[US Only] Optimizing EV Ownership: My Macan 4S Lease-to-Buy Story

[SteveInKirkland]

I'm curious how the future is going to value our Macan EV's. We have 2 advantages - we received the $7,500 green credit in our lease, and didn't get hit with tariffs. ($3-4k), we might be in a neutral or slightly rightside-up position compared to a person who wants to buy a Macan EV this fall who receives neither.

That's ~$11,000 we received that they will not.

This is a real thing. My insurance company and I are currently discussing cost-of-replacement insurance for the car (my policy renews in August) and the dealership has estimated it at $16k more than I paid for a 2024 for an identical spec new car.

Sponsored

 

[TeslaHater]

While leasing, and then buying shortly thereafter is an interesting strategy and one that that I also considered, albeit briefly, the notion of owning a luxury EV is not something I'd care to do:

I'll be leasing when my car arrives mid August (no tariffs, confirmed yesterday- I got lucky based on my order date). Dealer knocked off about $4,000 in good faith. I'll also get the $7,500.

But I realized that EV's, and especially luxury EV's are not something you want ownership of - even luxury EV's are nothing more than appliances. In 5 years the technology in the chips, AI looming (Tesla is getting AI/Grok in their cars next week), battery technology in the form of range (the Chinese have almost finalized a battery that charges 60% in 5 minutes) will quadruple. Five years ago range was 205 miles in Volvos, VW, Audi, etc. Now Rivian has over 400m. Nvidia chips, etc...

Not to mention we would be buying a first model year of a product that isn't sorted, completely. As much as Porsche road tests for years, they will have niggles. (learn from the Taycan).

Additionally, Porsche VW Group wanted to have to Macan running on Cariad 2.0 before release. It's been in development for years. But in the end stayed with v1.2. Future Macan's will be running 2.0 and that's not something you'll get as an update - you'll need new hardware.

I cannot be fully invested in a year-1 Macan EV. I'll lease the car for 24-36 months. I'll need that exit strategy with all the future unknowns.

If this were an Ioniq 5 or similar, that would be different. The residual would be $19k and you could sell it to a neighbors kid who just go their license. A used Macan EV with a used $55,000 residual is unmarketable. Nobody buys $55k used EV's. We're stuck with that elephant.

Thank you for a thoughtful response. Leasing has always worked better for folks who like to keep the car for a short period of time and I think that holds true for EVs as well. While the depreciation hit is definitely higher for EVs, I also can't imagine getting almost 15% off out of door price on any other Porsche's and that would definitely help negate some of that mega depreciation hit that EVs take. I plan on keeping this car for atleast 4 and preferably 6 years - while EV tech is definitely going to be much better during this time, I don't think I will FOMO as I am really happy with the car I have on hand today.
My expectation is that end of 5 years, the car will be worth $35k - and at that price, I am still coming out way ahead compared to the lease cost as Porsche's rent charges were very high.

 

[ColdCase]

... (Tesla is getting AI/Grok in their cars next week),...

Didn't I just read that AI/Gook makes things up, is not correct 20% of the time and misleading another 50%. If you are depending on it ,and not cross checking, you are kidding yourself. Doesn't seem to be a feature to me, perhaps a marketing thing to sway the naive... not the Tesla would do that.... Their team of AI bots filling the interweb with FUD are clever, however.

 

[Station]

Didn't I just read that AI/Gook makes things up, is not correct 20% of the time and misleading another 50%. If you are depending on it ,and not cross checking, you are kidding yourself. Doesn't seem to be a feature to me, perhaps a marketing thing to sway the naive... not the Tesla would do that.... Their team of AI bots filling the interweb with FUD are clever, however.

100%. But the point was not to like Grok, but rather to illustrate that tech advances hyperbolically in EV's.

 

[pdealessandrini1930]

I'm curious how the future is going to value our Macan EV's. We have 2 advantages - we received the $7,500 green credit in our lease, and didn't get hit with tariffs. ($3-4k), we might be in a neutral or slightly rightside-up position compared to a person who wants to buy a Macan EV this fall who receives neither.

That's ~$11,000 we received that they will not.

Hi to all.

the movie reel is still rolling.

I love and agree with instinctual views about the $11k we got others won’t after 30/Sept.

I’ve learned the hard way that market forces can and often pop up and we remain “holding the keys to a beautiful vehicle” that suddenly gets broadsided out of left field.

Being a Porsche fanatic I put on side blinders.

while waiting 2 years for Porsche to learn how to debug software issues in Taycand I drove my factory ordered 2021 Macan S on weekends and separately bought my “commuter” also factory ordered. It was a loaded Ford Mach E AWD and stupidly paid $6k for the 300+ mi extended battery pack option. $60k all in.

I drove it to work 5x/week. Exactly 29k miles trouble free over exactly 2 years. At 15k the tire rotation and brake pads/rotores inspection only cost $150 at the dealership!

At delivery in Oct/2024 of my Long awaited specifically ordered Macan 4 I was shocked.

Tesla began discounting their cars. Ford replied by discounting new Mach E across all models.

Ford dealers would NOT take my car i. Trade not buy it to flip it.

I wholesaled it through my Porsche Dealer delivering my Macan. Our dealers take I. All brands when buy Porsches. So he helped me. I got $28k after 24months and 29k miles. It was worth more like $35 2 months earlier before Tesla started EV price wars.

needleas to say I was not happy with the ford dealer network’s lack of collaboration. Same dealer I bought pick ups and Broncos and other cars for daughters and wife over 20 years. They were jammed. Loyalty didn’t matter.

I love Porsche but I also know that Porsche sales are down globally. They are hurting. It is the financial press repeatedly last several months. They even pushed CFO and other leadership out.

dealers are offering some discounts on new. Being in a tough EV market across brands I’m not sure where used values will be in Oct 2025.

FYI my car trade in appears to be headed to $66-$68k in July. Let’s see in Oct with more miles vs my $70k buy out. ??

Sponsored