• Tesla now offers a Cybertruck lease for $999 monthly, requiring a $7,500 upfront payment.
  • Skipping the down payment raises the monthly cost to $1,249, a safer choice for lessees.
  • Speed-hungry truck buyers can lease the 830 hp Cyberbeast for $1,439 per month with no money down.

Everyone who has got their hands on a Tesla Cybertruck since it launched last December has had to buy one. But this month Tesla is opening up a lease option, giving fans of the angular pickup the chance to drive one for as low as $999 per month.

That’s the advertised figure for a three-year, 10,000-mile (16,000 km) lease deal on a Dual Motor. But, as is often the case with these deals, the reality isn’t quite so rosy. By the time you include the $7,500 down payment required at signing, the actual cost works out at more like $1,180 per month before taxes. Alternatively, you can skip the upfront payment entirely and pay $1,249 a month instead, again without taxes—which, let’s be clear, is the smarter move.

Related: Florida Man Smashes Porch Pirate’s Getaway Car With Rental Cybertruck

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: putting money down on a lease is a bad move. In fact, it’s one of the easiest mistakes to avoid when leasing a car. The reasoning is brutally simple. That cash you hand over upfront? It can disappear faster than a donut in the break room if your car gets stolen or totaled. Why hand over thousands of dollars up front just to risk losing it?

In any case, that’s not small change, but we can imagine the new offer tempting a few people who previously didn’t think they could afford to put a Cybertruck on their driveway.

The Dual Motor truck is already pretty brisk, its 600 hp (608 PS), all-wheel drive powertrain getting it to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 4.1 seconds. But if that’s not enough, there’s also a lease deal available on the top-spec Cyberbeast, whose 834 hp (846 PS) triple-motor drivetrain punches it to 60 mph in just 2.6 seconds.

Put the same $7,500 down but tick the Cyberbeast box on the order form and you’ll need to find $1,204 every month ($1,379 factoring in deposit). Or you can skip the down payment, but you’ll need to part with $1,439 from every paycheck to keep the repo man away. Reduce the rental term to 24 months and extend the annual mileage allowance to 15,000 (24,000 km) and the monthly payment rises to almost $1,800.

You Can Lease A Tesla Cybertruck For $1,249 A Month, But Would You?

The Cyberbeast currently costs $99,990 for those paying with cash or via a loan, and the Dual Motor stickers at $79,990, more than double the $39k Elon Musk promised Americans would be able to get into a Cybertuck for a few years back. An entry-level, rear-wheel drive truck is scheduled for launch next year with a price of just over $60k.

But those prices and lack of a lease option until now haven’t prevented the Cybertruck racking up some strong sales results this year. Tesla sold 16,692 of the trucks in Q3, helping it overtake the Ford Mustang Mach-E to become the third-best selling EV in America after the Model Y and Model 3. Ford sold just 7,162 F-150 Lightnings in the same period.

Is $999 (plus $7,500 down) per month to drive a Cybertruck a good deal? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

You Can Lease A Tesla Cybertruck For $1,249 A Month, But Would You?