2023 Prime Lease

At least in California, Toyota is offering leasing deals where it's cheaper to lease a Prime than a regular Prius. Has anyone taken advantage of this yet? If so, can you post the details like the money factor, buyout costs, etc

 

Seems so on the face of it, but I got the numbers from another dealer and it ended up being just as expensive as if I financed it. Waiting for my sales guy to come back with his numbers in the next couple days.

 

Hoping it's just a fluke and Toyota is passing on the savings so I can take advantage of it. I'll find out soon enough if no one else has done it

 

Sent a screenshot of the deal on Toyotas website. It's also possible they made a mistake. I hope it was a mistake.

 

The numbers I got back are terrible. Sure the lease is cheaper than the regular Prius but here's the approximate numbers I got back from my sales guy:

$1860 down
$443/mo base lease payment plus $112 tax/mo
.00164 money factor
Lease end buyout is $22210

Total is an eye watering $44k total for a base Prius Prime SE for ~$34k before TTL

 

On the face of it, it seems like Toyotas leasing arm passes on a portion of the $7500 tax credit loophole available for leases, which is why the Prime although ~$5000 more expensive has a slightly cheaper lease payment than the regular Prius, which is why I wanted to look deeper into it.

 

Point is I'll be sticking with my original plan and just financing it.

 

36/12 for lease. Lease payments were going to be around $560/mo after taxes.
Finance at 5.49 for 72/mo is $572 mo for a $35k loan. Total cost would be $41,160 if I kept the car till the end of the loan, plus the $2800 I'd have to pay out of pocket which makes it the same final cost as the lease.

If desirable cars and sports car continue being scarce and values stay high/over MSRP, I will keep rotating my daily driver every year or two. In this case, it's much more beneficial to go the purchase route because if the car unfortunately gets totalled out, you would be paid the market value sans loan remaining. I helped a family member secure a Toyota hybrid, less than a year later it got totalled due to a red light runner and they pocketed $10k in profit due to the high market value and because insurance pays you back everything including taxes and any registration fees you've recently paid. They used that profit to help purchase the 2nd Toyota Hybrid I secured for them.

If it were leased, you wouldn't get the money you put down, nor the payments you've made since technically you're just a car renter.

I was willing to take the gamble if somehow at the end of the lease, the final cost would be minus the $5k saved up front with the cheaper lease payments. But the numbers don't work out that way, and I'm a total newb to leases.