@hsvpaul

I think the gent from the the UK was referring to "cheap" finance rates. In the US, Toyota price is at the upper end but when it comes the a Fair market Value lease price, primarily a 36 month contract, their monthly rates are always lower than anyone - the 48 or 60 month rates are in line with most. The residual value plus finance % has a lot to do with it.

Toyota was doing this back in the mid 1990's and was doing it in 2007 when I retired. So it seems not to be a short term program & one that help make them #1. Not certain what they are doing today. One of the strategies is to create faster turn over of new equipment leases to maintain or increase factory production and secondly create a consistent supply of low hour, good & very profitable (for the dealer & commissioned sales people) used truck sales. Example, ran into situations, where two customer bought into a 3 year lease with cheap rates - both had less than 300 hours on the machine at the end of the lease & the Toyota dealer sold them the unit at very nice price (Fair Market Value) meaning a large price & the customer thought they got a great deal. You might look at this approach as a 3 year paid for (at a low monthly rate) demo where there is no competition as the buyout of the FMV happens at least 90 days prior to lease expiration - competitors don't know those dates very often.
This program was developed in the US under the direction of Dr. Shankar Basu who I had the pleasure of working with in my Allis-Chalmers days. One day after returning to work after attending a AMA meeting in Chicago he was hungry. So I introduced him to a true American delicacy, the infamous White Castle hamburger, aka "sliders", he ate a sack full. About 2 hours later he discovered the true meaning of gastronomical distress. Yep, he called me some "unique" names.