I have heard even from a guy who is worth 40 mio. $ that Leasing a car does not calculate. Low-end luxury range does not make much sense. Some low-end conventional/utility cars may have so many given perks that they sort of make sense if you use it for your business and sell it off within 3 years.
In German, but good subtitles in English available. (Guy may not look like this, but he is a Harvard educated former investment banker who is now worth 40 mio. $.)
Aside from the financial issues there are other risks. Essentially the bank owns the car. One of the actual cases that I heard to an acquaintance was brutal. She bought a small compact car, had it almost paid off completely after 3 years. The she got into an accident (not her fault) and the car was totaled. Since the lease contract was almost up, the bank received the payout for the car and said to her: "Thank you and fuck off." The car was still worth some 50%+ of the original price, but who cares. Sure - you can make sure that the insurance option covers somehow for that little thing, but you will still be fucked over in such a case - even if less strongly than with the case above.
I also worked for some very successful financially prudent mid-sized companies (up to 300 mio. $ turnover) and I was also surprised to find out that many of them preferred to buy a low-key utility vehicles, own it in full and then sell them off later. Big corporations leased, but they have access to banks, some even financed the deals with their own financial divisions.
I might point out as well that the price decrease especially in the luxury range is massive in most models. You will be better suited to buy a used car which is 4 years old, but has a relatively low mileage. You could take a credit, though I personally don't even recommend that from a financial viewpoint.
