I agree that these APs are completely unjustified and I can only assume that it’s due to the crushing depreciation on EVs.
Based on the current discounts that a private buyer can negotiate on buying just one EV (many are in the 25-32% discounts range), we can safely assume that an EV retailing at say £25k costs Motability Operations no more than £15k (keeping in mind that, in addition to getting far better discounts through bulk buying, they don’t pay VAT).
If the sacrificed benefits plus AP total £24k, then even if the car was worth absolutely nothing at the end of the lease (which clearly wouldn’t be the case), there’s no way that insurance, servicing and tyres would cost £9k over 3 years. With group policies and massive buying power, I suspect the running costs for all of these things combined are significantly under £1k a year. That’s an absolutely enormous profit margin, even before you add back in the residual value.
I share @wmcforum concerns that some Motability customers may still order these cars, even though to do so would cost them far more than buying the cars privately. How often do we read comments, even on this forum, where people seem to completely overlook the huge cost of the sacrificed benefits and just talk about the AP as if that’s all they are paying? Also, many disabled drivers are in the catch 22 situation where they certainly don’t need a brand new car, but are paying way more to have one than it would cost them to run even a much better used car, simply because they don’t have (or can’t raise) the up front funds to break the cycle, so are somewhat trapped in the Motability scheme.
I’m not in the market for an EV but, if I was, I’d strongly favour sourcing one through Motability than buying privately. However, at these prices, you’d really have to do the maths to make sure that you weren’t paying a larger premium to get one than you’d save in running costs versus an economical hybrid, or even ICE car with a much lower AP!