Electric Vehicles

You are basing your blanket statement on an undefined "short term" and also an assumption that has changed a lot in the last few years. If you cut off short term vs long term at 5 years, you could be wrong and definitely not "massive loser." If you are talking keeping a car for 10 years, then yes of course owning makes more sense. Also, if car companies set residual values very high, then leasing can be enough cheaper in the long run than buying. Car companies still aren't sure how to set residual values for EVs, so you can get ridiculous lease prices (sometimes).

I was leasing a $36k car for $280/mo for 3 years because they set the residual value at $24k. At the end of those 3 years, a person who bought would be paying almost twice as much per month on a car worth about $18k. At the end of 5 years the car was worth about $13k. So I could have paid a total of $10k to rent a car for 3 years or paid a total of $19k to own a car worth $4k more than I owed. That's a negative $5k vs what I spent. So in the 3 year term, leasing was WAY better. At the end of 5 years if I leased another car at the same price, I would be driving a 2 year old car and would have paid a total of $17k. The owner would have paid a total of $31k to own a car worth $13k, a net of paying $18k vs my $17k. So for my lease with a poorly crafted residual, leasing was $1k better in the 5 year term AND I'm in a newer car. If you extend it to 6 years, then owning starts being better depending on how much work you have to do to fix the 6 year old car outside of warranty.

However, in the last year or so the car companies have started getting a better handle on residual values for EVs. Additionally, COVID has fucked up the used car market, making actual residual values be all over the map compared to the fixed residual in a lease.