I happened to see this again as a "similar thread" under a more recent discussion, and I decided to click in and see what you'd been so psyched about, because for me, the costs of the lease FAR outstripped the $7500 EV credit. It was quickly apparent that your "rent charge" was indeed INSANELY GREAT compared to mine....
For my AT, during that same December IncentivesPalooza, the Rent Charge was--hold onto your hat--$7697! No idea how that disparity makes any sense at all. (Unless: Did you aggressively negotiate that down, or was that just what the Lease Contract came with? I am sorely lacking in the hard-nose department...)
Add in the other fees, and at over $9100 of lease costs, it was clear I'd want to do an outright purchase--I was quite sure I'd purchase it after the lease, as I expect it'll take more than 3 years for next-gen battery tech to mature, so the lease path was only worth looking at if the end result was cheaper (it only was if also considering the benefit of earning $ on the ~50K residual for 3 years....which is real, but owning felt better anyway). Obviously I'm taking on the risk/likelihood of resale price being disappointing when that time comes, but I like not fretting about dings or stickers, etc, and definitely like having the flexibility to sell whenever I'm ready--soon if I feel I've made some unlikely mistake, or much later--I might just ride this pony for a decade! Time will tell.
To add a further level of Bizarro-world to the whole thing was that as I reviewed the Lease agreement to document all this for myself as I shifted to the purchase path, I noticed two places where the Lease Contract (quietly) specified that there was NO purchase option at the end of the lease!?!...though the Residual Value was part of the more prominent calculation section, that was just "used in calculating your base monthly payment" with no purchase option. Natick sales folks were befuddled by that too (though a mention that they'd seen it one other time)--but it was a moot point as I was heading the other direction. If I wasn't such a naively trusting fellow, I might feel like I was being herded into a purchase..... But as I say, I'm nothing but glad to be the owner of this fine vehicle!