Break my lease?
Exit now vs. ride out the lease
In Canada, ending a lease early usually does not forgive the payments you already owe - those are due either way. The real cost of exiting early is the termination fee and any excess-km penalty (check your contract). This tool weighs that one-time cost, plus the depreciation and interest of owning the EV sooner, against the fuel and maintenance you save by switching.
Your lease
Just picks a realistic L/100km figure - swap in your exact numbers below.
Cost of exiting early
Typically $200-$500 - get the exact number from your leasing company before deciding
Common Canadian range is roughly 10-20¢/km - check your contract
Leave at $0 unless your leasing company confirms in writing that it forgives remaining payments
The EV you'd switch to
Picking a preset fills in price, energy cost, and EVAP rebate below - all still fully editable.
Set to $0: Ineligible for EVAP despite being under the price cap, because it's assembled in China (Giga Shanghai). EVAP requires manufacture in Canada or a country with an active free trade agreement. Does qualify for Quebec's $2,000 provincial rebate - provincial programs don't carry the federal free-trade requirement.
Cost of owning the EV sooner
Optional. The remaining lease payments are owed either way, so for those months you would be carrying the EV's cost on top of them: it loses value and, if financed, accrues interest before you otherwise would have bought it. Both are prorated to the months remaining and subtracted from the result. Set to 0 to ignore.
Default is the midpoint of the 15-20% first-year loss range (estimate). Capped at 12 months' worth.
Defaults to none because we have no sourced average rate. Enter your quoted rate; interest is charged on the EV's net price for the months remaining (approximate upper bound).
Early-exit fees and the cost of owning the EV sooner outweigh the fuel and maintenance you would save by switching before the lease ends. It ignores the EV's purchase price itself, since you'd pay that whether you buy now or after your lease ends - it isolates the cost of switching sooner. Your real contract may differ, so confirm the numbers with your leasing company.
Breakdown
- Termination / disposition fee$400
- Excess-km penalty$0
- Other exit fees$0
- Toyota RAV4 Hybrid running cost / mo$448
- Tesla Model 3 running cost / mo$314
- Saved per month$134
- × 12 months remaining$1,612
- Running-cost savings$1,612
- − Early-exit costs$400
- − Depreciation on the EV, owned sooner (estimate)$7,462
- − Financing interest (approx.)$0
- Net, switching now−$6,250
Why this is the right comparison
Lease contracts differ, but the sources below describe the common case: you are still responsible for the payments left on the contract, whether the car goes back today or in 12 months, so buying out, trading in, transferring or returning early generally does not make them disappear. If that matches your contract, the payments are a wash between “exit now” and “wait it out,” and the comparison comes down to the termination and excess-km fees you'd pay only because you're exiting early, plus the cost of owning the EV sooner, versus the fuel and maintenance you save by driving it instead of the gas car for those extra months. If your leasing company confirms it will waive payments, enter that above.
If that net number is small either way, the bigger levers are usually a lease transfer (get someone else to take over the remaining term - often the cheapest exit) or simply confirming the exact payout quote from your leasing company, since “early return fee” terms vary a lot by manufacturer.
This is a simplified model. Depreciation and interest are rough, prorated estimates, and it excludes the EV's eventual resale value and the risk that rebate programs or gas and electricity prices change between now and your original lease-end date. For the full purchase-price-included comparison over several years, use the main EV vs. gas calculator.