Can’t say it’s not fit for purpose. Looking at cars from NIL to 500, there are frontiera, capri, dacia spring, peuguot 2008, Kona, Nero, Ford Explorer. All very good cars. Mobility is a lifeline, it’s not a trifling organisation.
With Ford you miss out on HUD, Active Park Assist, 360-Degree Parking Camera and Hands-free Power-operated Tailgate, with the latter two being top of list for disabled drivers.
Our new Ford Capri has all of these (with Driver Assist Pack). We’ve never been able to get on with Park Assist on any of our cars. The HUD is great on this car due to position of the main dash display. I agree about the 360 Parking Camera and Power Tailgate being extremely useful – we had neither on our Toyota but really appreciate what we were missing.
Is it standard on the EV or comes as an expensive pack like the ICE models?
Electric tailgate is standard on the premium variant, HUD (pointless) and 360 camera (debatable) are part of a £1300 pack (£700 for scheme users). £1000 for the lowest model available.
In regards to being fit for purpose, i very much think it is.
The purpose is to get you mobile. There’s plenty of options available for nil or below £500 – they might not be dream cars, but they very much will do the job. Electric tailgates only became widely available (in lower priced cars) in the last 10ish years, so they very much don’t count as a “requirement” – because if they were, then the scheme was never fit for purpose, ever. For reference, the Tiguan got it’s factory fitted electric tailgate with the Mk2, which released in 2020 (R-Line and SE-L). The Tucson in it’s 4th generation, 2021. The list goes on and on. The earliest “lower value” car that i can think of is the first generation Ateca, that got it’s electric tailgate in 2016 (XCellence Lux).
You can certainly get from and to the doctors with any car available, you can drive any car available to the shops and on road trips. That’s the purpose of the scheme, and it does it. The purpose is not to get you a dream car, or sort ALL of the customers issues.
I feel like people are expecting too much. Instead of moping that you can’t get a car for nil AP with electric tailgate, massage seats, full leather, 360 camera and everything else, i’m grateful that we do, if we put the money towards it. I know i’ll get flak for that opinion, but it is what it is.
Does that mean i’m happy with the current APs? Heck no. The car we’re driving currently went from £3250 (reasonably fair for a sporty, fully kitted PHEV imo) to now, an beyond asinine £7499.
But, we’d still be able to do everything we’re doing with the car right now, with most cars that cost less than £500 AP on the scheme. Just with less toys/comfort.
So, whether or not the scheme is “fit for purpose” is probably subjective, depending on what you think the purpose is. To us, it is fit for purpose, with the added bonus that you can get a “dream car” (i use that term losely, the Ioniq 6 is a good example – fully loaded, quality vehicle) for reasonable prices – certainly more reasonable than we’d be able to afford without the scheme. But we consider that a bonus, not an entitlement.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.