EVs... no one wants them!

No, I totally agree that being able to have both is a luxury, but you're missing the key point, which is that I have clearly said that if I had to have only one car, it would be the EV.

The EV is better 95% of the time, and for the remaining 5%, is not so obviously inferior (with the exception of trackdays) to ICE.

By contrast the ICE vehicles are so inferior to the EV for daily use, that having one in order to be able to enjoy the 5% where they excel would not make any sense to me. But that's where it's a personal choice.

But then I daily drove a Caterham for 5 years so what do I know?

Is it?

I buy new cars.

I have leased 4 when it was cheaper than to buy outright compared to the best discounted cash price.

The opp cost was a bonus, although a nice one with the pension tax relief at 40% on the capital I didn't have to use.

Cash would have been the wrong decision financially. Why pay more Gary?

The average buyer simply doesn't understand cash flow.
Leasing, or PLP or whatever it's called, increases the interest you pay because the outstanding balance is higher for longer, compared with "buying" on HP or bank loan.
The intelligent can put this into a spreadsheet in a few moments.
Everybody else just signs, when the salesman says it's only £299 per month.

Wouldn’t touch a lease or pcp at current rates.

It's arguably better to reword that to accept that many mugs use leasing and the PCP product, like credit cards, was obviously created for mugs but that is different from leasing being purely for mugs as ot isn't, any more than credit cards are purely for mugs. It's a case of how one chooses to use the product that defines whether someone is a mug.

For example, using it to dial out risk and hassle isn't the act of a mug whereas using it to trap oneself in a debt spiral or to obtain something that would otherwise not be affordable by other forms of finance is.

You also have to contend with the 'dealer finance' farce where consumers not wishing to use the over priced house finance services are forced to pay a higher up front cost as punishment for not being insolvent to the point of only being able to pass credit checks at the vendors.

Want to use a £250k Ferrari for a few years and because the price is beyond what you can afford to risk then locking in all costs to fixed is a very smart play.

Want to take advantage of EV BIK but not interested in running the yr3 value gauntlet then locking that in and hedging out that risk for a premium is eminently sensible.

Same with buying a new Range Rover, locking in the cost dials out a huge chunk of the risk of getting one of their lemons.

And it's not all about higher income hedging but the product is excellent for someone on a low income and with no savings as they can secure reliable basic work transport for a fixed monthly cost. And a lot of the time such people haven't the savings to procure a sensible used car or a good enough credit rating to borrow at or below the rates which a dealer will lend at.

The U.K. also has a large number of retired people who have robust pension income but no wealth. They can't easily borrow as they have nothing you can take, you can't take their house nor can you take their pension to settle a debt so leasing solves that issue.

The risk with PCP is that it wasn't designed for the prudent but for the feckless, those who will use it to spend more of what they haven't got for something beyond what they need but while that means very many who use it are mugs what ot doesn't mean, just like credit card lending, that all users are mugs or that it isn't actually the correct tool for the job at times.

Works both ways.

My only comments in this thread are in response to non leasers looking down their noses at leasers as they must be thick.

If you want to drive a shed you own fine, no need to judge others.

If I want to lease a car and not drive a shed, fine, no need to judge others.

I didn’t start the smug attitude - I responded to it.

I didn’t start anything, I just said leasing is for mugs. It’s designed on the most part for the financially illiterate, to empty their pockets, and make them sink their income into something they would otherwise be unable to afford. Our whole economy has been built on debt.

You could say the same argument for someone who would rather pay extra to enjoy driving an ICE car instead of an EV?

Okay but technically everyone is a mug in that respect as if getting from a) to b) as cheaply as possible (Kind of the point of an EV) then you are never going to be cheaper than a shed maintained by Kenneth on his drive not withstanding government tax dodge incentives.

Absolutely right Gary.
All these mugs buying new cars when they could buy a newly-manufactured shed at a fraction of the cost.
Second-hand car manufacturers are two a penny on this planet.
The importance of the new car supply chain to the functioning of the second hand market is totally overblown, in fact no such relationship exists.

Not.