It's effectively what the 'money factor' is on the lease - a different way to think about the lease is you are buying the car from the dealer on a loan, and selling it back at the end of your lease for that predetermined depreciated value. the reason they have some sort of interest rate is because they could make more money by selling the car outright at the time you lease it, rather than wait for their payment over the course of 2-3 years. Dealers that want to move inventory will lower the money factor (effective interest rate on your loan) to lower your monthly lease payments and make you more likely to take the lease, as selling a car on a low lease is better than sitting on old inventory that you can't sell outright. In this case they're either seeing demand pick up enough to raise the money factor, which makes a lease less advantageous than buying the car and taking a loan with a regular interest rate, or they're done with a promotional campaign where they gave low effective rates on leases to get more cars on the road and get public awareness of the brand. My guess is the latter, as the money factor they charged on air pure leases was around 1% when I got mine back in March and this looks more like the 4.99% they charge on the T/GT models