@Dave, finance for motor vehicles is a huge industry. It's all about leasing these days, started with commercial fleets now pretty much the norm for civvies too instead of the loan/purchase/depreciation shuffle.
Finance for bikes less well developed as historically a much cheaper item than motors. Needs developing for sure.
However momentum is with financial industry behemoth that makes a nice wee earner from vehicles (loans and leasing). Read something recently that investors can't be bothered providing cash for green business startups because they're too busy making money from vehicle finance.
Shows that once it gets to a certain size, "the market" skews how our economy and society is shaped - often mostly in its own interests and according to its own logic (see St James centre for a local example). Needs government intervention and regulation to change things to benefit society as a whole. Little sign that current neoliberal SNP administration will change things too much, nascent deal with the Greens notwithstanding. As for the Tories at UK level, they were only stopped from building a road tunnel under Stonehenge by the courts, so I wouldn't hold out too much hope there.
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