For 2023, Chevrolet lowered the price of their Bolt EV hatchback and Bolt EUV subcompact SUV by $5,900 and $6,300 respectively. Existing 2022 models, either on the ground or in-transit, get a customer cash incentive of $5,900 for Bolt EV and $6,300 for Bolt EUV.
With today’s high gas prices, many drivers are looking to electric vehicles to avoid pain at the pump. Bolt EV and EUV are among the most affordable EVs, and with about 250 miles of range and silent operation, they make for an excellent commuter vehicle.
How much should you expect to pay for one? And is it better to lease or finance one in July 2022?
2022 Bolt Purchase Incentives are Much Stronger than Lease Incentives
In the past, we’ve recommended leasing, rather than buying, a Bolt. GM poured thousands of dollars in lease incentives and set optimistic residual values that made leasing a no brainer. Recently, however, GM turned the tables on Bolt EV and Bolt EUV to favor purchasing.
Purchase Incentives
As mentioned earlier, 2022 Bolt EV and Bolt EUV get a $5,900 and $6,300 Customer Cash incentive, respectively—but only for purchases, not leases.
On top of that, GM is offering a purchase-only $2,000 incentive for Uber drivers, or a $1,500 GM Supplier incentive, or a $500 educator/military/first responder incentive. GM also offers a $500 healthcare professional and/or $500 recent college grad incentive, both of which can be stacked on top of the GM Supplier incentive or educator/military/first responder incentive, but not the Uber incentive.
Additionally, GM is offering a $3,750 incentive for those who ground their current Bolt leases. However, customers should be advised to check their current equity position before using this incentive. There is a chance that a current Bolt EV lessee may have positive equity that exceeds this incentive amount. This $3,750 incentive cannot be stacked with the $2,000 Uber driver incentive or the $1,500 GM Supplier incentive, but it can be stacked with the $500 healthcare professional, $500 recent grad, and/or $500 educator/military/first responder incentive.
Lease Incentives
Disappointingly, GM is not offering the $5,900 or $6,300 Customer Cash incentive on GM Financial leases. The $3,750 incentive for those who ground their current Bolt lease is available on a lease—but the same caveat applies.
GM does offer a $1,500 lease-only incentive for current lessees of any car (i.e., GM Lease Loyalty or GM Lease Conquest). The $500 healthcare professional and/or $500 recent grad incentive may be stacked on top of the Lease Loyalty or Lease Conquest incentive; however, the $500 educator/military/first responder incentive cannot. No Uber driver or GM Supplier incentive is available for leases.
All in all, the incentives for 2022 Bolt are significantly higher on a purchase than a lease.
Total Cost of Ownership is Likely Lower with a Purchase
To see whether it’s cheaper to lease or buy, we plugged in the numbers to our updated Leasehackr Calculator, which now features a lease-versus-finance tool.
For this comparison, we are using a base 2022 Bolt EUV LT. For the month of July 2022, GM Financial has set the lease residual value at 62% of MSRP (36 month, 10,000 mile per year lease) and the lease money factor at .00069 (equivalent to 1.66% APR).
For the finance option, we are assuming a 72-month loan at 3.99% APR, and we are assuming that the vehicle will also be worth 62% of its MSRP after three years.
In both cases, we are assuming the vehicle will be sold at MSRP (no dealer markup) with Southern California sales tax (9.5%), fees, and rebates. You can adjust inputs on the Leasehackr Calculator to reflect the actual selling price of the vehicle and your local taxes and fees.
We are assuming no conditional incentives. That means $0 in cash incentives on the lease, and $6,300 in cash incentives on the purchase, from GM.
With the same amount due at signing, we can see that the monthly payments between lease ($433) and finance ($464) are surprisingly close. In the past, lease payments would be significantly lower.
In terms of the total cost of operation over 36 months, the finance option is likely cheaper, with an effective monthly cost of $288 compared to $405 with the lease. The higher incentives ($6,300 versus $0) more than offset the higher interest and greater taxes paid with the finance option, resulting in over $5,000 in positive equity 36 months into the loan.
This conclusion, of course, assumes that the actual resale value of the vehicle, after three years, matches GM Financial’s lease residual value of 62% of MSRP, or $21,077. Should the actual value of the Bolt EUV, after three years, be lower than the lease residual value, then the cost difference between leasing and financing starts to narrow.
At the end of the day, there is no crystal ball to predict future vehicle values. With leasing, one advantage is that the risk of depreciation is passed onto the lender. However, in this case, it may be worthwhile for a consumer to take on that depreciation risk if the cash incentives are significantly greater on a purchase than on a lease.
Read more on the Bolt EV price drop