I'm not saying the tax credits won't die out, but it's unfortunate that they will.
I've seen some people saying that these subsidies are unfair, but the US government heavily subsidizes gas too.
Some very rough calculations put the average gas subsidies paid by the US government around $4350 per driver per year.
I dislike subsidies in general, but it's too bad the credit will phase out sooner rather than later. Getting plug-in electrics on the road will save the US tons of money on gas subsidies.
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1.49 gallons/driver/day * 365 days * $8/gallon subsidy = $4350.8/driver/year
Using an $8 subsidy based on some quick googling, which places the true cost of gas in the US from $12-$15/gallon. Assuming an average price of $4/gallon, that puts a conservative estimate of the subsidy per gallon around $8.
By that same logic, most of the plastics you buy are heavily subsidized, since the raw materials are from the subsidized oil industry, the oil industry is protected by the military, and their production causes pollution.
When they heavily subsidize bicycles or living close to your workplace, I'll less of a problem with subsidizing more of the vehicles that pollute my environment and threaten my life.
Subtracting the $4 price of gas is what brought me to $8, conservatively. To be fair, some of the price paid at the pump is tax, but according to the previously linked wikipedia article that's 12%, so $0.48 for a $4 gallon.
No doubt. But they're likely to get plenty of Teslas on the road in the meantime, which is all they need: awareness that Tesla exists, and (theoretically) satisfied customers.
Presumably Musk is anticipating that most buyers will like the Model S enough to not sell it back; if reality lines up, Tesla comes out far ahead. If not, they're doomed, but this scheme would really only be accelerating their demise in that case.
A lease is indeed effectively a financing option; that's pretty basic Finance 101. That said, one of the things one also learns in Finance 101 is that there are tax differences between how leases are handled and how capital expenditures are handled and that any calculation has to be made on an after-tax basis. (Which is a long-winded way of saying that how something like this should be treated from a tax/accounting perspective isn't at all obvious (to this non-accountant). Although I'm sure Tesla has vetted this pretty carefully.
Seems like this whole scheme will unravel as soon as those tax credits die out, which they will.