August 9, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

How leased and owned vehicles stack up

Compared to vehicles owned by consumers, leased vehicles are more likely to have air conditioning, automatic transmissions, and four-wheel drive. Leased vehicles also are much more likely to have been new when obtained by the consumer.

[Chart data—TXT]

Virtually all leased vehicles on the road in 1996 had air conditioning; 98 percent were air conditioned, while 80 percent of owned vehicles had air conditioning. There was less of a discrepancy between leased and owned vehicles regarding transmissions—86 percent of leased vehicles had automatic transmissions, as did 76 percent of owned vehicles. The smallest difference between the two involved four-wheel drive, which was present in 18 percent of leased vehicles and 11 percent of owned vehicles.

Most leased vehicles were new when obtained by the lessor (93 percent), while less than half of owned vehicles were new when purchased by the current owner (37 percent). On average, owned vehicles were 7 1/2 years older than leased vehicles.

These data are a product of the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey program. Additional information is available from "Consumer Expenditure Survey: Quarterly Data from the Interview Survey, First Quarter 1997:Trends in Automobile Leasing," BLS Report 930.