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Leaf Lease Matures in April. What to do till X comes?

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I'm a signature in the 200s. Right now I drive a Nissan Leaf, and I must return it in mid April. I could extend my lease another year, or I could rent a car for however many months it takes to get the X. Naturally, I had assumed I'd have the X at the latest by April when I initiated the lease with the Leaf. The Leaf is $200/month, and Hertz is at least $500/month. Or maybe other options I'm not thinking of? I'm slowly going mad with the paltry amount of information available on the impending X.
 
I'm not against a car for the short term, but when I buy a Tesla it will be for the long term due to the higher price. There are two reasons why I'm not in the market for the S. First it doesn't suit our needs, I need room for 3 toddlers minimum + additional room for adults would be nice. Second, my wife wants to sit higher up like in an SUV. I've never liked SUVs until I saw the X, and now that I've seen it, I wouldn't consider anything else for the aforementioned reasons. The S will probably have better range and that will be an unfortunate sacrifice I will make.
 
I'm not against a car for the short term, but when I buy a Tesla it will be for the long term due to the higher price. There are two reasons why I'm not in the market for the S. First it doesn't suit our needs, I need room for 3 toddlers minimum + additional room for adults would be nice. Second, my wife wants to sit higher up like in an SUV. I've never liked SUVs until I saw the X, and now that I've seen it, I wouldn't consider anything else for the aforementioned reasons. The S will probably have better range and that will be an unfortunate sacrifice I will make.

The S is pretty big, but if you put the rear facing seats in then all you have left for cargo room is the frunk... I have 3 kids and we're expecting twins within the next week weeks so our Model S is going to see less use in the future. Up until now we've done everything with the car except take it camping.

Perhaps you could take over a lease for something that expires later this year? Or look for a beater to drive around for a few months?
 
You could help me out. We have a 2012 Nissan Leaf which has a lease end date of March 28, 2016. We don't drive it anymore since my wife/I commute together in our 2014 Tesla that I bought 2 months ago. We still occasionally need a second car, but very rarely. The Leaf will work for that occasion, but we'd just as soon get out of it. I have the car up on SwapALease right now. :)

But obviously if you were going to do that, you'd prob just extend the lease on your existing car. Based on the data I've heard, and at the low $200mo payment, you're prob just best off to do that (extend existing lease). Or, check out LeaseTrader and SwapALease sites-- you could pick up a short-term lease for an SUV to tide you over.
 
You can't really base it on the chance that the X will be there when you want, especially if you don't have a reservation yet.
If the Leaf works for you now then the S will be even better until the X eventually gets here.
But if its a temporary car, then look at an inventory or CPO Model S so you don't get stung by the first year depreciation.
When you can eventually get an X then trade in the S - but at least you get to drive around in an S instead of the Leaf :smile:
 
Seems like the obvious thing to do is the 1 year extension on the lease. Presumably that continues the $200/month payment that you're carrying right now. My Sig # is 184 - I figure that with luck, I'd be taking delivery in late summer (September), with fall much more likely. Admittedly we'll both be early on in the production sequence, but anybody who tells you that they know when first delivery will occur, or what the production rate will be (from which you could project your own deliver), that isn't in the form of an official Tesla statement good for public investors to use as facts for investing purposes, is just making stuff up :) (Like me, above when I included my personal estimate of when I hope to see Model X - making stuff up).

Another way to look at it - 1 year @ $200/month is $2400. Month to month rental at $500/month only needs 5 months to roughly break even. That means somewhere in July or August of monthly reservations is when you break even by avoiding the year of lease, and after that you're losing money. Keeping the lease for the full year makes it look likely that you'll have the Model X well before the lease is up. From there you can look at options to get out of the lease early. You can also view the Leaf as a second EV for other family purposes, even if it's not being used frequently. Since the Leaf is effectively free (lease/rental payments) starting sometime in the Summer...
 
You can also view the Leaf as a second EV for other family purposes, even if it's not being used frequently. Since the Leaf is effectively free (lease/rental payments) starting sometime in the Summer...

That is basically what we did with our whole car situation. We are going to net enough Federal tax refund to pay off the wife's Lease till end, making the car basically a paid for unit (more or less) (granted we'll probably apply the funds to other things, but that was my personal logic). I think the Leaf will prove worthwhile too since once you get the Model X you may want to keep miles low on it-- since once the Leaf is gone, you'll want to drive the X all the time haha! G'luck!
 
Seems like the obvious thing to do is the 1 year extension on the lease. Presumably that continues the $200/month payment that you're carrying right now. My Sig # is 184 - I figure that with luck, I'd be taking delivery in late summer (September), with fall much more likely. Admittedly we'll both be early on in the production sequence, but anybody who tells you that they know when first delivery will occur, or what the production rate will be (from which you could project your own deliver), that isn't in the form of an official Tesla statement good for public investors to use as facts for investing purposes, is just making stuff up :) (Like me, above when I included my personal estimate of when I hope to see Model X - making stuff up).

Another way to look at it - 1 year @ $200/month is $2400. Month to month rental at $500/month only needs 5 months to roughly break even. That means somewhere in July or August of monthly reservations is when you break even by avoiding the year of lease, and after that you're losing money. Keeping the lease for the full year makes it look likely that you'll have the Model X well before the lease is up. From there you can look at options to get out of the lease early. You can also view the Leaf as a second EV for other family purposes, even if it's not being used frequently. Since the Leaf is effectively free (lease/rental payments) starting sometime in the Summer...

Thanks all and adiggs, this seems to be the most logical to me as well. I think I'll wait to renew the lease until the last possible moment, in the hopes that some official communication will reveal an early summer production, allowing me to end the lease. Perhaps wishful thinking but I can't stop myself....

Philip
 
I have the same problem and we have decided to purchase a new LEAF in June when our lease is up (and the Georgia $5k tax credit is still in effect), then instead of replacing the LEAF with Model X, sell our ICE that we own outright instead. That way I don't have to worry about timing a lease and we end up eventually as a two EV family. I would love to replace the LEAF with a Model S instead, but then I'd likely owe as much in car debt as we do on our house, and that just doesn't seem logical.
 
I'm in a similar situation with a LEAF lease ending on February 28th. I'm holding out for the Model 3 instead of Model X though, and my solution was to buy a Tesla Roadster in the interim. :) Not a single regret haha.

Now THAT is a solution I can get behind (we found a used Roadster that's tided us over quite well the last 2 years, awaiting Model X :))

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks all and adiggs, this seems to be the most logical to me as well. I think I'll wait to renew the lease until the last possible moment, in the hopes that some official communication will reveal an early summer production, allowing me to end the lease. Perhaps wishful thinking but I can't stop myself....

Philip

Well, now we have Tesla reporting in the quarterly earnings statement that Model X will be shipping in 6 months. We still don't know the ramp rate - is it 100 cars/week the first month? If yes, then you and I have our cars built in week 2 or 3 of Model X production. And if the first month is more like 20 cars/week, then we've got more like 2-3 months of waiting after first shipments. Given that we order ~instantly when the opportunity arises.

I'm still thinking the lease extension is the worry free approach. Especially if you're a 2+ car household, and the Leaf extension lets you sell off an ICE vehicle when Model X arrives. You'll be an all electric household in no time! (assuming that matters to you :))
 
I'm a signature in the 200s. Right now I drive a Nissan Leaf, and I must return it in mid April. I could extend my lease another year, or I could rent a car for however many months it takes to get the X. Naturally, I had assumed I'd have the X at the latest by April when I initiated the lease with the Leaf. The Leaf is $200/month, and Hertz is at least $500/month. Or maybe other options I'm not thinking of? I'm slowly going mad with the paltry amount of information available on the impending X.

Your mileage may vary, but when I called to extend the lease on MY Nissan LEAF, they were willing to let me extend it on a month-by-month basis without any additional charges or whatever. So I'm now month-to-month on the LEAF, possibly waiting on an X for my wife.
 
Similar problem, I'm driving a BMW X5 now with nearly 160k miles. I'm nervous as heck that it won't handle the 8K-10K miles I wil out on it while waiting for the MX. Dumping $10k into some big repair bill will be a complete waste of money. I've even considered trading it and an old pickup in for a new pickup. (The MX is going to be a great vehicle but it's not a pickup.) Somehow though, the idea of buying two new vehicles in 6 months, one of them a Tesla, seems a bit garish.

BTW, Philip & adiggs, seems like we may be meeting up at some point with our reservation numbers so close. Maybe we will get more details in the earnings call this week. Hope to see you both at a big reveal in June, then pick up our cars in August!
 
If you call the leasing people at Nissan they will probably offer two months free with your one-year extension, which is month-to-month (so you can end it early, if necessary). This worked out very well for me, since my Leaf's 2-year lease ends in July and I have an X reserved.