I’m surprised some manufacturers haven’t got together to compete with motability with a scheme of their own.
I don’t think they could at the moment, as HMRC (presumably at the instruction of whichever government was in power when Motability was set up) have granted Motability Operations a block exemption on VAT, which any new entrant into the market would also need to have in order to be competitive. Also, Motability Operations (through Motability) have de facto been granted an official Monopoly, so a ‘hostile’ attempt to break it could be quite damaging to any challenger organisations reputations.
That being said, the government sponsored review into the Motability scheme a few years ago identified numerous ways in which the scheme could offer better choice and value to customers and more competition was an option that they said should be considered. Sadly, as far as I can recall, not a single one of the recommendations has been implemented, which is shameful.