I haven’t seen the ad yet, but only one third of those people eligible to join the scheme chose to do so. The remaining two-thirds use their benefits for other reasons (e.g. living expenses or to run a car privately), but a proportion will be unaware of the scheme and I guess it’s this latter group that they are going after. The parliamentary report into Motability last year suggested that they should target these customers, but the same report also said that there should be a greater choice of larger cars (needed by those who have to cart around wheelchairs, scooters etc) and lower priced automatics, but I suspect that we will have to wait longer for those recommendations to be adopted, if indeed they ever are!
Sadly, I fear that TV adverts will increase some of the animosity towards those who have Motability cars. Only recently someone commented to me that “it’s alright for Motability customers getting a ‘free’ car every 3 years”. When I explained that our ‘free’ car actually costs us around £15,000 (£10,000 sacrificed benefits plus Advance Purchase plus options) and after 3 years we hand it back and have nothing to show for it, unlike those who have private cars, he changed his opinion!