EV lease prices have quietly fallen off a cliff. A wave of new, mostly Chinese-built electric cars, plus manufacturers chasing their ZEV-mandate targets, means personal lease deals are now genuinely cheap — cheaper per month than plenty of petrol equivalents, before you even count the fuel. I've been watching the boards, and pulled out three that made me do a double-take.
But a monthly lease figure is only half the story, and it's the half everyone quotes. The bit that actually decides whether an EV is cheap is what happens after you plug it in. So for each of these I've done the sum the leasing sites won't: the real pence-per-mile once you're charging overnight — or, if you've got panels on the roof like I have, close to nothing in summer.
Why EV leases are suddenly this cheap
Three things happened at once. New entrants — Leapmotor, BYD and the rest — turned up with well-equipped electric cars priced to grab market share. The established brands are under a legal obligation (the ZEV mandate) to sell a rising share of EVs, so they're discounting hard on lease deals to shift metal. And leasing works on residual values — what the car's worth at the end — so when list prices get competitive, the monthly number drops fast.
The upshot: leasing an EV is currently one of the cheapest ways to run a new car in Britain, especially if you can charge at home. Here are the three worth a proper look.
Deal 1 — The bargain: Citroën ë-C3, £137/month
Citroën ë-C3 83kW Max, 44kWh — £137.34/month (inc. VAT), £1,648.08 initial, 3 years, 5,000 miles/yr, 12 months upfront.
A hundred and thirty-seven quid a month for a brand-new electric car, with road tax and warranty included. That's the headline, and it's a good one. The ë-C3 is a proper little five-door hatchback — 201 miles of official range, a 44kWh battery, heated seats, cruise control, a 10-inch screen and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto on the "Max" trim. LeaseLoco reckons this deal undercuts the equivalent PCP by over £200 a month.
The catch to notice: the mileage cap is only 5,000 miles a year. That's the lever keeping the price down. If you're a low-mileage second-car household — school runs, shops, the odd day out — it's close to perfect. Do 12,000 miles a year and you'll want to re-price it at a higher cap first, because the number will move.
What it really costs to run: 44kWh gets you ~201 miles, so about 4.5 miles per kWh. Charge overnight on a cheap EV tariff (~7p/kWh) and a full "tank" is roughly £3 for 200 miles — around 1.5p a mile. A 50mpg petrol car at today's pump prices is nearer 12–13p a mile. At 5,000 miles a year that's roughly £75 in electricity vs £600+ in petrol. Charge it off your own solar in summer and the daytime miles are effectively free. (See our EV vs diesel case study.)
View the ë-C3 deal on LeaseLoco →
Deal 2 — The sweet spot: Leapmotor B10, £215/month
Leapmotor B10 160kW, 70kWh — £215.11/month (inc. VAT), £2,581.32 initial, 3 years, 10,000 miles/yr, 12 months upfront.
This is the one I'd point most families at. Leapmotor is the newer name (backed by Stellantis, so it's sold and serviced through an established dealer network), and the B10 massively overdelivers for the money: a 70kWh battery, 261 miles of range, 218bhp, rear-wheel drive, a 0–62 of around 8 seconds, and a genuinely quick 17-minute rapid charge. Standard kit includes 18-inch alloys, heated seats, dual-zone climate and privacy glass.
At £215 a month on a 10,000-mile cap — double the ë-C3's allowance — this suits a normal main-car household rather than a low-mileage runabout. One honest note: the boot figure LeaseLoco lists (43 litres) is clearly the frunk, not the main boot — check the real luggage space on a test drive if load-lugging matters to you.
What it really costs to run: 70kWh for ~261 miles is about 3.7 miles per kWh. Overnight at ~7p/kWh that's roughly £5 to go 260 miles — under 2p a mile. Do the full 10,000 miles a year and you're looking at about £190 in electricity. The petrol equivalent covering the same mileage would be £1,200–£1,300 in fuel. That gap — well over £1,000 a year — is the part the £215 sticker doesn't show you.
View the B10 deal on LeaseLoco →
Deal 3 — The proper car: VW ID.7 Tourer GTX, £368/month
Volkswagen ID.7 Tourer 250kW 4MOTION GTX, 86kWh — £368.46/month (inc. VAT), £4,421.52 initial, 2 years, 10,000 miles/yr, 12 months upfront.
Not cheap in absolute terms, but mad for what it is. The ID.7 Tourer GTX is the range-topping, twin-motor, four-wheel-drive version of VW's big electric estate — 359 miles of range, an 86kWh battery, 605 litres of boot, and near-performance-car pace. As a retail purchase this is a £55k+ car. Leasing the top-spec version for £368 a month tells you everything about how fast EV depreciation and lease competition have moved.
The trade-offs: it's a 2-year deal (shorter term, so slightly higher monthly than a 3-year would be) and the initial payment is £4,400 — this is the big-ticket option of the three. But if you need a genuine family-hauler that'll do a 300-mile motorway run without drama, £368 for this car is the kind of number that didn't exist eighteen months ago.
What it really costs to run: 86kWh for ~359 miles is about 4.2 miles per kWh. Overnight at ~7p/kWh that's roughly £6 for 350+ miles — about 1.7p a mile. At 10,000 miles a year, ~£170 in electricity. A comparable petrol estate would swallow £1,400+ in fuel over the same distance. (You'll want a proper home charger — see our 2026 guide.)