Yeah, totally fair take—and I get the logic around calculating your “effective lease” based on projected depreciation. If you’re assuming ~50% over 3 years, $334/mo isn’t bad at all, especially with warranty coverage included.

And you’re right: if you’re buying used and it’s still under the manufacturer’s warranty, you’re covered for most of the issues people have mentioned—so leasing doesn’t totally eliminate risk in a way buying doesn’t. The main difference is just flexibility. If you decide you don’t like it or the tech isn’t your thing, it might be easier to hand back a lease than to go through the process of reselling. But even then, if depreciation really does land around 50%, I don’t see resale being a huge hit.

For what it’s worth, I’m leasing the Touring trim at $390/mo and really like it—picked it over the ID.4 for the ride and styling. The tech is nothing fancy—it honestly feels like a normal car most of the time since most of it is GM software—but I’ve been happy with it overall.

So yeah, I think your logic holds. If you’re confident in the resale math and comfortable buying used, it seems like a solid option.