Out Of Spec Dave Wraps Up Macan Lease

[USMA81]

Some of the early forum members will recall the father of an EV influencer leased a Macan 4 for his spouse nineteen months ago. He and his wife recently decided to get out of the lease (stated reason: wanted to get Tesla FSD before it went to subscription). I was following this to see how the Macan turned out for him. He put it on a site, Swap A Lease. Details are in his video, but short summary is that he paid about $38,000 to drive the vehicle for 18 or 19 months.

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[dbsb3233]

He's more than just the father of an influencer, he's become an influencer himself (as part of Kyle's operation), with his own channel. As such, turning cars over frequently to make new content on them is part of the business decision.

That's one of the ways influencers are different than regular Joes like us. They're looking for reasons to move on from a vehicle to get the next one. While we're looking for reasons to like ours and hang onto them.

We own our 2025 Porsche Macan EV and 2026 Lucid Gravity outright. They will probably be the last cars we'll ever buy (or at least for the next decade, as we're in our late 60s now). As such, I'm losing interest in the EV influencer channels. I used to watch a lot of OOS content but that's faded for me. Anyway, my point is that the Macan is still a great EV in most ways, worthy of keeping for the duration IMO. An influencer selling theirs doesn't mean much. They have a different agenda.

 

[RunningOnSolar]

@dbsb3233: Am in a very similar situation to you. My 2024 Macan is nearly perfect for me. Sure, I'd like the adaptive headlamps to work as originally intended, but most of my concerns are minor wishlist items.

The range and charging time on my wife's Subaru Solterra are inadequate for us and we may replace that, but it works fine 95% of the time. We will remain a 2 EV family for the foreseeable future.

Clearly influencers are not in it for the long haul as you said, but (like you) I bought my Macan to last.

 

[sor]

He's more than just the father of an influencer, he's become an influencer himself (as part of Kyle's operation), with his own channel. As such, turning cars over frequently to make new content on them is part of the business decision.

That's one of the ways influencers are different than regular Joes like us. They're looking for reasons to move on from a vehicle to get the next one. While we're looking for reasons to like ours and hang onto them.

We own our 2025 Porsche Macan EV and 2026 Lucid Gravity outright. They will probably be the last cars we'll ever buy (or at least for the next decade, as we're in our late 60s now). As such, I'm losing interest in the EV influencer channels. I used to watch a lot of OOS content but that's faded for me. Anyway, my point is that the Macan is still a great EV in most ways, worthy of keeping for the duration IMO. An influencer selling theirs doesn't mean much. They have a different agenda.

That makes it even more short sighted to get out of a car early for a lifetime FSD on a car you’re probably going to move away from after a short period of time just because you need another car to generate more content. Or maybe they will hold onto it as a second car as they cycle through future ones.

Either way, FSD is pretty good as a driving assistance system but was always only worth the price if it achieved the feature set promised a decade ago and never delivered.

 

[dbsb3233]

That makes it even more short sighted to get out of a car early for a lifetime FSD on a car you’re probably going to move away from after a short period of time just because you need another car to generate more content. Or maybe they will hold onto it as a second car as they cycle through future ones.

Either way, FSD is pretty good as a driving assistance system but was always only worth the price if it achieved the feature set promised a decade ago and never delivered.

Yep. They probably intend to hang onto it longer, just like they probably intended to hang onto the Macan for the full 39-mo lease (at least). That's one of the problems with following the latest and greatest so heavily... you get too tempted to jump ship prematurely. It's usually a really bad financial decision to do that, but some people just get too starry-eyed when they see new stuff. FOMO.

That's part of why I'm losing interest in the influencer channels, intentionally. I don't want to be tempted. And I don't want to feel disappointed that my 2025 doesn't have something a 2027 or 2029 will.

 

[Awaz]

His wife Cathy "loved" the Porsche Macan, and she said so every time they did a video on it, and it was her car. Although Dave managed to nitpick, as he is basically an iPad on wheels fanboy.
The reason he gave for getting rid of it was that he is retiring, so $1200 a month is too much for the budget. Although 1 year or so ago when he got the Macan he would have known his imminent retirement.
Cathy is a genteel type of person, so he manages to get his way easily!

 

[USMA81]

I too bought my Macan’s and will be keeping them for the foreseeable future. I also used to watch OOS videos, but they are irrelevant to me now. Yet I was curious how Dave’s Macan journey would end. He seems constantly distracted by the next bling thing, much like his son. He seems to be rationalizing yet again another vehicle change; originally he said he was moving on from the Macan to take advantage of FSD prior to it going on subscription. Now the reason is retirement (controlling costs). There’s ALWAYS a good reason to change, right?

Even if he’s running it as a business and a write-off, a high state of churn is costly. $2,000 per month isn’t terrible for many Porsche owners, but (as one commentator noted) he finally seems to blink here on cost. Seems to me that Kathy came out the loser on all of this, but maybe she really did have a change of heart on the Macan. Anyway, Dave seems like a nice guy and I hope he does well with Kyle.

 

[hulz99]

I thought it was funny to see how Cathy kept complaining about how complicated the software on the macan was whereas in the Tesla you have to go through multiple menus and screens to do basic functions like adjust steering wheel, vents etc etc. I actually time the macan ev to have one of the easiest and intuitive interfaces to use, especially compared to gen 1 ICE macan

 

[Wivenhoe]

I watched a lot of his videos - don’t bother anymore. He comes across to me as a die heart Tesla fan so has ended up where he wanted. In terms of buying before FSD become subscription perhaps he is thinking it will make the car worth far more when they terminate.

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