working though the same math used on the Lexus RZ450 lease offer results in a lease-to-own cost of just $41,627.
An all-cash purchase is a much more costly proposition: its $44,544 MSRP plus 9% tax adds up to $48,553, which is almost $7000 over the lease-to-own cost. Toyota has a financing promo that’s a little better than paying cash – a $2500 incentive tied to a 48-month loan at 1.99% – but with $4626 down, monthly payment of $899, and payoff of $10,667 after three years, the lease-to-own method still comes out thousands ahead, by $5710 to be exact.
We found a couple of dealers with a relatively modest discount on this five-passenger SUV capable of covering 252 miles on a full charge, holds 27.7 cubic feet of cargo behind the rear seats, and scoots from zero to sixty in 6.7 seconds. Mossy Toyota and Toyota of North Hollywood in California are listing their front-drive bZ4X inventory at around $1700 below MSRP, which seems to be on par with TrueCar pricing estimates for the rest of the country except for the eastern seaboard states from Virginia northward, where it seems the bZ4X sells for a slight premium. Check for Toyota bZ4x deals in your area.
3. 2023 Subaru Solterra Premium
Cash: $50,380; Lease-to-own: $44,077. Lease-to-own savings: $6,303
Thanks to Subaru’s consistently excellent lease terms, this marks the third time in a row that the Solterra is being featured in our EV Deals write-up. Last month it was highlighted as the only all-wheel-drive EV with an average monthly lease cost under $400 (which is still the case), and now we’re talking about it again because its zero-down, $399/month lease with the option to buy for $25,421 at 36 months calculates to an after-tax lease-to-own total of just $44,077. That’s over six grand less than either paying cash up front or taking advantage of Subaru’s 72-month 0% financing offer, both costing $50,380 after adding a 9% tax on its $46,220 MSRP.
The Solterra is built on the same dedicated modular EV platform as the Lexus RX450e and Toyota bZ4X, with the Solterra and bZ4X appearing to be near-identical twins when compared to the RZ450e’s slightly larger exterior and properly painted front fenders. The Solterra also bears a close resemblance to the bZ4X in interior dimensions and performance, capable of carrying 29 cubic feet of cargo behind its rear seats and hustling from standstill to 60mph in 6.5 seconds – numbers that are closer to the bZ4X versus the upscale RZ450e.
Where the Solterra truly outshines its platform twin and similar electrics from other marques is its tremendous value due to lease terms that allow the lessee to walk away from the all-wheel-drive SUV after paying a total of just $16,381 over three years, tax included. That’s nearly two grand less than a front-drive bZ4x XLE, and nearly three grand less than a front-drive Nissan Ariya Engage or rear-wheel-drive VW ID.4 Pro.
We spotted Subaru dealers in various regions discounting the Solterra, ranging from $2641 to $5803 off MSRP. Check for Subaru Solterra deals near you.
4. 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQB300 4MATIC
Cash: $62,338; Lease-to-own: $58,240. Lease-to-own savings: $4,098
The EQB300 4MATIC is an all-wheel-drive five-seat SUV that carries 22 cubic feet of cargo behind its second-row seats (a third row option is available), goes 232 miles on a charge, and accelerates from standstill to 60mph in seven seconds. Its current 36-month lease offer of $519/month, $5613 at signing, and option to buy for $29,057 at termination tallies up to an after-tax lease-to-own cost of $58,240. That’s $4098 less than an all-cash purchase at its $59,300 MSRP minus a $2,299 “dealer participation” discount that’s built into said lease offer, plus 9% tax. Mercedes-Benz lease offers on other EQB-Class trim levels should result in similar savings over a cash deal since they all share the same 49% residual and have a money factor that’s still on the low side (effective APR of 3.29%, versus 2.28% for the EQB300).
We didn’t find any Mercedes-Benz dealership websites that advertise discounts on new inventory, but a quick check of car shopping websites indicates that average discounts ranging from about $1000 in the Northeast to over $5,000 almost everywhere else can be expected. Check for Mercedes-Benz EQB-Class deals near you.
5. 2023 Volvo C40 Recharge Core
Cash: $59,470; Lease-to-own: $56,671. Lease-to-own savings: $2,799
Now that improved-for-2024 models are already arriving at dealerships, the favorable lease terms on the 2023 C40 Recharge core (MSRP $56,390) will likely disappear sooner than later as inventory continues to dwindle. At $483/month for 36 months, $3933 due at signing, and lease-end buyout of $30,543 based on a residual of 54%, lease-to-own costs $2799 less than paying cash up front for this five-passenger, all-wheel-drive SUV that rockets from zero to sixty in 4.2 seconds, travels 226 on a full charge, and carries 15 cubic feet of cargo with all seats in place. Costco members can save even more by taking advantage of the current member-only $1000 incentive on the purchase or lease of a new Volvo.
We found a number of Volvo retailers with discounts or improved lease offers on the C40 Recharge. Look for a dealer with an in-stock 2023 Volvo C40 Recharge near you.
6. 2024 Audi Q8 e-tron Premier
Cash: $80,058; Lease-to-own: $77,809. Lease-to-own savings: $2,249
Looking for a luxury-branded all-wheel-drive five-passenger electric SUV that can squeeze close to 300 miles out of a full charge? The Audi Q8 e-tron comes close at 285 miles, which is at least 50 miles farther than the other luxury-branded vehicles mentioned so far in this article. But that longer security blanket comes at a cost, as the total outlay to own the Audi at lease termination is over $18,000 more expensive than the Lexus RZ450e, Mercedes-Benz EQB300 4MATIC, or Volvo C40 Recharge. To be fair, the Q8 e-tron is larger – built to punch in a heavier weight class that includes the Mercedes EQE, BMW iX, and Tesla Model X – so its higher price (MSRP $78,035) should be expected.
Audi’s current lease offer of $599/month for 36 months, $6493 due at signing, and the option to purchase for $42,919 at lease end currently adds up an attractive lease-to-own deal that costs $2249 less than an all-cash transaction at a 9% tax rate.
Curiously, we haven’t seen many dealer-advertised discounts or improved lease offers on the Q8 e-tron since late summer despite a decent amount of available inventory, but car shopping websites like Cars.com and TrueCar seem to indicate that dealer discounts of $4000 or more are out there in some areas. Check for Audi Q8 e-tron discounts in your area.
… and the rest
The rest of the sub-$80K EV lease offers we evaluated for the lease-to-own scenario worked out to be more expensive than an all-cash transaction. However, most resulted in costing significantly less than financing, assuming a 72-month loan at 6% APR, or if available, at the lowest manufacturer promo rate. So savvy consumers that prefer to put cash to to work elsewhere rather than tie it all up in an expensive depreciating asset should seriously consider leasing over financing if one of these 2023 electrics are in the crosshairs: Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 4MATIC SUV ($8687 lease-to-own savings over financing), BMW i4 eDrive35 ($5,373 savings), Audi Q4 e-tron 40 Premium Plus ($5307 savings), Kia EV6 Wind AWD ($4611 savings), Nissan Ariya Engage FWD ($3544 savings), Hyundai Ioniq 6 SEL RWD ($3025 savings), Volvo XC40 Recharge Core ($2600 savings), Kia Niro EV Wind ($935 savings).
Interested in the Hyundai Ioniq 5? If you want to own it, buy it. We crunched the numbers on the on the 36-month Ioniq 5 SEL RWD lease, and with a lease-to-own cost of $54,801, it would take $3465 more to possess after three years compared to taking out a 72-month loan at 6% with $5647 down. The Ioniq 5 lease suffers from a high money factor that translates to 7.7% APR, a relatively high 61% residual, and a $7500 lease incentive that is no better than the rebate on a purchase.
Want a VW ID.4? Well, those seeking ownership that qualify for the full Federal EV tax rebate should be better off buying rather than leasing. For those that don’t qualify, it’s a wash, which is roughly the same story for the Ford Mustang Mach-E. As for the Ford F-150 Lightning, just buy it if you’re playing for keeps because the lease-to-own method on a 36-month lease, particularly on a Lariat that qualifies for a $7500 retail incentive on a purchase as well as the $7500 Federal EV tax rebate, could cost over $10,000 more than financing it.
How about a Model 3 or Model Y? Both have very compelling 36-month lease terms, but only for those that want to ditch the car after three years. Sadly, there is no option to buy out a recent Tesla lease.
As always, check our Electric Vehicle Best Price Guide and Best Electric Vehicle Lease Guide for the best deals on EVs in the US.
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At least 5 Waymo self-driving I-Pace electric cars were set on fire amid protests that turned violent in Los Angeles this weekend.
It could represent as much as 5% of Waymo’s fleet in Los Angeles being destroyed.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched several raids in the Los Angeles area last week that triggered large-scale protests across the city over the weekend.
The protests were mostly peaceful and aimed to bring attention to federal agents indiscriminately arresting and detaining people, but in some cases, they were violent clashes with the police.
Things took a turn for the worse with President Trump calling the National Guard.
There have been several instances of rioting, looting, and general property damage.
In a unique case, it appears that one or more rioters purposely called multiple Waymo vehicles to Arcadia and Alameda streets, where they slashed the vehicles’ tires, broke the windows, and wrote anti-ICE messages on them.
At around 5 PM on Sunday, the Waymo vehicles were set on fire:
With the ongoing protests, the fire department couldn’t get access to the vehicles and they eventually completely burned down:
Waymo is believed to be operating a fleet of about 100 self-driving cars in the Los Angeles area. Therefore, a significant percentage of the fleet was burned down today.
The company completes over 120,000 rides per week in California, but it operates a bigger fleet in the Bay Area and covers a big service area than in LA.
Waymo shouldn’t have too many issues replenishing its fleet, considering it recently acquired over 2,000 Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles to more than double its entire fleet over the next year.
The company currently operates over 1,500 vehicles across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
With a high utilization rate, the relatively small fleet has already taken significant market shares of those ride-hailing markets. It is estimated that Waymo accounts for approximately 20% of the ride-hailing market in San Francisco.
The new vehicles are going to enable Waymo to expand into new markets.
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Environment
‘Bitcoin Family’ hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings
The Taihuttus on a ski trip to Sierra Nevada in southern Spain. They sold everything they owned in 2017 to bet on bitcoin — and now travel full-time as a family of five.
Didi Taihuttu
A wave of high-profile kidnappings targeting cryptocurrency executives has rattled the industry — and prompted a quiet security revolution among some of its most visible evangelists.
Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of the so-called “Bitcoin Family,” said he overhauled the family’s entire security setup after a string of threats.
The Taihuttus — who sold everything they owned in 2017, from their house to their shoes, to go all-in on bitcoin when it was trading around $900 — have long lived on the outer edge of crypto ideology. They travel full-time with their three daughters and remain entirely unbanked.
Over the past eight months, he said, the family ditched hardware wallets in favor of a hybrid system: Part analog, part digital, with seed phrases encrypted, split, and stored either through blockchain-based encryption services or hidden across four continents.
“We have changed everything,” Taihuttu told CNBC on a call from Phuket, Thailand. “Even if someone held me at gunpoint, I can’t give them more than what’s on my wallet on my phone. And that’s not a lot.”
CNBC first reported on the family’s unconventional storage system in 2022, when Taihuttu described hiding hardware wallets across multiple continents — in places ranging from rental apartments in Europe to self-storage units in South America.
The Taihuttu family dressed up for Halloween in Phuket, Thailand, where they recently moved homes after receiving disturbing messages pinpointing their location from YouTube videos.
Didi Taihuttu
As physical attacks on crypto holders become more frequent, even they are rethinking their exposure.
This week, Moroccan police arrested a 24-year-old suspected of orchestrating a series of brutal kidnappings targeting crypto executives.
One victim, the father of a crypto millionaire, was allegedly held for days in a house south of Paris — and reportedly had a finger severed during the ordeal.
In a separate case earlier this year, a co-founder of French wallet firm Ledger and his wife were abducted from their home in central France in a ransom scheme that also targeted another Ledger executive.
Last month in New York, authorities said, a 28-year-old Italian tourist was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days in a Manhattan apartment by attackers trying to extract his bitcoin password — shocking him with wires, beating him with a gun, and strapping an Apple AirTag around his neck to track his movements.
The common thread: The pursuit of crypto credentials that enable instant, irreversible transfers of virtual assets.
“It is definitely frightening to see a lot of these kidnappings happen,” said JP Richardson, CEO of crypto wallet company Exodus. He urged users to take security into their own hands by choosing self-custody, storing larger sums on hardware wallets, and — for those holding significant assets — exploring multi-signature wallets, a setup typically used by institutions.
Richardson also recommended spreading funds across different wallet types and avoiding large balances in hot wallets to reduce risk without sacrificing flexibility.
That rising sense of vulnerability is fueling a new demand for physical protection with insurance firms now racing to offer kidnap and ransom (K&R) policies tailored to crypto holders.
But Taihuttu isn’t waiting for corporate solutions. He’s opted for complete decentralization — of not just his finances, but his personal risk profile.
As the family prepares to return to Europe from Thailand, safety has become a constant topic of conversation.
“We’ve been talking about it a lot as a family,” Taihuttu said. “My kids read the news, too — especially that story in France, where the daughter of a CEO was almost kidnapped on the street.”
Now, he said, his daughters are asking difficult questions: What if someone tries to kidnap us? What’s the plan?
One of the steel plates the Taihuttu family uses to store part of their bitcoin seed phrase. Didi etched it by hand using a hammer and letter punch — part of a decentralized storage system spread across four continents.
Didi Taihuttu
Though the girls carry only small amounts of crypto in their personal wallets, the family has decided to avoid France entirely.
“We got a little bit famous in a niche market — but that niche is becoming a really big market now,” Taihuttu said. “And I think we’ll see more and more of these robberies. So yeah, we’re definitely going to skip France.”
Even in Thailand, Taihuttu recently stopped posting travel updates and filming at home after receiving disturbing messages from strangers who claimed to have identified his location from YouTube vlogs.
“We stayed in a very beautiful house for six months — then I started getting emails from people who figured out which house it was. They warned me to be careful, told me not to leave my kids alone,” he said. “So we moved. And now we don’t film anything at all.”
“It’s a strange world at the moment,” he said. “So we’re taking our own precautions — and when it comes to wallets, we’re now completely hardware wallet-less. We don’t use any hardware wallets anymore.”
To throw off would-be attackers, Didi Taihuttu encrypts select words from each 24-word seed phrase — then splits the phrases into four sets of six and hides them around the world.
Didi Taihuttu
The family’s new system involves splitting a single 24-word bitcoin seed phrase — the cryptographic key that unlocks access to their crypto holdings — into four sets of six words, each stored in a different geographic location. Some are kept digitally through blockchain-based encryption platforms, while others are etched by hand into fireproof steel plates using a hammer and letter punch, then hidden in physical locations across four continents.
“Even if someone finds 18 of the 24 words, they can’t do anything,” Taihuttu explained.
On top of that, he’s added a layer of personal encryption, swapping out select words to throw off would-be attackers. The method is simple, but effective.
“You only need to remember which ones you changed,” he said.
Part of the reason for ditching hardware wallets, Taihuttu said, was a growing mistrust of third-party devices. Concerns about backdoors and remote access features — including a controversial update by Ledger in 2023 — prompted the family to abandon physical hardware altogether in favor of encrypted paper and steel backups.
While the family still holds some crypto in “hot” wallets — for daily spending or to run their algorithmic trading strategy — those funds are protected by multi-signature approvals, which require multiple parties to sign off before a transaction can be executed.
The Taihuttus use Safe — formerly Gnosis Safe — for ether and other altcoins, and similarly layered setups for bitcoin stored on centralized platforms like Bybit.
Didi Taihuttu during a recent visit to Sierra Nevada, Spain. The family’s lifestyle — unbanked, nomadic, and all-in on bitcoin — makes them outliers even in the crypto world.
Didi Taihuttu
About 65% of the family’s crypto is locked in cold storage across four continents — a decentralized system Taihuttu prefers to centralized vaults like the Swiss Alps bunker used by Coinbase-owned Xapo. Those facilities may offer physical protection and inheritance services, but Taihuttu said they require too much trust.
“What happens if one of those companies goes bankrupt? Will I still have access?” he said. “You’re putting your capital back in someone else’s hands.”
Instead, Taihuttu holds his own keys — hidden across the globe. He can top up the wallets remotely with new deposits, but accessing them would require at least one international trip, depending on which fragments of the seed phrase are needed. The funds, he added, are intended as a long-term pension to be accessed only if bitcoin hits $1 million — a milestone he’s targeting for 2033.
The shift toward multiparty protections extends beyond just multi-signature. Multi-party computation, or MPC, is gaining traction as a more advanced security model.
Didi, Romaine, and their three daughters live largely off-grid, managing crypto through decentralized exchanges, algorithmic trading bots, and a globally distributed cold storage system.
Didi Taihuttu
Instead of storing private keys in one place — a vulnerability known as a “single point of compromise” — MPC splits a key into encrypted shares distributed across multiple parties. Transactions can only go through when a threshold number of those parties approve, sharply reducing the risk of theft or unauthorized access.
Multi-signature wallets require several parties to approve a transaction. MPC takes that further by cryptographically splitting the private key itself, ensuring that no single individual ever holds the full key — not even their own complete share.
The shift comes amid renewed scrutiny of centralized crypto platforms like Coinbase, which recently disclosed a data breach affecting tens of thousands of customers.
Taihuttu, for his part, says 80% of his trading now happens on decentralized exchanges like Apex — a peer-to-peer platform that allows users to set buy and sell orders without relinquishing custody of their funds, marking a return to crypto’s original ethos.
While he declined to reveal his total holdings, Taihuttu did share his goal for the current bull cycle: a $100 million net worth, with 60% still held in bitcoin. The rest is a mix of ether, layer-1 tokens like solana, link, sui, and a growing number of AI and education-focused startups — including his own platform offering blockchain and life-skills courses for kids.
Lately, he’s also considering stepping back from the spotlight.
“It’s really my passion to create content. It’s really what I love to do every day,” he said. “But if it’s not safe anymore for my daughters … I really need to think about them.”
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