Automotive Business Magazine – Q2 2026 – Digital edition - Magazine - Page 75
OPINION
LEASING
sector is
market change
and legacy brands to understand what
more cost-effective options they have.
Leasing allows those customers to flex
what car they have, depending on their
financial situation. A family might decide
to go from having two large vehicles,
to one large one for family trips and
a smaller one just for commuting, for
example.
The ability to kind of pull those levers is
part of the appeal of leasing, that ability
to reassess after two or three years, as
well as the fact that with us, it's a fixed
cost over the term.
That flexibility is also giving people
the freedom to make their first steps
into EV ownership. There’s more
affordable EV models entering the
market, and the conversation shifting
from ‘early adopters’ to the ‘mainstream
affordability’ stage.
As the technology changes and evolves,
leasing customers want that flexibility. It
removes a lot of the risk, say, that you’ll
buy a car and then in two or three years,
the technology or the battery is going to
be out of date – that’s not the customer’s
issue to deal with. It becomes a gateway
for people to say ‘you know what, we'll
try it’.
Then, where the analysis might not
work out when you’re simply looking
at the cost of a car to purchase in a
dealership, these individuals are getting
to understand the cost-benefit analysis
in everyday life. Having driven one for
a while, they can understand where the
value is. The EV-to-EV, or PHEV-to-EV
renewal pipeline is very high.
If you know you're going to be
changing cars potentially every two
years, you are more likely to keep track
of those trends and think about whether
you would make a change on the next
one. It’s human nature to be thinking of
the next step, the next upgrade.
As leasing grows in popularity, a big
→ Mike Thompson
is the COO at Leasing Options
topic for us is life-cycle management
and customer retention. At the end
of two years, people can go and do
whatever they want. We've got to make
sure everything we do is about keeping
customers through the renewal cycle.
It’s a great time to be a consumer,
because you've got more competitive
offers than ever, more choice in the
market, and more people are realising
– or should be – that they need to do in
great customer service.
While there is market volatility, it
requires quick, tactical responses,
and from what we're seeing, those
businesses that are succeeding in
this market are the ones that respond
quicker. Meanwhile there are others are
more archaic and move like oil tankers
– we find those ones concerning, they’re
going to suffer in 2026.
At the centre of this year are several
structural shifts: front-led growth,
increased brand competition, EV
maturity, all combined with a paymentdriven consumer behaviour. Whether
you’re a manufacturer or a broker, the
businesses that are going to succeed
are those that combine strong customer
trust with data, agility, and strong
partnerships.
Q2 2026
AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS
75
