“How I Leased a New EV for $0 Down and $0 per Month” (Car and Driver, December 2024):
During my morning scroll, I came upon news of a Denver dealer offering a Fiat 500e lease for $0 down and $0 a month. The minimal fine print said lessees had to be Colorado residents, which I am, and just had to cover the tax on this wee EV. I had to check it out.
The magic of this deal comes down to incentives. Because it’s a leased EV with an MSRP below $55,000, the car qualifies for the full $7500 federal tax credit regardless of battery mineral content or origin. Or rather, the leasing company qualifies for that credit, so the lessee’s personal income is irrelevant. This is the so-called leasing loophole. Colorado adds its own spiffs in the form of $5000 for a new EV, plug-in, or hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle, plus $600 if the vehicle is being financed or leased and an additional $2500 for cars with a sub-$35,000 MSRP. (The model eligible for this deal limbos under that bar at $34,095.) The $5000 state tax break ratchets down to $3500 on January 1, which is why the deal has a deadline of December 31, 2024. Uncertainty about the next administration’s stance on (non-Tesla) EVs provides a push, too.
All together, that’s $16,100 in credits, knocking the capitalized cost of the lease down to $17,995. I’d be on the hook for 4.5 percent tax on the original $34,095, but additional dealer-side coupons from Stellantis brought that down to $1205.50. If I choose to buy the car at the end of the term, it will cost me $17,388.45. I don’t expect that to happen.
Our family is in the laptop class. Could we get the working class to buy us a free car for use in Florida? No.
Because of Colorado’s unique tax-credit situation, the store rounded up as many unsold 2024s as it could find from across the country and slapped the deal on them. The car I ended up with was, coincidentally, originally delivered to the Fiat dealer down the road from C/D HQ in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I used to live.
Maybe a working class person behind on his/her/zir/their rent could get this deal too? No. It’s restricted to the “reasonably elite”:
A funny formality: They still had to run a credit check to confirm my ability to (not) pay.
Was that the end of the river of cash for the happy journalist?
I get my choice between a free Level 2 home charging station or $600 in charging credits, either of which will offset about half of my initial outlay. I opted for the hardware since I don’t plan to stray too far from home with this little Italian job. There’s also the incremental cost of adding a car to insurance as well as registration and plates, but you can’t get around those. So all in all, I’m paying less than $50 per month in taxes. Not bad.
(The “taxes” described might be more properly considered a user fee for the roads on which the car will be driven.)
What about your range anxiety? Load up on Xanax! From the Fiat USA web site:
I.e., the taxpayer-funded deal makes sense only for those rich enough to already own a long-range electric or gasoline-powered car. It transfers money from people who can barely afford one car to those who can afford to keep at least two. Merry Christmas to the elites, indeed!
Donald Trump, 2014: “I hope we never find life on another planet because if we do there’s no doubt that the United States will start sending them money!”
Related:
- “Transferism, Not Socialism, Is the Drug Americans Are Hooked On” (fee.org)
- How to get a free car: lease an electric car (but sadly, not a Tesla) (this blog, 2015, about California shifting money from working class electricity buyers to subsidize homeowners)
- Middle class Californians pay for all Tesla owners’ electricity (2019 follow-up)
- a plug-in hybrid with 32 miles of electric range that a homeowner Coloradan was offered at $59/month ($700/year more than the pure electric 500e); screen shot below
Never be envious of someone driving a Fiat. Free is still too high a price.