I work in the Fleet Dept. of a Ford dealership in CA. There are only 11 new Lightnings left in the state. If you want to buy out of state, you'll need to sell your Honda. If you want to trade the Honda, then you'll have to buy at a dealership. Purchase or Lease it doesn't matter if you trade it in. Just call whom ever you leased it from and ask for the payoff. Your payoff may be less than what the Honda's worth. Does happen, just not too often. If so, apply the equity towards the purchase. If you owe more than the value, the difference can be added to the new purchase as long as the loan to value doesn't go outside lending institution guidelines.

Do not go with blanket statements like definitly buy new. I know of an L for sale on Auto Trader that has under 6K miles on it and it has been babied since day one. It also has over 4K in upgrades and is priced below $28K. I'd say that's a pretty fair price in CA and it's already got alot done to it. You just need to check out all your options. IMHO