Whilst I’ve been pleased to see that there are some cars up to £50k appearing on the scheme, they are all EVs. As Motability isn’t an environmental charity, and as someone else has already said, I’d also like to see ICE cars of this price point join the scheme, for those of us who do not want an EV for some years yet.
Whilst I agree that it’s good to see the price point increasing, isn’t there a risk of a repeat of the Daily Mail incident? Personally, I think the argument is equally valid at that level regardless of drive train, if you can afford it and are in a position to find the 8 grand or thereabouts every 3 years, then I see absolutely no reason not to have something that meets your needs. Now, whether Motability are dedicating effort to attracting these vehicles to the scheme is another question. With both VW and Audi already providing vehicles, I can’t see why the next few leases can’t include these vehicles.
I’m sure that’s partly in their mindset but, as you say, what powers the vehicle should make no difference whatsoever. I suspect that it’s more to do with manufacturers getting concerned that private demand for EVs isn’t growing as fast as they hoped and Motability becomes a route to increase numbers (although I’d be interested to know what percentage of Motability customers are prepared / able to pay the sort of APs being demanded for many of these expensive and often entry level EVs).
The saddest thing about the Daily Mail’s Richard Littlejohn article was that Motability rolled over and trashed the scheme, rather than grow a pair and correct the falsehoods in the article. The story would have gone away instantly (tomorrows chip paper) and we wouldn’t have had the axe taken to the scheme – a situation from which the scheme has never recovered.