The $7,500 federal tax credit for buying an electric vehicle is gone. So is the version of it that used to flow through leases via the commercial clean-vehicle credit. Both expired for anything acquired after September 30, 2025, under the tax law that killed EV credits outright, according to an analysis from Complete Car Lease. That single change reshaped the market: leasing made up 60.63% of new EV registrations in the first quarter of 2025 and just 46.07% a year later, per the same data. Yet run the actual numbers on this month’s offers, and leasing is still beating buying on several of the best-selling EVs in the country — just not because of government money anymore. Automakers are doing the subsidizing themselves now. Here’s what the math looks like on four current, cited deals.
Honda Prologue: Leasing Costs Less Than Two-Thirds the Finance Payment
Honda is leasing a 2026 Prologue EX AWD for $259 a month with $4,599 due at signing over 36 months. Spread that upfront cash across the lease term and the real monthly cost works out to roughly $387, according to CarsDirect’s August 2026 EV lease roundup. Compare that to Honda’s own financing offer on the same vehicle: 0.99% APR for 60 months plus up to $2,000 in bonus cash, which Honda estimates works out to roughly $602 a month on an EX FWD with 10% down, per CarsDirect’s Prologue pricing page. Financing costs about $215 more every month and keeps you paying for two extra years.
Kia’s Zero-Percent Loan Still Loses to Its Lease
Kia’s financing looks even better on paper: 0% APR for 72 months plus $3,500 cash back on the 2026 Niro EV, according to RealCarTips’ August 2026 Kia incentive tracker. Apply that cash back to the $41,195 Niro EV Wind, finance the remaining $37,695 interest-free over six years, and the payment comes to roughly $524 a month. Kia’s lease on the same trim — a regional offer running through August 31 in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — runs $289 a month with $3,999 down, an effective cost of about $400 a month, per CarsDirect. Free money from Kia still loses to leasing by more than $120 a month, over half the loan’s term.
Chevrolet Equinox EV Flips the Script
Not every automaker is running its incentive money through leases right now. Chevrolet’s best current Equinox EV lease — $539 a month for 39 months with $5,659 due at signing on an LT2 — is restricted to drivers already leasing a 2021-or-newer GM vehicle, according to GM Authority’s August 2026 Equinox EV deal breakdown. Anyone who doesn’t qualify is better off with Chevrolet’s financing instead: 2.9% APR for 36 months plus a $1,000 cash allowance, per the same source. It’s a reminder that the lease-beats-buying pattern isn’t universal — it depends entirely on which manufacturer is subsidizing which channel this particular month.
Tesla’s Cheap Financing Undercuts Its Own Lease
Tesla is the clearest exception. Lease a Model Y Premium RWD and the payment is $599 a month with $4,294 due over 36 months — an effective cost near $718 a month once the upfront cash is factored in, among the priciest lease deals CarsDirect tracks this month, which pegs effective Model Y lease costs between $616 and $924 depending on trim, per CarsDirect’s Model Y pricing page. Tesla’s own financing on that identical trim is 0.99% APR for 72 months, working out to roughly $610 a month with 10% down, according to the same source. Financing beats leasing every month, and after six years the buyer owns a car instead of returning one with nothing to show for it. The catch: Tesla only extends that subvented rate to pricier Premium trims; the loss-leader pricing shows up in the base rear-wheel-drive lease instead, at $499 a month with $4,194 down.
The mechanics explain the split. A lease payment only has to cover the gap between a car’s selling price and what the automaker guarantees it’ll be worth at turn-in — the residual value — plus a finance charge called the money factor. An automaker can inflate that guaranteed residual or eat the money factor without ever touching the sticker price everyone sees, which is roughly how captive finance arms used to pair leases with the commercial clean-vehicle credit before that credit disappeared, per Complete Car Lease. A loan, by contrast, has to cover the entire purchase price no matter how the automaker dresses it up. That structural difference is why brands leaning on lease-cash incentives, like Honda and Kia, look so much cheaper to lease than to finance, while a brand extending its incentive to financing instead, like Tesla on certain trims, can make buying the better deal.
None of this is fixed for next month, and none of it holds if you’re comparing a different trim, region, or credit tier than what’s cited here. What changed for good is the assumption that leasing automatically saves the average shopper more than buying, or the reverse. With the federal credit gone, whichever channel wins now depends entirely on where each automaker is quietly parking its own incentive money — so the only way to know is to run both numbers on the exact deal in front of you before you sign anything.