Can personal customers lease an electric car?

Personal lease on an electric car

One of the major obstacles to leasing an electric car used to be that there was insufficient choice. Unless you wanted a Nissan, Hyundai or a Tesla, you were pretty much out of luck. Not only that, customers were concerned about the costs of procuring an electric car when you compared them to a petrol or diesel option.

If you are not a company car user looking at business contract hire, or a salary sacrifice user, the Benefit In Kind (BiK) savings do not apply. Therefore, when looking at the whole of cost analysis, it was just not affordable or practical to proceed with an EV.

It is not only business leasing customers who can have an electric car - any customer (personal or otherwise) can lease an electric vehicle.

Fast forward to 2020, and this will be known as a seminal year (and not just for global pandemics!). This year is very much the breakthrough year for all things electric car, and van, as almost every manufacturer from budget to luxury has tried to establish a foothold in the UK’s growing electric car lease segment.

Indeed, with reducing mileages, emission zones, clean air zones and a general push towards an environmentally sustainable future you have to think - is there really a point buying or leasing a brand new petrol or diesel car ever again?

So can a personal customer lease an electric car? What do leasing companies need? To be clear, it is not only business leasing customers who can have an electric car - any customer (personal or otherwise) can lease an electric vehicle.

The only reason that there is a notion it is only available for businesses is that the 0% BiK for 2020-21 (and small increments henceforth) make it a very cost-effective solution for company car users and business owners to explore.

With a range of great options in all segments, it is practical solution as some customers are saving hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds per month by moving away from a petrol or diesel option. This is probably why you are seeing so many Tesla Model X and Model S and Porsche Taycans on the road!

Personal electric car lease: Considerations

For a personal customer, the main “criteria” is credit. When you lease a vehicle you need to understand that this is not an automatic acceptance nor is it a  finance product for those with bad credit.

But what if I earn a good salary - surely proof of income can overcome this? There needs to be a clear distinction between “ability to pay” and “willingness to pay”. As part the underwriting process, all of our selected finance companies want some analysis of your income and expenditure.

In essence, they need to see that you have a sufficient income to justify the expenditure on the new car (taking into consideration any vehicle(s) you are returning and no longer paying for). In particular, if you are looking at a higher-end luxury vehicle, you need to prove that you can comfortably pay those rentals and foresee no issue or reason why you will not be able to satisfy these in the future.

Ability to pay is of course very crucial and, as part of our treating customers fairly policy, we will ask you to provide a full suite of information on this. However, it is not just about the income/expenditure - you must also have a willingness to pay. This is about your credit history.

Do I need good credit to lease a car?

Do we do credit checks? Absolutely. Contract hire and leasing is very much a credit-based product and every customer, personal or business, must undergo this. The finance companies we work alongside will look at your historic credit profile to ascertain if your approach to finances is suitable for their lending requirements.

Leasing is a prime-credit product, hence the value, so automatic acceptable for every customer just isn’t suitable. For our personal customers we suggest using Experian initially to understand if your credit is a positive or negative.

While the score that Experian produce is not wholly determinable of a pass or rejection, if you score less than 850, we find this is identifying weaknesses in you profit and limiting your ability to proceed further. If you have missed payments, you are not on the electoral register or have CCJ’s our advice is to look at other products.

For those with positive credit history - welcome to the world of electric car leasing!

Peugeot E-2008 ELECTRIC ESTATE 100kW GT Line 50kWh 5dr Auto

Thank you to our leading Peugeot supplier, Robins and Day, for sending photos of their latest fleet addition - the electric Peugeot 2008!

In terms of the car shown, the Peugeot E-2008 ELECTRIC ESTATE 100kW GT Line 50kWh 5dr Auto, this is based on the following configuration:

• Metallic Paint -  Orange fusion
• Tri material leather/cloth - Capy/isabella trim with lime green double stitching
• 18" Bund diamond cut alloy wheels
• Carbon effect Dashboard, front and rear door panel finish

In terms of electric 2008 options you can look at:

• Active
• Active Premium
• Allure
• Allure Premium
• Gt Line
• GT

As standard the car includes dark tinted windows, Bluetooth, smartphone charging plate, smartphone docking station, front/rear parking sensors, lane keep assist, speed limit recognition.

180 degree reversing camera, 10” colour touchscreen 3D navigation, mirror link (Apple CarPlay), i-Cockpit with 3D instrument panel, electric heated and power folding door mirrors.

DAB radio, Gloss black aesthetics, LED daytime, running lights, LED fog lights, air conditioning, leather steering wheel, visibility pack.

Heated front seats, immobiliser, Thatcham Cat1 alarm and 18” alloys.

On the technical side, company car and business users can note the P11d at £35,860.00 and CO2 at 0g/km. The 50kWh lithium-ion battery delivers 136ps, 0-62 times of 8.5 seconds and a WLTP range of around 200 miles.

The car should take circa 7 hours to fully charge on a 7kW AC home charge point with a 45kW rapid charging CCS offering 80% charge in 30 minutes.

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