[CNBCで英語学習！]米国でのEV販売低迷とリース価格低下の現状とは？[11分動画]

Automakers are having a hard time selling EVs. Incentives have risen dramatically, and some of the sweetest deals can be found not in buying a car but leasing it. It's basically a long-term rental that you don't have to worry about reselling later. There are almost no concerns about maintenance. Monthly payments are low, and a loophole allows you to get a subsidy on an EV that wouldn't otherwise be eligible if you bought it.

While that might seem great for cash-starved Americans and for EV adoption in general, used EV prices have tanked. Boosting volume through leases risks pushing prices down even further. There's just so much happening that automakers cannot predict the vehicle's value with a high level of accuracy. This could hurt the segment and the companies that make EVs in the long run.

EV Lease Prices: A Closer Look

Barclays analyst Dan Levy estimates that in May 2024, EV incentives, which are basically discounts, were 15 to 30% of the sticker price, significantly higher than the overall industry at 5 to 6%. This puts immense pressure on already tight and often negative EV margins. Tesla, which controls about 50% of the US EV market, was offering relatively low incentives on its Model 3, Model X, and Model S, but 13% on its top-selling Model Y, though that promotion ended June 1st. Incentives on EVs from legacy automakers were much higher. Mass-market EVs, meaning non-luxury cars, were discounted 25% off the original price. Incentives on a luxury EV, the Cadillac Lyriq from General Motors, hit what Levy called a surprisingly high value of $18,000, nearly a third off the sticker price. Automakers are trying to push discounts because EV demand is soft. You saw early on a lot of outright price cuts, much of this spurred by Tesla. But the elasticity of demand is probably not what some were hoping for, so they are resorting to other ways to discount, and leases are a key way.

While leases made up only about 23% of overall retail new vehicle sales in May 2024, they were about 35% of total EV purchases and close to 70% of EVs sold by dealerships. It's kind of a "kick the can down the road" problem where we know there's going to be a problem, and the question is, what are you going to do with it later? Certifying those vehicles, making them seem even more appealing, might help. Maybe bumping up residuals a little bit or buying consumer confidence, or maybe they'll just be so cheap they're easy to move.

Leasing Details and Consumer Considerations

A lease lasts for a few years, often three, but it can vary. Once you finish your term, you turn the car back in. There are options to buy out the lease if you want to. Monthly payments are usually lower than for a purchased car. There are, of course, stipulations, like limits on the number of miles you can drive, often 10,000 or 15,000 per year. That's usually negotiable at a cost at signing. However, going above your allowance is expensive, as much as $0.50 for every additional mile. You might also have to pay extra if you damage the car beyond normal wear and tear. But if you can stand that, you'll be driving a brand-new vehicle in mint condition that is less likely to give you problems. Any needed repairs are probably covered by warranty.

For the typical consumer out there, leasing is probably not a good product. It's a very specific type of buyer that would be interested in leasing, but there is a contingent out there for whom it works perfectly. A large portion are salespeople, who make business calls and write off their vehicle as part of their business expenses. You also don't have to worry about selling the vehicle when you want to get rid of it; drive it, and at the end of the term, turn it back in. Simple. Crucially for EVs, swapping out a car every few years is great for someone who likes to have the latest and greatest technology. The lower payments can also get you into a car that would be more expensive to buy. For example, leasing is far more popular in the luxury segment than in the mainstream. On average, EVs are still selling for about $9,000 more than the overall industry average.

This may not perfectly represent American attitudes, but a survey of a few thousand consumers considering an EV in France, the UK, and Germany found they were twice as likely to prefer a lease. There are fewer concerns around battery longevity or the car becoming obsolete as technology improves. Leasing is the natural way to get customers to try out a product when they are unwilling to spend $40,000 or $50,000 for something they have no idea will work for them or not.

In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act restricts the $7,500 tax credit on new EV purchases to cars made in the US, along with some other criteria. Leasing the vehicle offers a workaround that allows buyers of foreign-made EVs to reap the benefit of this credit too.

Current Lease Deals

Prices for EV leases have been extremely low as of June 24, 2024. Hyundai advertised a lease deal for its Ioniq 5, which to buy starts at $40,000, for $242 a month for 36 months, with about $3,500 due at signing and a 10,000-mile annual limit. That monthly payment is less than half the average lease payment for all cars in the US as of May. The Chevrolet Blazer EV, with a starting sticker price of about $50,000, can be leased for $369 a month for 24 months, again with a $1,679 upfront payment and a total 20,000-mile limit. Polestar, a luxury performance vehicle brand, offers a lease for $299.

Leasing: A Mixed Bag for Automakers

In general, leases are a mixed bag for automakers. You're better off having a customer buy and hold the vehicle because, with an extended length of time, they're going to have more repairs and reconditioning. On the other hand, leasing is a great way to "move metal," meaning getting more cars off lots, especially useful when inventories are high. While it is taking dealers longer to sell any kind of car, it's taking many more days to sell an EV compared with internal combustion vehicles and hybrids. Leasing is also a great way to get customers hooked on your brand. Loyalty rates for leasing are far higher than they are for purchases. The reason is simple: when you return your car to the dealership, you're providing the dealer with an immediate opportunity to put you in another car. Then the dealer sells the car you turn in the used market.

This is where the trouble is. Used EV prices fell 16% year-over-year in May 2024, compared with just 12% for internal combustion vehicles that same month. Leased EVs were expected to hold about 55% of their value, while ICE vehicles were expected to hold closer to 62%. Levy said in his report that current residual rates, what vehicles are expected to be worth after the end of the lease term, might even be optimistic. Next-gen EVs could be either available in just a few years or on the horizon. Flood the market with a bunch of leases, and what happens? You end up with poor residual values, creating a vicious cycle. You're going to kill your residuals. It's very hard to dig yourself out of that hole. It's hard to convince a consumer to buy one of your cars long-term and drive it until the wheels fall off because they think, "Oh, these cars are worthless in a couple of years."

Automakers using aggressively attractive leasing terms on EVs now could be deferring losses into the future. When those EVs come back to dealerships and have to be sold in a used market where prices are already dropping, they're going to only get worse because you have so many more that will be flooding the market. That's one out of every, it's like two-thirds or so, like a little over two-thirds of current EVs being sold at dealerships. Those vehicles are going to find their way back into the market in 2 or 3 years, and that is not going to do anything but hurt.

It's great for adoption purposes and great for consumers on the used end, but it might hurt pure-play EV companies like Tesla more than legacy automakers. For companies like GM or Ford, even if they are increasing discounts on EVs, the key thing to remember is that they are still at their core ICE vehicle manufacturers. So even if the EV demand is weak, there is a strong ICE profit stream to support the numbers. For Western OEMs, specifically in North America, EVs are still quite loss-making for Ford and GM. For instance, Ford is going to lose $5 to $5.5 billion on their EV unit this year. Just for context, the total business as a whole is $10 to $12 billion in profit this year. What that means is that excluding EVs, this is $16 billion in profit, and EVs are a $5 billion-plus drag. GM similarly doesn't break it out, but our math shows they lost $4.5 billion on their North America EV business last year. Excluding EV losses, it would have been closer to $18 billion in profit.

Is Leasing Smart?

The popularity of EV leasing is striking because many say it often isn't the smartest decision. On one hand, payments and interest rates are usually lower than what you would pay to finance a vehicle, but you don't actually own the car you are paying for, and you are paying for it when it is depreciating fastest. Cars lose about 40 to 50% of their value in the first three years of ownership, so a lessee is paying for all that depreciation only to turn around and hand the vehicle back in when it is near the bottom of its depreciation curve. Some advisers say the most financially sound move in the long run is to buy a car and drive it around until it is no longer worth repairing. Two back-to-back three-year leases will cost you more than purchasing a car. Usually, that's because cars can last a long time. The average age of the American fleet is nearly 13 years.

However, for this segment, the advantages for customers and the sheer need automakers have to move metal are outweighing the negatives. We've gone from an environment that was EV euphoria to an EV winter. EV euphoria was unlimited demand, capital markets willing to absorb losses, etc. Today, demand is facing a reset, and there is a challenge in pivoting from the early adopters to the early majority. The real question is how long can it last? Maybe in a year, you'll still get a decent EV lease, but two years from now, three years from now? Debatable.