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I’ve got this currently with my id5. I love the car love love love everything about it but ever since I’ve had it it intermittently tells me the 12 volt battery isn’t charged enough. I’ve researched the forums and checked I’ve got the right optimised battery settings etc but had come to accept that ever more frequently the opening / recognition of the key and the remote access via the app wasn’t working. Until last week after a long journey the car wouldn’t charge overnight and I couldn’t access the car at all . Completely dead. The rac had to force an entry as none of the normal key fob tricks worked. The 12 v battery was completely dead and we hadn’t even been able to access the car to open the bonnet to give it a jump. It’s been with vw a week now ( mainly because the garage hasn’t got round to looking at it with Easter) until I complained. I told them over and over that it’s a 12 volt battery fault and it simply needs replacing. They said it wouldn’t be that ( what to I know disabled female driver huh?) . Guess what ? They rang me yesterday to tell me they’d discovered it was a 12 volt battery failure ( no sh*t) and they’re replacing it under warranty- I can have the car back on Monday.
Agreed I’ve got a mghs hybrid while my EV is in the garage with a fault and I couldn’t believe how much the petrol costs. I drove a 70 mile round trip followed by a 60 and it cost me £27 in petrol – that would have been around £2 in electric. I can’t wait for my car to come back I’ll never have an ice car again.
latest one – this one is digging so deep now it trots out the same examples they’ve already used admits the saving to the taxpayer would be NIL if Motability was stopped as PIP would still be paid and explains vaguely that the losses are because of reinvestment in EV – then says ( without quantifying any number) that evs are being handed back in droves. Melanie Reid used to write for that paper – tetraplegic from a horse riding accident- I wonder what her view would be?
Motability and the service so poor people are handing back EVs
Exactly that. It’s pretty much impossible to police properly. However, is it Motabiliy’s duty to police it? Or is it the DWP’s. I’d argue, it’s very much the latter’s because they after all, are the ones handing out OUR money. Which is probably why it won’t ever be done.
I’d argue it’s other family members who should report fraud. It is not the fault of DWP or motability if family members turn a blind eye to misuse. All these people complaining about their neighbour’s auntie’s monkey’s uncle who gets a car despite running marathons have a duty to report it or shut it. They’re calling for a vital service – Motability to be removed from all disabled people because of misuse of the few but don’t report the actual misusers themselves.
Today’s response from Andrew Miller:
Motability is crucial in helping disabled people stay in work
I can understand why the Motability Scheme, which I run, has become a proxy for a welfare state that has surged in recent years. But I am proud of what we do to support more than 800,000 disabled people to stay connected to work, education, healthcare and wider society.
The vehicle leasing scheme we deliver helps the welfare-to-work transition: our customers work on average 14 hours a week more than non-customers, which equates to around £500 million in additional wages. Like this newspaper, we applaud the decision by Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, to “grasp the nettle” of welfare reform.
We know from nearly 50 years of working with some of society’s most in need that a lack of transport can be a barrier to work. Ensuring continued mobility is key to increasing economic participation, growth and reducing long-term welfare dependency — key goals of the government reforms.
Not everyone on the scheme can work but one in five say their vehicle has helped them find or stay in employment. Independent analysis shows the scheme contributes £4.3 billion to UK GDP annually. This means that for every £1 of disability allowance, £1.50 goes back into the economy, supporting 34,000 jobs across the UK.
Commentary this week has focused on fraud, misuse and the provision of high-end car marques. Like everyone, I am concerned by online “sickfluencers” exploiting a scheme designed to support the disabled. We encourage the reporting of misuse and we have an agreement with the national policing body to investigate any alleged malpractice. We remove thousands of people from the scheme every year thanks to this vital work.
Our fleet is now the UK’s largest, partly due to an increase in enhanced mobility allowance recipients and the new car market shrinking by a quarter, while rising vehicle and insurance costs make the scheme more attractive. After three years, we sell used cars on the secondhand market. This is the optimal age to ensure we receive the best value. Sale proceeds are put back into the scheme.
It is crucial that a fleet of this size is diverse, to spread commercial risk. If we as the private operator were unable to finance vehicles, billions of pounds of debt would be put on to the public books. And given the complex needs of some disabled people, we must make some large vehicles available.
More disabled people in work means a stronger economy, growth and more fulfilled lives. We are grateful for the responsibility vested in us to ensure that even the people who are most in need can live independent lives.
Andrew Miller is chief executive of Motability Operations
Motability scheme takes taxpayers for a ride, awful article in the times from Alice Thomson
Motability scheme takes taxpayers for a ride
The biggest benefits scam of all is brand new, top of the range cars, taxed, MoT’d and insured, for the not-so-disabled
Alice Thomson
Tuesday March 18 2025, 9.00pm, The TimesDo you want a free new car? There are 167 models to choose from on the Motability website. If you hand over part of your weekly mobility benefit, you can drive away with a leased Kia Picanto worth £15,000. If you part with your entire allowance of £75.75, you can move up to a Nissan Juke SUV, priced at £23,000, or a Volkswagen T-Cross. If you have the finances, you can pay £7,999 on top of your allowance and pick up the keys to a £52,770 BMW i4 M Sport or Mercedes CLA Coupé.
Each vehicle comes with free road tax, RAC breakdown cover, servicing and MoT, tyre and windscreen repair, installation of a charge point for electric cars and insurance paid for three named drivers: family, friends or carers. Claimants can apply for a new model every three years.
To qualify for one of these taxpayer-funded cars (or a scooter or powered wheelchair), you must receive the enhanced mobility allowance as part of a personal independence payment (PIP). And for many severely disabled people they are a lifeline, giving access to the world of work, school and community, getting them to hospital appointments without having to rely on erratic, expensive and often difficult-to-access public transport. A portion of their disability benefits goes directly to Motability Operations, the private company that runs the scheme and which is overseen by the Motability Foundation charity.
The scheme started out with the best intentions. It was introduced in 1977 by Jim Callaghan to replace the rickety single-seater, three-wheeled Invacars — inferior Reliant Robins — donated to the disabled after the war. His government introduced the mobility allowance to help disabled people choose a suitable vehicle including any necessary adaptations under a government car-leasing scheme. For 50 years it has helped those with conditions such as cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s and their families. But it wasn’t until the increase in claimants post-Covid that the scheme ballooned.
Motability cars now count for one in five of all new vehicles sold in the UK. Last year a record 815,000 people (out of 1.3 million who receive the enhanced mobility award) were signed up for the scheme, an increase of more than 170,000 in one year. This fleet of cars, the biggest in Europe, is valued at £14 billion.
Several factors have driven this. Over the years eligibility has widened so people who can apply now include those who are obese or have severe back pain or eczema, suffer from depressive disorders, debilitating anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or autism and who have a problem planning journeys or walking more than 200 metres. The numbers have spiralled since almost all PIP assessments stopped being in person during the pandemic. If you go on TikTok or Reddit there are myriad self-proclaimed “advisers” showing you how to be eligible for the enhanced mobility award and a free car. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, disclosed this week that PIP claims were rising by roughly 1,000 every day.In certain areas of the country word of mouth has meant neighbours who see gleaming new cars on their street are looking at ways to access the scheme. In Gloucestershire last month, a minicab driver admitted to me that he sometimes used his wife’s Motability car for work because it is brand new, he doesn’t need to pay for its upkeep and she is housebound with “chronic ADHD”. He got the idea from a fellow taxi driver. The mother of a child with autism showed off her new free school-run chariot on TikTok to advertise an “adviser” service. Meanwhile, Bernard and Ann McDonagh, who were caught doing a runner from a restaurant in Swansea last year, used their Motability scheme Ford Transit van as a getaway car.
As always, those who are abusing taxpayers’ money are ruining it for those who have a genuine, desperate need for the service. Motability Operations receives much of its income from public funds yet its website advertises “freebies, grants and discounts”. It has little incentive to monitor the system. The remuneration of its chief executive, Andrew Miller, totalled almost £750,000 in pay and bonuses last year.
Why hasn’t the government done something about this? When Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, stood up in parliament today trying to persuade MPs of the need to slash the welfare bill, she should have committed to overhauling this allowance rather than simply suggesting she might tighten PIP awards. It was Labour’s John Mann, now Lord Mann, who said nearly a decade ago: “Motability is making too much money. It needs tighter criteria. Three years per car is too short a timeframe.”
Part of the problem for successive governments has been that the Motability scheme has been keeping many car dealerships afloat when consumer demand for new cars dropped, while providing a pipeline of nearly 300,000 well-maintained secondhand cars a year.
People with disabilities require help with transport to prevent them becoming isolated and to assist them, where possible, back into the workforce. Yet go on the Tube or train and you see how they are being cruelly penalised: lifts are often broken, ramps never materialise and many venues make little attempt to provide enhanced access. When my mother was in a wheelchair she struggled to work or to socialise outside her home. She couldn’t go to most offices, shops, events or cafés.
The disabled desperately need help to make their lives not merely bearable but fulfilling. What they don’t need is their neighbours gaming the system to put a gleaming new BMW in the driveway every three years.
I raised a complaint this morning as I haven’t had a properly working charger at all yet, and my charger was fitted in March ( car arrived 11thMay) they contacted me and run a few diagnostics and @kezo called it correctly it’s a badly fitted ct clamp. Due to the other safety features in my household electrics they’ve overridden the clamp temporarily and asked me to keep them informed when the contractor actually contacts me. It does look like ohme have been let down by the contractor and are investigating it. I can’t ask any more from them than that I feel.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at so I’ve taken a photo of inside the meter. The grey box is completely free with the tiniest flimsiest wires attached to it so I’m thinking that’s the first port of call for error. Clamp reading is zero on the app
Well this just got interesting. Ohme seem to be under the impression the fitter fitted a whole new charger yesterday. They didn’t they cut off the burnt out ends and refitted the clamp . I’ve bounced it back to ohme to look into. Meanwhile it’s charging only slightly faster than the granny charger I’ve been having to make to with.
Thank you @kezo I’ll check in daylight but I knew it didn’t look right
That’s the reason I’ve put it up. No one seems to be reviewing the ( much better) model and all over everywhere are the reviews of the old software model with the gremlins in the software. Be interesting to see what you think when it arrives but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
I think if the Hyundai EV6 GT came on I would be very tempted. There’s loads of new stock around too so would be quick delivery! I’m surprised Motability Operations don’t look at stock cars in the current manufacturing delay climate, I’m sure it would please a lot of people if stock cars which are ready available were allowed on the scheme to help fulfil the backlog of orders! 🤔 If only temporarily!
my ID5 was a stock car ?
In my opinion. This is just an outgoing government threat ( conservative) that the incoming government will immediately override for brownie points ( Labour) to hide all the banker incentive policies that Labour will still implement.
@crippledad the dealer is wrong. I was in the same position ( extended because of backlogs) I had one month left when I ordered in February
It’s all those 0 to 60s you’re doing at traffic lights watching owners of expensive sports cars crying in your rear view mirror/tyre dust.
on a serious note I’m not getting this on the id5 but do notice that anything above a steady 70 drops the range drastically.
The Volkswagen ID group have fixed the software glitches that plagued the earlier models. The ID4 is only £49 after the new car payment leaving you cash to add in electric seats (£1600 I think from memory) also several in build so you might get one sooner than a factory order.
@matt9815 completely agree. Our front hallway windows were smashed and entry gained to steal both our cars while we were all in bed upstairs. Number one priority was keeping the kids safe. This was 2007.
Ahh that’s terrible, so sorry. I bought a pack of two faraday pouches off Amazon for my key and the spare to live on when not in use. The range extenders these thieves use are very powerful.
I reckon @sagwala123 hasn’t stopped grinning and driving long enough to update us yet 🙂
Aahh! Good to know thanks @phaedra I did see your original post on this in the Enyaq when I was still choosing between the ID5/enyaq/q4 I hadn’t realised it hadn’t been sorted yet. That’s really disappointing to hear I know the sound system was very important to you.
