If there’s one word I hear more than any other when speaking to brokers, dealers, or funders, it’s affordability, writes Helen Thorne, spokesperson for the Leasing Broker Federation (LBF).
Not electrification, not supply constraints, not even PCP resets – though, of course, these matter. Affordability has become the organising principle behind how people buy, finance and use vehicles.
When household budgets are under pressure and business confidence shrinks to sceptical cautiousness, customers are looking less at badges and more at monthly costs, flexibility, and predictability.
The assumptions that shaped car buying for a decade, including brand loyalty, depreciation curves and easy credit, no longer hold in quite the same way. And that has consequences not just for brokers, but for dealers, OEMs and the wider automotive ecosystem.
From where I sit, representing the UK’s leasing broker community, a few clear trends are emerging.
Customers aren’t just price-sensitive, they’re risk-sensitive We’re seeing a decisive shift towards products that minimise financial risk. Whether that’s a fleet manager protecting cashflow or a family trying to keep motoring affordable, people want certainty.
This is why leasing has remained resilient even when retail demand has occasionally dipped. The appeal of a fixed monthly payment, with no residual risk and no need to time the used-car market, is stronger than ever.
PCP once offered that peace of mind, but for many buyers the numbers no longer stack up in the same way they did even five years ago.
Dealers know this better than anyone, customers are walking in with a maximum monthly payment in mind and expecting solutions that protect them from volatility, whether that’s residuals, interest rates of charging costs.
The affordability challenge is reshaping the EV transition EV adoption has not stalled, the data shows that, but it has become more cautious and more segmented.
Businesses with clear cost-benefit calculations continue to adopt at pace. Private buyers, meanwhile, are more selective, and are weighing charging, incentives, future values and total running costs with more scrutiny than ever.
From the leasing broker perspective, EVs remain a huge opportunity, but only when the numbers make sense. Where they do, take-up is strong. Where they don’t, customers push back hard. Dealers are facing the same dynamics. Once again, affordability determines everything.
The OEM shift towards agency hasn’t reduced the need for choice One of the overlooked issues in the market is that customers still want choice, perhaps more than ever. In a world where price and flexibility matter most, consumers are shopping across brands, finance products, and even powertrains in a way they didn’t less than a decade ago.
That’s why brokers have seen sustained interest, the ability to compare across multiple OEMs is a powerful proposition when customers are weighing affordability above brand loyalty.
Dealers who can frame themselves not just as brand experts but as mobility advisers, helping customers make cost-conscious decisions, will fare well in the years ahead.
Affordability isn’t a trend, it’s the new normal If affordability was simply a temporary response to economic conditions, we could treat it as a cycle. But it isn’t, it’s a structural shift.
Younger buyers are more comfortable with subscription-style finance. SME fleets want contract certainty. The rise of salary sacrifice schemes shows that predictable all-in costs can unlock demand even in uncertain times.
And EV technology will only continue to push customers towards usage-based thinking rather than ownership-based thinking.
For retailers and brokers alike, that means more transparent pricing, more comparative tools, more clarity around total cost of ownership, and more product flexibility that meets people where they are, not where they market used to be.
The retail network and broker community need to be part of the same conversation One thing that continues to strike me is how interconnected our challenges really are. Dealers and brokers don’t compete on value, they complement each other.
We rely on the same supply chains, the same finance partners, and increasingly the same customer expectations.
The industry is at its strongest when we are aligned. That’s true whether we’re talking about consumer finance regulation, EV incentives, or the practicalities of delivering cars to customers who are more demanding, and more cost-conscious, than ever before.
Affordability isn’t a constraint. It’s a signal It shows us what customers truly value now. Clarity, fairness, predictability, and the ability to make confident decisions in an uncertain world.
If we design our products, our processes, and our partnerships around that principle, the industry will not just adapt – it will grow.
Author: Helen Thorne is spokesperson for the Leasing Broker Federation (LBF)