My issue with the lease model is that it facilitates the downside of capitalism. if you lease a car it must come from a well funded company... thereby exacerbating the social problem of the great financial divide.
...I've seen no less than 30 premises within 1 mile that used to be commercial or industrial be converted to residential.
That means that there are 30 small businesses that are no longer around to provide the services they once did to the local community...
Where does it end?
Colin, in the case of FMCC (Ford Motor Credit Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company) they get their money from a variety of sources, not the least of which is issuing bonds and other financial instruments. Anybody with a US SSN or TIN can invest in these. (N.B. typically large investors in these are pension and other funds, along with other investment operations.) Their present offerings are called the "Ford Interest Advantage Floating Rate Demand Note" which is a fancy way of saying, "it's a bond.". The rate today is 5.5%. So one could, in theory, use FMCC financing (lease or buy, the option is yours) to get your new car, while at the same time investing in these bonds thus offsetting a good deal of your financing/leasing costs. Of course you are under no obligation to use FMCC when getting a new Ford, you can go to a bank or 3rd party leasing company.
One of the larger financial services arms of a major automotive manufacturer is Mercedes Benz Financial Services (MBFS; f/k/a Daimler Financial Services.) They operate in much the same way I'd imagine. They, like FMCC, also provide dealers with financing of their dealership (renovations, etc.) along with financing the inventory.
But, MBFS and FMCC are hardly responsible for the disturbing phenomena you observe in your neighborhood. That's your local government, regional government, zoning, etc. I live in a small town of Davidson, North Carolina, pop. 15,000. We're about 25 miles north of Charlotte, a major city. We don't have ANY national franchise chains here in the restaurant sector (though neighboring towns littered with them!) That's right, no Starbucks, no McDonalds, Panera, Dunkin' Donuts etc. We only have
locally owned single outlet or multiple outlet restaurants. They've kept out the dreaded national chains by careful application of zoning restrictions; for example, NO drive-throughs allowed of ANY kind--not even banks. No big box stores, and the only "major" retailer is a CVS drugstore only because they offer prescription medications.
Here in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, cotton used to be king. Davidson itself has a few old mill buildings (one of them in my avatar) that once were fabric mills. All of that is long gone, and all of these old mills have been converted to other commercial usage. The largest of them holds a large law firm and a great local restaurant, among other tenants. None of the old local mills have been converted to residential but that's quite common in other USA cities such as Providence, RI. A once thriving and bustling industry of machine tools and related there is all gone, and those old mill buildings there are all residential now.
I don't know where it ends but I'm quite sure the existence of FMCC and MBFS has little to do with it, nor does the act of leasing a car versus buying. Banks issue mortgages on properties, loans on cars, but they no sooner issue those than they bundle the "notes" and sell them off as "mortgage backed securities" and similar. When there is a local bank that issues such notes, they don't hold onto them for long.
Cees' situation with buying "pre-depreciated" older cars as daily drivers is not a model for everyone. It takes both business savvy (not everyone so blessed); as well as the ability to ferret out the wheat from the chaff, find a good car that's not been monkeyed with. Hard to tell up front whether the sump is full of "stop leak" or some other band-aid fixes to a car, and plenty of people have been royally screwed by purchasing a used car private party and not knowing enough about it. You still then, may have some service issues with older cars that not everyone can deal with. In all the cars we've leased in the past 30 years, we've
paid nothing for service--zero. We've
done nothing for service either; simply not enough miles to warrant worn parts or even the simple things such as brake pads. I'm guessing a total of 40-50 cars in that time frame too. If Cees put no service or parts or effort into that C70 over five years, that's great. The Bronco II has become somewhat of a cult item, hence the rise in price. But the newest Bronco II is 34 years old!
Around here, after working at Ford for 30+ years, she who must be obeyed likes NEW cars. So, it's the lease model for us. Your mileage may vary!
Back to electric: that multi-family, high density housing you note in your area of London isn't a great location to own a pure electric car today. You really need your own charge station at home. That's hardly possible in the housing you suggest, and indeed, very difficult if not impossible within the confines of major urban centers.
