S2 Clean air zones - Vehicle details are incomplete

[K Simmonds]

Haha yeh, they're doing a srcappage scheme so will get £2,000 for it so that will help towards a newer car

So yet another oh so 'green' scheme that does away with perfectly good vehicles and forces the owner into purchasing a new or at least newer car, do you get a choice in that regard?

This is being done as attempt to stimulate the ruined economy, same as in 2009 after the banks ball's it up in states causing global financial meltdown. There's nothing environmentally friendly about it whatsoever.

And it really will penalise the worst off in society the most. Some of whom I'd imagine will be forced off the roads if they can't top up the £2K up enough to buy a car that qualify's.

[steve briance]

I own a non ULEZ Audi and a ULEZ compliant saab 99. The difference being, the Saab is 51 years old and runs at 3.5%CO through an old stromberg carburettor with a manual choke knob all wrapped up in a not particularly aerodynamic rolling chassis with a 4 speed gearbox.

Doesn't seem quite right/fair to me but im never going to drive it to London so its a non issue.

What I did read recently is that 40+ year old classics are now hot property in London and classic car sales are booming.

In 8 years my Audi qualifies for free ULEZ assuming the rules don't change but im not driving that to London either

[Rikki Kitto]

We have to sell 3 vans and the mini bus at work fooook knows what we gonna do the latest van we bought was £10,000 last year and it doesn't comply

[LHD_Kid]

They brought the ULEZ to Brussels a few years ago - ensuring as little publicity as possible, to ensure as many fines could be collected.

Having lived in the same area for 15 years (with my S2), suddenly I received a €400 fine for driving from my house, to the petrol station (300 metres away) and back. I had no idea why at the time.

The rules turned out that I could drive the S2 in the ULEZ (remembering, they put where I live inside this zone without any notification - I am nowhere near the city centre, right on the outskirts) a maximum of 10 days a year, pre-booked, and charged at €38 per day for the privilege.

This was the case until the car was 30 years old - after which, it is exempt.

I simply had to not drive it for 2.5 years...

The rules for exempt cars / affected cars will be a moving target. Here, every couple of years, they make the criteria stricter...

Motorcycles are also exempt here, not sure for how much longer.

[K Simmonds]

Well... Going from how they now run their Post Office that sounds typically Belgian and utterly infuriating...

It's all a load of total BS, I won't start a rant as it does me no good but non of this nonsense helps the environment on a large scale.

[K Simmonds]

We have to sell 3 vans and the mini bus at work fooook knows what we gonna do the latest van we bought was £10,000 last year and it doesn't comply

Oh that's just topping isn't it, I guess all you can do is sell the van at a considerable loss outside of the M25.

[B5NUT]

Our ULEZ exemption is 40 years! So for S2 owners we will have to wait a good few years.

[tango123]

I wonder what the price of petrol will be, by the time they are ulez exempt.

[B5NUT]

Hell of a lot cheaper than electricity Almost feel sorry for anyone who purchased an electric car thinking it would be cheaper to run

[tango123]

We have an electric van at work, i reckon it spends more time on charge than being driven....

[steve briance]

My neighbour works for volvo commercial vehicles and mentioned their ongoing trials with e hgvs... The infra structure is so inadequate that with 1 test e hgv on charge, there was not enough electricity left to run the site and charge other e vehicles. They had to install their own substation at a considerable cost. Ohhhh deeeear.

[K Simmonds]

That doesn't surprise me Steve, a HGV must require a seriously large amount of battery cells and huge current draw to recharge them...

Don't get me wrong I'm not anti EV, but the premise that they're somehow more environmentally friendly than conventional hydrocarbon burning vehicles is absolutely absurd. And to what end? It's not going to make a blind bit of difference with the Chinese etc pumping out God only knows what altogether 24hr's a day.

All technology has to start somewhere but the push to force into everyone in EV's is being rushed.

[tango123]

[Ian Simmonds]

I was talking to a work colleague in California the other week and he was saying they’ve got a local charging point that takes about a dozen cars at a time. Immediately behind it is an 8ft high (comically, green) solid fence and two Caterpillar shipping container based generator plants. Diesel, naturally, to power the charging station.

[John.]

Thing is, putting aside the environmental impact from mining lithium, cobalt, petroleum based products and whatever else is used to make a battery before shipping said battery/car around the planet......an electric car would need to be charged from a low carbon energy source before it can be said to be low emissions !?

I'll stick to what I have, surely better to re-use/repair than to replace with new?