OK, some ramblings of mine for whether or not I should keep my car. Prompted by the EV chat in another thread:-
Replacing an ICE vehicle with an EV is going to be of some benefit, replacing an ICE vehicle (or to a lesser extent an EV) with nothing is even better.
And in my own specific situation I can't see myself replacing my existing car with anything should it die. I only have the car because it was given to me as my mum chose to stop driving and when she looked into selling it she realised it would only go for £85 if she was lucky. All my siblings already own a car(s) so it was offered to me.
It costs ~£620 a year[1] before it even moves a single mile (although I recognise this is still quite cheap in terms of car ownership, some people pay close to that in VED alone). According to the online MOT history (
https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/) I've averaged under 2000 miles a year for the last 3 years of ownership. I acknowledge that a significant chunk of those miles were frivolous and only because it was sitting outside ready and available. Public transport around us in London is fantastic and for longer journeys we tend to go by train anyway.
Despite being old (2001) the car is ULEZ compliant. Handy as I live half a mile outside the South Circular where the ULEZ will be extended soon. If it wasn't ULEZ compliant I'd be shot of it when that is extended.
Assuming 40mpg at £1.3/l that's about £300 on petrol giving me a total budget of £1000 a year if you throw in a few sundries like screenwash/etc and a contribution to a service every 3 years or so.
That £1000/year should go a long way.
The obvious replacement is Zipcar (there are 20 or so within a mile or so of where we live), and we have the added benefit of being grandfathered in to lifetime Zipcar membership with no annual fee as we were early/"founder" members of Streetcar. We would end up needing to pay £75/year (joint policy) in separate (non-Zipcar) Car Hire Excess Insurance though as we've been burned once by the car being damaged by someone else after our hire had finished but before the next person's hire began.
We do the majority of our shopping on foot (or me by bike) as we pick up things whenever we go past. The occasional big shops we do in the car (for heavy items like washing powder, bulk purchase of tins/booze, etc) can easily be replaced by ad hoc deliveries.
Ironically one of the biggest benefits to owning it is being the insurance covering me to drive other cars (albeit only 3rd party) but this isn't a regular occurrence and we can plan around it.
(2001 Citroen Saxo 1.1L Petrol. Insurance = £250, VED = £160, on-street parking = £160, MOT = £50. I doubt I could make this any cheaper. I could park it 400 yards away where there are no parking restrictions and save myself £160/year although I'd probably annoy the local residents there and insurance might go up as I'm not parking it outside my property. I could replace it with a much cheaper to tax car but buying a car for under £100 would be a gamble, I know this car has been well looked after.)