£12k AP for a Range Rover Sport is fantastic value compared to what we have now. Think about it. That’s a car with a starting price now of £65k. Let’s say it was now £15k AP. Added to the £10k sacrificed benefits that would be an outlay of £25k for a £65k car, or 38% of the cost of the car.
Someone getting a £20k car with £0 AP is paying 50% of the cost of the car and there are examples where the sacrificed benefits plus AP can be as high as two-thirds of the price of the car.
It has always been the case with Motability that the higher value cars represent the best value and the lower value cars offer the poorest value. The problem that we have now, of course, is that we have the stupid price caps and even the limited cars that we had at the top of (or above) the arbitrary price caps have mostly now disappeared.
BTW, nobody in their right mind pays full RRP for a new car, unless it’s something like a Porsche where they don’t negotiate. Don’t be fooled that there aren’t good deals still to be had even in the current climate. Just check out Drive The Deal to see what the latest % discounts are. These are for factory order cars, built to your spec, from franchised main dealers. I always use their prices to get my local dealers to price match (or come within £100-200). I do appreciate though that many Motability customers do not have the means to source cars privately, and those customers are sadly trapped in a scheme that is becoming increasingly uncompetitive.
Yes, things will improve when the chip shortage is eventually resolved, but I don’t see us getting back to 4,000 cars and if the illogical price caps were going to be scrapped then there’s never been a better time than now, yet they haven’t bothered so I guess we are stuck with them.