Labour peer John Mann said ‘ ’I also question why it is necessary for its customers to change to a new vehicle so regularly. Cars last a long time and the whole point of Motability must be to help people live a normal life. Three years per car is too short a time-frame.’ Looks like lease extensions are back in the cards.
John Mann likes the sound of his own voice, but thankfully he doesn’t carry as much clout as he thinks he does. He huffed and puffed when there was an inquiry into Motability a few years ago and nothing changed as a result.
Whilst voluntary lease extensions are fine, it would be difficult to force the imposition of longer leases (which I think is what he is proposing). The ability to order a new car every 3 years is one of the major benefits of the scheme. Longer leases would make the scheme less attractive to a lot of customers and would be a tipping point for many to look outside of the scheme.
Several recent articles on the scheme, including this one, seem obsessed about the 0-60 times of some EVs. Perhaps the authors of these articles should read this forum more often, where they’d find far more conversations from EV drivers about pootling along at 56mph with all the HGVs whilst having the heating off, in order to conserve range 😂