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Our experience mirrors yours, we only use our car to drive out of London up the M11 and back to see family, local journeys are done on foot, bike and tube. So to avoid the charge we had to replace a petrol Toyota with a good 15 years of life left in it with a Suzuki from which we’ll do well to get another 10 years from. I appreciate that the emissions from the Suzuki will be lower but I can’t help think that, overall, the carbon trade off is negative.
BTW, the programme about cobalt mining in DRP after C4 news this week was an eye opener.
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completely agree on this hence the newer cars. should be taxed (more) and EVs even more as they require local authority to install chargers, calling it an 'emissions' charge is a mistake
and it should then be extended to M25
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It's about emissions and getting cleaner air though, not so much about CARbon (that's carbon bound up in car production and use). You could trade for a cleaner running used car rather than a new car and you're in the same boat (car), essentially, without needing to pay emissions charges to use it.
I had a quick look at rentals and if I rented a car for 5 weekends a year it would cost more than owning my car. At least owning my car, I can store stuff in it like my bike boxes, in off-street parking.
If it did fail ULEZ rules though I'd get rid of it (and maybe swap it for a van to store even more bike shit in haha).
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@BobbyBriggs
I’m sad about the ulez expansion as it means I’ve taken my lovely Citroen BX GTi 16v off the road- and as I only ever use it for leaving London rather than local trips, it seems a bit unfair as I’d be charged the same to drive to the m11 as I would be if I was chugging round inside the zone all day.
Plus running an older car rather than buying a new one is, I am guessing, a much lower carbon footprint overall.
But I guess on a societal level it’s worth it and I should stop being selfish!