PSA: Colorado Residents Only: Lease a new Fiat 500e, $0 down, $0 month

OMG. I know exactly how they are going to make money on that. “Dent and Ding”. It will be in the fine print of the contract and a minor scrap on the windshield, minor nick on the door, etc., etc., will all add up to $14k when that car gets turned in. That $14k will probably need to be financed in 3 years and will be at a crazy interest rate. The smart thing would be to buy a Safe-Guard dent and ding policy for about $300 a month on top of your normal insurance policy.

And that YouTuber will get to have his cake and eat it too b/c his views will pay for the hidden fees.

Without reading the fine print of the contract that dude signed (which took the dealer 3 hours to produce) can’t say it’s a scam with 100% confidence. Cash for clunkers back in the day was a real program that the government paid for, but…

$38,000 cars cost $38,000 not $0.00 dollars.

 

I’ve never seen one hit $0, but these “crazy low” lease offers have been popping up for several years. I think it’s just because they are stacking the $7500 fed incentive on top of state’s incentives. Pretty when I’ve seen them in the past it was CO, so CO must just have the largest. This might also be a car they are having trouble moving so maybe FIAT is throwing on some dealer incentives as well. It isn’t necessarily a scam.

I’ve leased many cars and generally don’t pay anything on trade-in, there is usually an allowance for dings and scrapes but even then it’s more like $1000. So I kind of doubt they planning on getting $14k on turn in, yes that would be a scam. My guess is they are just front loading all the EV incentives into the lease deal which is what these are usually about.

 

I'd pay $14,000 to not have to drive that little car.

 

Those are all fair points, and doubt it is a total scam. Colorado probably has some crazy incentives on top of the federal ones, the video directly stated that.

Fiat is probably offering a crazy OEM incentive too for the dealers as you mentioned. Read an article where some Chryslers have been on the lot for an average of 380+ days, which obviously doesn’t work for the dealers.

Still hard to believe they are giving cars away.

And I’ve paid $12k for wear and tear at the end of a lease, but probably deserved to pay half of that so guess that is a different story

 

Semi related, but I assume EVs have to have shortened battery range issues when it gets into Colorado winter temps?

 

As an EV owner in Texas, Yes. I get less range in our milder Winters.

 

Bingo! Hit them on the turn in. . . . then convince them to roll the debt over into a new lease.

 

If it’s too good to be true,,,,,,

 

the price of NG outta the Permian basin was neg a lot in 2024

 

Wasn’t a joke, but clearly I know very little about the Colorado incentives for EVs. The incentives stacked on top of the federal incentives are incredibly ridiculous but seems awesome for Colorado residents.

I do know how auto dealers make money (on everything except actually selling cars) such as service, financing, insurance, etc. so there has to be something going on with the three hours of paperwork getting done. We are talking about auto dealers after all.

Huge benefit to living in Colorado if you can actually get a car for free, so cool if true. Feels more like an episode of South Park than real life…

 

my first consulting gig was for the S. Ute tribe. They owned gas rights on non Rez land (& of course on the Rez), but the landowners owned the coal rights. NG is extracted by drilling into the coal seam. This created a long legal battle with the tribe claiming ownership of the gas & the landowners saying it was theirs since it was being extracted from the coal seam. Anyhoo, they went back & forth in the courts. Meanwhile, the royalties were put into escrow. This was an extreme hardship on the ranchers/landowners as most relied on this income. The tribe was rich (insanely so now).

But, here's the int part imo. The tribe did not pay taxes, so they could not get the tax credit. Turns out the tax credit was worth more than the gas. Hence, a unit of gas that was worth $1 to the tribe was worth $2.5 to the ranchers. This created a possible solution where the tribe could give the rights to the landowner & the landowner gives the tribe a buck or more. Landowners could try to hold out & hope the legal ruling ultimately went in their favor or negotiate with the tribe. The majority eventually negotiated which got the money outta escrow. It's not unusual for 2 parties to negotiate over an asset that they value differently, but the different values are almost never common knowledge among the parties.

edit. I forgot, La Plata county was absolutely freaking out as they literally relied on local NG taxes. They were VERY much in favor of these negotiations b/c if the ruling went to the tribe w/o them, they'd've been screwed. The tribe was well aware of their predicament.

Tribe net worth = 4B, 1400 members.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/business/24tribe.html