Lease vs Buy a Chevy Equinox EV: 3-Year Lease or 5-Year Loan When a $28,350 Ford Fathom Is Coming in 2027
If you're deciding whether to lease or buy a Chevy Equinox EV right now, here's the short answer: it comes down to one number you can't see yet, which is what the car will be worth in three years. In the example below (a $35,000 Equinox EV, 12,000 miles a year, 14¢/kWh power), buying wins if the car is worth more than about $19,000 at month 36. Leasing wins if it's worth less. The fuel savings are real, about $676 a year in this example, but they're small next to a $7,000 swing in resale value.
I own an EV and a gas truck, so I'll tell you where the math favors each. This week's EV news makes the resale question harder to answer, so let's start there.
What this week's EV headlines mean if you're about to sign something
Equinox EV sales fell 92% in Q3. Electrek reports that the Equinox EV's run as GM's top-selling electric car is ending, with Cadillac's SUVs taking the lead. The summary doesn't say why. I won't guess whether it's demand, supply, or a tough comparison quarter. A model whose volume collapses can mean a thinner used market later. It can also mean a dealer who wants to move inventory. Ask for the lease residual and the best cash price, and compare them.
A $28,350 Ford Fathom may be coming. Electrek says Ford's Fathom EV pickup is expected to go on sale in early 2027, starting at $28,350. CEO Jim Farley admitted, "It's going to be a heck of an effort to launch this at scale, at cost, on time." Electrek also covered a new interactive tool tracking US manufacturing projects that have been cancelled, stalled, delayed, or lost support. I'm not weighing in on why. The neutral buyer takeaway is that an EV's "coming soon" date is a range, not a date.
BMW is adding a cheaper Neue Klasse. Electrek says BMW is joining the growing list of luxury brands planning an entry-level EV, and it will be the most affordable Neue Klasse. The summary gives no price, so I'm not putting one on it.
Europe's residual values are murkier than the headline. CleanTechnica's piece on residual values in Europe says battery EVs appear at first sight to hold lower residual values than other powertrains. It also says that headline gap is partly driven by temporary factors. That's European data, so don't paste it onto a US lease quote. It does warn against two lazy beliefs: "EVs always lose value faster" and "it'll all even out."
My inference, which the articles don't claim, is that more cheaper EVs arriving over the next few years means more competition for used-EV buyers. I can't put a dollar figure on that. It's the reason leasing is a more serious option for EVs than it is for a Corolla.
The example: a $35,000 Equinox EV at 12,000 miles a year
These inputs are illustrative assumptions, not quotes. Swap in your own.
- Price: $35,000 negotiated, no federal credit, no state rebate
- Efficiency: 3.0 miles per kWh including charging losses
- Power: 14¢/kWh at home, 30¢ at public Level 2, 45¢ at DC fast
- Gas comparison: a 30 mpg gas SUV at $3.40/gallon
- Mix: 90% home charging, 10% DC fast
| Fuel scenario | Cost per mile | Cost per year (12,000 mi) |
|---|---|---|
| Home charging at 14¢/kWh | 4.7¢ | $560 |
| 90% home + 10% DC fast at 45¢ | 5.7¢ | $684 |
| 100% public Level 2 at 30¢ | 10.0¢ | $1,200 |
| 100% DC fast at 45¢ | 15.0¢ | $1,800 |
| Gas SUV, 30 mpg at $3.40 | 11.3¢ | $1,360 |
The gas car costs $1,360 a year in fuel. The 90/10 EV blend saves $676 a year, or $2,028 over three years. Public Level 2 alone saves only $160 a year. Living on DC fast charging alone costs $440 a year more than gas. An EV is only cheap to run if most of your charging happens on cheap electrons.
This is the kind of analysis Celvari runs for you, using your electricity rate and local gas price, so you don't have to build the spreadsheet yourself.
Lease vs buy: the break-even is a resale number
Lease terms (example): 36 months, $0 due at signing, 12,000 miles a year, a lessor residual of 55% ($19,250), and a money factor of 0.0025 (about 6% APR).
- Depreciation: ($35,000 − $19,250) ÷ 36 = $437.50 a month
- Rent charge: ($35,000 + $19,250) × 0.0025 = $135.63 a month
- Payment: about $573 a month, or $20,633 over 36 months
Buy terms (example): $35,000 financed for 60 months at 6%, about $677 a month.
- After 36 payments you've paid $24,359 and still owe about $15,270
- Interest paid so far is about $4,630
- Net cost to buy and sell at month 36 is $35,000 + $4,630 − sale price, or $39,627 minus the sale price
The only unknown is the sale price:
| Market value at month 36 | Sale price | Net cost to buy and sell | Lease cost | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60% of price | $21,000 | $18,627 | $20,633 | Buy wins by $2,006 |
| 55% | $19,250 | $20,377 | $20,633 | Basically a tie |
| 50% | $17,500 | $22,127 | $20,633 | Lease wins by $1,494 |
| 45% | $15,750 | $23,877 | $20,633 | Lease wins by $3,244 |
| 40% | $14,000 | $25,627 | $20,633 | Lease wins by $4,994 |
The break-even sale price is about $18,994, roughly 54% of the sticker. It lands near the lessor's 55% residual because the loan rate and the lease money factor are about equal in this example. The lease is a loan on the part of the car you use, and the residual is the lessor's bet on the rest.
At 40%, the car sells for $14,000 while your loan balance is $15,270. You'd owe about $1,270 out of pocket just to hand over the keys.
Three caveats:
- Buyout rights. Many lessors let you buy the car at the contract residual. If the car is worth more than the residual, that recovers most of the upside in the table's "buy wins" rows. Ask about buyout fees, sales tax on the buyout, and whether third-party buyouts are blocked.
- Fees move the break-even. Every dollar of acquisition and disposition fees on a lease quote lowers the break-even sale price by a dollar, which makes buying look better.
- Mileage. If you drive 15,000 miles a year on a 12,000-mile lease, you'll pay for 9,000 extra miles over three years. At an example overage rate of 25¢ a mile, that's $2,250.
You can model this for your specific situation at Celvari: your miles, your rate, and your lessor's actual residual.
The residual swing is bigger than the fuel savings
Between the 60% and 40% scenarios, the resale value of the same car moves by $7,000. Three years of fuel savings in the example total $2,028, so the resale swing is about 3.5 times the fuel savings. Most EV-vs-gas arguments obsess over per-mile cost and ignore depreciation, but depreciation is the bigger variable. That's why I'd put your time into comparing lessor residuals and used-car listings before you argue about 14¢ versus 16¢ power.
What about battery degradation?
A 3-year lease passes battery risk back to the lessor. If you buy and keep the car, you carry it, and your future buyer prices it into the resale value that drives the table above. I'm using 2% a year capacity loss as a placeholder, not a quoted figure. Geotab and Recurrent both publish real-world fleet data, and I'd use their latest numbers over any manufacturer claim. On an example real-world range of 250 miles, 2% a year is about 15 fewer miles at year 3 and about 25 fewer at year 5. That's an inconvenience, not a catastrophe. For deeper data, see our Chevy Silverado EV battery degradation and warranty breakdown, which covers the same Ultium battery family.
If you can't charge at home, rerun everything
The table's $676 savings assumes 90% home charging. If you rent an apartment and rely on public Level 2 at 30¢/kWh, the savings fall to $160 a year, and that's before the time cost of charging away from home. At that point the residual gamble is almost the whole decision. We worked through that case in Chevy Equinox EV vs Toyota RAV4 with no home charging. My advice is to confirm charging access before you compare lease payments.
Incentives: leasing no longer gets you a federal pass-through
The federal $7,500 new-EV credit is gone for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. The commercial credit that let lessors pass savings through on leases ended with it, so my example has no federal line. State programs still exist, and eligibility is where people get tripped up. Before you count any rebate, check four things:
- Is it paid to a buyer, a lessee, or both?
- Is there a minimum lease term?
- Are there income or MSRP caps?
- Is it applied at the dealer, or do you claim it later?
Subtract any rebate you qualify for from the purchase side, or from the lease cap cost, and re-run the table. Our post on which state rebates replace the federal credit walks through how those stack up.
Should you wait for the Fathom or the cheaper BMW?
If you're replacing a gas car, waiting six months forgoes about $340 of fuel savings in my example ($676 ÷ 2). That's cheap if the wait gets you a better deal. But the Fathom is a pickup with a "starting at" price of $28,350, which is $6,650 below my example SUV. It's a different vehicle, and Farley himself flagged the launch risk. If your current car is dying, waiting is a gamble. If it's fine, waiting is a low-cost option.
A 36-month lease also dodges the problem: you hand the car back before the cheaper entrants have had time to reprice the used market. And if you're asking whether a used EV beats both options, our used 2023 Chevy Bolt vs Toyota Corolla math shows what it looks like when someone else eats the first three years of depreciation.
A decision shortcut
- Lease if your life will change in 3 years (growing kids, job move), if you stay under the mileage cap, if you're unsure about resale, or if the lessor's residual is above what comparable used EVs actually sell for.
- Buy if you'll keep it 6 or more years, drive well over 12,000 miles, or can get a buyout-friendly deal and don't mind carrying the resale risk.
- Buy used if you want to skip the steepest depreciation and can charge at home.
- Do neither yet if you can't charge at home and public Level 2 is your only option, until the math at your local rates shows a clear win.
For a family comparison with a real lease-vs-buy table, see our Kia EV9 lease vs buy math for a family of four.
Run your own numbers before you sign
Every figure here is an example: the $35,000 price, the 55% residual, the 14¢ power. The pattern is what carries over. Fuel savings are modest, resale risk is large, and the lease quote's residual is the number to argue about. Pull your own electricity rate, your local gas price, your real annual miles, and an actual lease quote, then plug them into the same structure.
If you'd rather not build the spreadsheet, Celvari lets you model lease vs buy and EV vs gas for your zip code and driving pattern. Run it before you talk to a dealer, not after.
Sources
- What Is The Situation With Residual Values In Europe? — CleanTechnica
- Here are all the jobs and investment lost from republican attacks on manufacturing — Electrek
- Chevy Equinox EV sales plunge 92% as Cadillac’s SUVs suddenly take the lead — Electrek
- BMW is launching a smaller, more affordable EV — Electrek
- Ford’s $30,000 Fathom EV pickup production launch faces uncertainty [Update] — Electrek