How do people afford a car?

[miklcct]

Mod Note: Posts #1 - #39 originally in this thread.

Yes, but the UK fundamentally doesn't rely on any form of bus or rail for passenger transport. It relies first and foremost on private cars.

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year. And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

The above already totals £3000 p.a., which can already get you nearly 4 annual train tickets between Hendon and Stratford, about 14 miles by car.

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm (which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

According to Statistica: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/304290/car-ownership-in-the-uk/)

In 2020, approximately 25.7 million people in Great Britain lived in a household that owned one car. In the same year, 8.8 million people lived in a household with two cars, a clear decrease compared to the previous years. Around 17 million people lived in a household with no car at all.

So yes, most people in the UK do either own directly or have access to a private car. And the reason's not hard to see: Outside a few large cities and corridors connecting those cities, public transport is so bad/expensive/unreliable/infrequent that not having a car becomes a huge restriction on your ability to get around for most people. Add to that the large number of shopping areas, retail parks, and business and industrial estates that are located away from town centres in places that have very little public transport access, and the result is huge numbers of people simply can't afford not to have a car.

 

[DarloRich]

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a.

I know very few people who earn that much. I know very many people who own cars. Many of these people never use public transport because they own a car.

which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

Is that right? I best tell all the people I know who live outside the south east about this! Many homes in this country cost nowhere near £150k let alone £400k! Mine, in a fairly prosperous area and less than an hour to London by train, isn't worth that much.

What was it my tutor at university used to say: I think you need read more widely around the subject.

 

[43066]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year. And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

The above already totals £3000 p.a., which can already get you nearly 4 annual train tickets between Hendon and Stratford, about 14 miles by car.

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm (which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

I think you massively overestimate the costs of running a car, which can be done very cheaply indeed given the reliability of even “old” cars built over the last couple of decades. Your living costs/rent/house price figures also seem to be taken from the Home Counties. Vast Swathes of the country, including cities with significant commercial activity, are much less expensive.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My fairly average small 3 bed terrace in an utterly average area (really a 2 bed with an extra wall, the master bedroom is very small, and some of them on the row have been converted to 2 beds) is probably worth about £260K at the moment. It's not £400K but it is a bit silly. I bought it for around £145K 10 years ago which is a much more reasonable and affordable price for a "starter home" of that kind. If you just put inflation on that it'd be about £175K now which would still be within the realms of sense.

Some people do have excessively high expectations for a first home, to be fair, I recall the mortgage consultant commenting that he was impressed I wasn't overstretching in the way almost everyone does. But prices like these prevent many people buying at all.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think you massively overestimate the costs of running a car, which can be done very cheaply indeed given the reliability of even “old” cars built over the last couple of decades. Your living costs/rent/house price figures also seem to be taken from the Home Counties. Vast Swathes of the country, including cities with significant commercial activity, are much less expensive.

And the insurance is being stated as a typical "no no-claims" figure for a lowish risk driver on a cheap car. Mine is about £500 and I consider that at the high end as a 42 year old, I've paid far less on a cheaper car even when younger.

I think @miklcct is still applying an "Asian megacity" view tempered by the expensive end of Home Counties house prices, young driver/no No Claims based insurance rates etc. For the vast majority of people a car is affordable, which is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of households run at least one car.

Would it be cheaper for me not to own a car? Certainly. But I consider it good value.

 

[stuu]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year. And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

The above already totals £3000 p.a., which can already get you nearly 4 annual train tickets between Hendon and Stratford, about 14 miles by car.

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm (which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

Virtually every person I know owns a car, very few of them earn £50,000. Your numbers are massively off for a great many people. Parking costs nothing for most people at home, even where you have to buy permits it's more like £200 per year or something. A two-bed flat in much of the country doesn't come close to £1200, probably half that even in bigger cities. London is different of course.

Most people don't account for things like depreciation; they buy a car on finance for say £200 per month, keep it for 3-4 years and then buy another one, it's just a cost of living for most people - 85%+ of journeys to work are by car, they aren't all rich

 

[Bletchleyite]

Virtually every person I know owns a car, very few of them earn £50,000. Your numbers are massively off for a great many people. Parking costs nothing for most people at home, even where you have to buy permits it's more like £200 per year or something. A two-bed flat in much of the country doesn't come close to £1200, probably half that even in bigger cities. London is different of course.

Actually rents are getting that high in a good many places, not just the South East (Manchester is notably getting unjustifiably expensive these days). Obviously if you are able to buy you "freeze in time" your monthly payment and so inflation makes it smaller in real terms as time goes on.

But then don't forget that most people don't live alone, they live as a couple or in a share, so that £1200 is actually £600 each. Living alone is expensive and always has been to some extent.

 

[ar10642]

And the insurance is being stated as a typical "no no-claims" figure for a lowish risk driver on a cheap car. Mine is about £500 and I consider that at the high end as a 42 year old, I've paid far less on a cheaper car even when younger.

I think @miklcct is still applying an "Asian megacity" view tempered by the expensive end of Home Counties house prices, young driver/no No Claims based insurance rates etc. For the vast majority of people a car is affordable, which is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of households run at least one car.

Would it be cheaper for me not to own a car? Certainly. But I consider it good value.

As soon as you have a family to move around, it quickly becomes *much* cheaper to use a car, even with all the fixed costs, which are nothing as much as claimed above. Bus fares especially are ridiculously high for a very poor service. Literally zero service on Sundays/Bank Holidays for me.

Actually rents are getting that high in a good many places, not just the South East (Manchester is notably getting unjustifiably expensive these days). Obviously if you are able to buy you "freeze in time" your monthly payment and so inflation makes it smaller in real terms as time goes on.

But then don't forget that most people don't live alone, they live as a couple or in a share, so that £1200 is actually £600 each. Living alone is expensive and always has been to some extent.

We're paying £1,500 for a 3 bed terrace in a Sussex village 7 miles from Haywards Heath and I can tell you that is mid-level to low for the area. In Haywards Heath itself you're looking at £1,650 - £1,900 for a 3 bed house.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As soon as you have a family to move around, it quickly becomes *much* cheaper to use a car, even with all the fixed costs, which are nothing as much as claimed above. Bus fares especially are ridiculously high for a very poor service. Literally zero service on Sundays/Bank Holidays for me.

Single bus fares are high but weekly and monthly season tickets are generally very, very cheap - often £2 per day or less and often covering very large areas.

 

[ar10642]

Single bus fares are high but weekly and monthly season tickets are generally very, very cheap - often £2 per day or less and often covering very large areas.

Not on Compass Bus. All they do is a weekly ticket which is 4 times the daily return at £8.30 for 7 miles each way, only valid for that route, for just one person.

 

[miklcct]

And the insurance is being stated as a typical "no no-claims" figure for a lowish risk driver on a cheap car. Mine is about £500 and I consider that at the high end as a 42 year old, I've paid far less on a cheaper car even when younger.

I think @miklcct is still applying an "Asian megacity" view tempered by the expensive end of Home Counties house prices, young driver/no No Claims based insurance rates etc. For the vast majority of people a car is affordable, which is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of households run at least one car.

Would it be cheaper for me not to own a car? Certainly. But I consider it good value.

I tried to get some quotes for me to decide if I would buy a car and very few were in the £600 range, most commonly £700 or more.

And the house prices I quoted were in the low end as well - "nicer" 2-beds are commonly £1500 pcm or more, not just in inner London but also on the Brighton main line into Sussex as well. The rent in Brighton is as high as Croydon.

 

[ar10642]

That's definitely an exception to what the main groups do, e.g. a Stagecoach Manchester weekly is £17.50 (£3.50 per weekday). A bit more than two quid but still excellent value. Child is half fare and there are some smaller area ones (e.g. for Wigan) if you don't go into Manchester itself very often. And for a fairly large number of people entitled to ENCTS it's free.

Probably better in cities, but lots of people do not live in cities. We're definitely in the can't afford not to have a car group, and I say that as someone who uses the train when I can and quite pro public transport and cycling.

 

[jon0844]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year. And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

The above already totals £3000 p.a., which can already get you nearly 4 annual train tickets between Hendon and Stratford, about 14 miles by car.

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm (which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

Having a car is certainly unlikely to be cheap, especially for just one person travelling, given all those (excellent) break downs above. Frankly, people are driving because they'd prefer to and willing to pay more in many cases. Let's not pretend it's super cheap, especially when some of the most popular cars on the road are SUVs that are hardly super-efficient, or cheap to maintain. I have no issue with people choosing to drive, but I do get frustrated when people ignore the many other costs.

Of course, once you have a car then you may as well use it (to a degree, not so much that you're now having to service and maintain parts at a far higher frequency).

I can drive to a station from home and, looking at my car app, got 35.7-35.9mpg (car starting from cold for both trips) which ranges from 57p-60p each way. So, that's pretty cheap if it wasn't for the fact car parking can be £6-8 per day!

The bus will be under £5 for a day pass, but it doesn't run very late in the day so has to be ruled out at times - which is frustrating. The solution is quite obvious; run a better bus service. The bus is modern and clean, with Wi-Fi and power sockets, and it gives a comfortable ride. It also saves the need to get into a car park and find a space, so door to door isn't really that much slower (less than 10 minutes difference).

Clearly for multiple travellers, the car then wins, but I suspect a lot of trips are just one person in the vehicle and it's just a poor service provision and an out-of-date perception of buses (or indeed trains) that is putting people off.

As with other threads on here, there's also the option for many to cycle but I fully understand that this is a much harder sell for a lot of people, and not practical for a lot of situations also.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having a car is certainly unlikely to be cheap, especially for just one person travelling, given all those (excellent) break downs above. Frankly, people are driving because they'd prefer to and willing to pay more in many cases. Let's not pretend it's super cheap, especially when some of the most popular cars on the road are SUVs that are hardly super-efficient, or cheap to maintain. I have no issue with people choosing to drive, but I do get frustrated when people ignore the many other costs.

Though it is worth pointing out that "driving a car costs about 50p/mile" is a fallacy used by anti-car campaigners. I don't account my car's fixed costs per journey any more than I work out my rail miles per year and split the cost of my Network Railcard across them. The fixed costs are effectively a membership fee to car ownership paid pretty much regardless of usage levels.

 

[43066]

Having a car is certainly unlikely to be cheap, especially for just one person travelling, given all those (excellent) break downs above. Frankly, people are driving because they'd prefer to and willing to pay more in many cases. Let's not pretend it's super cheap, especially when some of the most popular cars on the road are SUVs that are hardly super-efficient, or cheap to maintain. I have no issue with people choosing to drive, but I do get frustrated when people ignore the many other costs.

The breakdowns provided by the OP are way off the mark as several people have commented. Obviously some people choose to drive luxury or high performance cars, which will be more expensive, but the fact remains that motoring can be done very cheaply indeed if it’s approached purely as a basic mode of transport.

 

[AlterEgo]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

As others have pointed out you don’t need to be rich to own a car. You ever wondered why there are so many cars here or ever looked at some of the people who drive them?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year.

No it doesn’t. My insurance is about £340 a year and that is given that I have one speeding offence on my licence too.

And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Yeah, an average second hand car will cost a few hundred pounds a year at the MoT (or getting new tyres etc).

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

Most people buy second hand cars (and many lease new ones). If you get a car for about £4000 it’ll last you three years and probably halve in resale value, so £1000 is a little on the high side, but yes depreciation is certainly a thing. It’s much lower of course the older a car you buy.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

How much are you spending on train fares without a car?

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

It’s really not a luxury to have a car. Open your eyes and see how many people have them.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm

Where you plucking these figures from? Bournemouth?

(which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards.

Maybe in the small, relatively affluent part of the country you have chosen to experience so far, it does.

Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

£150K for the same house in rural Kent? Kent in the south east of England? You want to be going up north for those prices!

The railway’s biggest competitor is the private car and it spent a whole year telling people to make journeys in their cars. It was very damaging.

 

[jon0844]

Though it is worth pointing out that "driving a car costs about 50p/mile" is a fallacy used by anti-car campaigners. I don't account my car's fixed costs per journey any more than I work out my rail miles per year and split the cost of my Network Railcard across them. The fixed costs are effectively a membership fee to car ownership paid pretty much regardless of usage levels.

I agree. I have an app that reports the cost of my journeys based purely on the cost of the fuel I put in. It doesn't count anything else, which varies form user to user. So many factors at play, like my driving style that will decide how often I need to change tyres and brakes for example.

Short journeys also mean I'm rarely getting the best mpg, and my low mileage means I can't save the money needed on fuel to justify getting an EV (but my next car will be an EV, which will be more for convenience than anything else).

A car is essential to many, but also a luxury for many others and I can't see that changing. I've always said we need more carrots and less sticks. Make alternatives more enticing so people will change their habits voluntarily. People living in London are already well used to public transport and there's little to no stigma attached to using a bus, and many people can go without a car and just hire a car/van as needed.

We should be trying to find ways to replicate that in all other towns and cities as much as possible, and the Government talk big about improving rural bus services - but will it happen? And how do we get people to try them out in the first place?

 

[AlterEgo]

The breakdowns provided by the OP are way off the mark as several people have commented. Obviously some people choose to drive luxury or high performance cars, which will be more expensive, but the fact remains that motoring can be done very cheaply indeed if it’s approached purely as a basic mode of transport.

Indeed I have driven a car since I was 20 and earning £14K a year. It’s not cheap, but it is very important for your freedom and implying it’s some sort of luxury when we have 32 million cars in the country. That’s about as many cars as there are people of working age.

 

[jon0844]

The breakdowns provided by the OP are way off the mark as several people have commented. Obviously some people choose to drive luxury or high performance cars, which will be more expensive, but the fact remains that motoring can be done very cheaply indeed if it’s approached purely as a basic mode of transport.

I thought insurance seemed high (I pay around £300, but I'm approaching 50 and have a gazillion years of no claims) but that's on a low group vehicle, so I expect in many towns it is quite probable that people are paying £500 or more.

Obviously many costs are such that once you're paying them, you'll feel compelled to get your money's worth. That is unless these companies charging per-mile for insurance actually work out better value?

I have a car for convenience but use it as little as possible. That saves me the most money, but some may see it as a waste of money. I don't because I prefer to use public transport where I can, especially if I want to enjoy a drink or two...

I think the massive hike in fuel costs is why I have slightly changed my perception, as before I'd have certainly argued that you can run a car for very little money. Now even with an efficient car, you're still paying a fair bit per mile. Should costs start to fall again, it will make cars even cheaper.

 

[43066]

£150K for the same house in rural Kent? Kent in the south east of England? You want to be going up north for those prices!

Add a nought to that for many properties in Kent (there are some cheaper areas of course but £150k would be pushing it).

Indeed I have driven a car since I was 20 and earning £14K a year. It’s not cheap, but it is very important for your freedom and implying it’s some sort of luxury when we have 32 million cars in the country. That’s about as many cars as there are people of working age.

Agreed. That said I’ve gone without one myself for a couple of years now, but that’s living in London five minutes from transport.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I thought insurance seemed high (I pay around £300, but I'm approaching 50 and have a gazillion years of no claims) but that's on a low group vehicle, so I expect in many towns it is quite probable that people are paying £500 or more.

Mine's about that on a Ford Kuga. The group can make quite a difference (SUVs tend to rate higher as they do more damage when they hit things).

I suspect if I had a 10 year old Corsa or similar it'd come in at about £250.

 

[Horizon22]

According to Statistica: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/304290/car-ownership-in-the-uk/)



So yes, most people in the UK do either own directly or have access to a private car. And the reason's not hard to see: Outside a few large cities and corridors connecting those cities, public transport is so bad/expensive/unreliable/infrequent that not having a car becomes a huge restriction on your ability to get around for most people. Add to that the large number of shopping areas, retail parks, and business and industrial estates that are located away from town centres in places that have very little public transport access, and the result is huge numbers of people simply can't afford not to have a car.

Public transport has always been and will always be better suited to urban corridors and urban centres and is harder to make efficient or practical in more rural locations, so private transport will always win. As you say much town planning has been built around the car, and thus other options are inferior (cycling might be feasible). It's a shame as better rail connectivity is generally a social good but if you're nearest station is 5+ miles away, it simply won't be relevant, except for maybe the day-trip to London or long weekend to somewhere accessible by train and even then you have a car which might be better. That being said certain places (Cornwall) can become easily congested by cars, so a lot of people do travel by rail for their holidays there and it is helped by a decent number of rail stations in some of the key destinations, although obviously nowhere as many as pre-Beeching.

What the railway can do is make better use of being railheads instead of just a car park; things like car hire schemes, better electric car charging points, pop-up services at stations. Not easy to deliver, and might be limited by the station footprint but like in Europe if they can become better community sites it might help.

 

[6Gman]

Are most of the people in the UK so rich that they can afford private cars?

Before we can put a car on the road, we already need to pay insurance which, for the lowest-risk groups, already costs £700+ upwards per year. And we need to spare a few hundred pounds for general maintenance as well, that's already £1000 p.a. before any depreciation.

Then we come the car price. Of course you can buy very old cars having more than 10 years and 100k miles which have already been fully depreciated at just £1000, but how reliable are they? Anything less than that we have to include depreciation as well, and also the cost of capital. If we buy a 5-year car, the price will be commonly around £4000 - £5000, which if we run it until it becomes 10 years old, the depreciation itself will cost another £1000 p.a.

And finally we need fuel to run the car. Given how expensive petrol price is, at £1.7 per L, even for a very economic car at 8 L / 100 miles, that's £13.6 to run 100 miles. If we commute 30 miles per day for 232 days per year (52 weeks of 5 days work - 28 days of holidays), that's £946.56, nearly another £1000 p.a. even with minimal holiday travel.

The above already totals £3000 p.a., which can already get you nearly 4 annual train tickets between Hendon and Stratford, about 14 miles by car.

And, don't forget, the biggest car expense apart from depreciation is the PARKING!!! A search at Stashbee reveals that the market price of a monthly parking is around £200 - £300 pcm, which is approximately £3000 p.a. So the total cost of car ownership is as high as £6000 p.a. - approximately £9000 of pre-tax salary at 20% income tax rate + 13.5% National Insurance rate. This is absolutely a luxury to most people.

The rent has already eaten most of the annual income for most workers in the UK. For a family requiring a 2-bedroom flat, which usually costs £1200 pcm (which isn't even in the City centre and requiring travel to work), then another £150 for food each adult, and £100 for household bills, a salary of £30000 p.a. - a typical figure of full-time employment - can just get a family of 2 adults and a child the most basic needs of living.

Sorry, but I don't see how a car is affordable for those earning below £50000 p.a. Even if earning that much, the money is better put into buying a home instead, which nowadays costs £400k upwards. Of course it's possible buy a home at just £150k in somewhere in rural Kent, very far away from any decent economic activity, but then you will need to commute by high-speed train as using a car to the City will take you more than 2 hours in peak hours.

I don't know how you have calculated your figures but they seem way out to me! My wife and I have each run a car for the last 30 years; neither of us have ever come close to earing £50k ! !

Insurance is around £300, not the £700+ you quote.
A car with 100k miles on the clock would be well under £1000.
Our depreciation rate is more like £400pa than the £1000 you quote.
How much do we spend on parking per month? Maybe £20. I don't know where you get your figure of close to £10 per day! (Are you assuming parking for a daily commute/work?)
And who eats £150 of food per week? Hulk Hogan?

 

[Bletchleyite]

And who eats £150 of food per week? Hulk Hogan?

I suspect the OP might have a Deliveroo/Uber Eats addiction

This is sort of understandable, as takeaway and eating out is cheap and the norm in...here we go again...Asian megacities, so some people never cook at home at all.

Edit: he actually said £150/month which is probably about right.

 

[Dryce]

Though it is worth pointing out that "driving a car costs about 50p/mile" is a fallacy used by anti-car campaigners. I don't account my car's fixed costs per journey any more than I work out my rail miles per year and split the cost of my Network Railcard across them. The fixed costs are effectively a membership fee to car ownership paid pretty much regardless of usage levels.

If people really worried about the fixed costs then we would see a different distribution of vehicle makes and models on our roads.

The 50p a mile isn't really a fallacy - it's an underlying representation of the truth that is largely ignored when many people make a purchasing decision on a private car.

 

[stuu]

And who eats £150 of food per week? Hulk Hogan?

They put £150 per month, which is the most reasonable number there

 

[Bletchleyite]

If people really worried about the fixed costs then we would see a different distribution of vehicle makes and models on our roads.

I think you're assuming "low cost" is the priority. In car purchase it almost never is; it is a lifestyle choice based around both what sort of vehicle is needed/wanted and what image someone wishes to project (e.g. a high value consultant showing up to a customer site in a dented old ex-British Gas van is probably not what they want to portray). Just like most people don't go around in Tesco Value T-shirts and jeans (though some of course do!)

The 50p a mile isn't really a fallacy - it's an underlying representation of the truth that is largely ignored when many people make a purchasing decision on a private car.

It is a fallacy, because if I drive a mile less this week I don't pay 50p less. The model does not work. It's just one used for calculating expense payments as a means of giving a contribution to the fixed costs proportional to the amount of business usage.

 

[43066]

The 50p a mile isn't really a fallacy - it's an underlying representation of the truth that is largely ignored when many people make a purchasing decision on a private car.

It’s a figure that’s utterly meaningless without more context.

If you buy a brand new luxury model and allow yourself to be fleeced on a PCP deal, perhaps. Anyone spending a few hundred to a few grand on a modest used car and running it cheaply will typically spend way less than this.

 

[6Gman]

They put £150 per month, which is the most reasonable number there

Ah, apologies. Must sort these glasses out!