Motability is not 'a Government scheme that buys people cars'
People use the mobility part of their PIP payments to lease a car from Motability which is an independent company, they could use the mobility payment to pay for taxi instead.
It's also misleading to treat it just like another independent private company too (not just because Motability consists of both a limited company and a charity (or two, IIRC)). The limited company reinvests revenues or transfers to its charity, not to private shareholders. Its origin was a charity.
But the only reason it exists is because of government funds and government policy.
The scheme would collapse if the government stopped allowing benefit money to be used for Motability leases. The banks lent them money under the reassurance of the government funding.
But yes, they lease the vehicles, they don't sell them.
I'm not talking about that. The government waives multiple taxes for the scheme. Off the top of my head, no VAT on the car purchases, no luxury tax on vehicles worth £40k+, no insurance tax, no VED (road tax).
The scheme has cost billions in lost revenue and it's the only reason it can exist. The exact accounting is up for debate because it's complex but nonetheless.
There are / were no £40k+ cars available on Motability
Can't find it now but there's a breakdown of the cars supplied somewhere and even when small BMWs etc were available very few people chose them - most people chose smaller average cars
Motability also plays a huge role in priming the used car market in the UK - without them there would be less choice and cars would be more expensive
> And you can claim you have anxiety in order to get a brand new Audi.
You're gonna have to cite sources on that one, but I would sincerely doubt that £77 a week will allow you to lease an Audi.
Also the pip claimant has to be probed by a panel every three years to keep getting the benefit, unlike say a state pension (but I paid for that I mean possibly you did, its still a non means tested benefit, unlike PIP)
Personally I'm more pissed off about pensioners on final salary still getting state pension, even though they don't need it. Thats far more fucking expensive and doesn't serve a purpose, well apart from buying votes. means test that shit, right now.
Oh, yeah, and it can and does handle a scale of traffic that a helicopter service obviously couldn't. I think each train takes about a thousand people and they're every ten minutes or something.
The "use helicopters for airport access" thing seems, at best, extremely niche.
Joby plans to expand way beyond airport access, it’s meant to be basically flying rideshare. The key enabler is they designed it to be quiet enough to not annoy everyone around like a helicopter, so that it would be reasonable to have this thing taking off from residential neighborhoods. JFK access is just a very visible first test run.
This thing will not be taking off from residential neighborhoods. Regardless of noise, like any manned VTOL aircraft it requires a large open area free of overhead obstructions (trees, wires).
And the notion that landing pads will be installed on the roofs of tall buildings is mostly a fantasy. Commercial or high-rise roofs are mostly already occupied with other machinery, and aren't designed to support the extra weight.
> The UK does not have a good, cheap solution plentiful cheap electric in the next decade or two, so any major increase in demand will mean even higher costs.
Of course it does… the UK has tariffs that change by electricity demand and supply capacity
As we build out more renewables there will be more times of excess supply and hence cheaper electricity during these times
The buildout of battery storage and north-south inter-connectors will reduce this fluctuation but it’ll still be there
Over time the UK is going to switch it’s pattern of electricity consumption
Free money as in quantitative easing that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy?
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